Hacker Neue

Preferences
aksss parent
I believe there are more slaves today than ever in the history of the planet simply due to population growth. While everyone WE know thinks slavery is morally evil, most of the world does not hold that view. In fact, I would say the default human view (looking at all cultures across time memorial) is that slavery is the rule not the exception. That doesn't go away with modernity, it goes away with culture.
flkiwi
There’s also a significant conversation about mere illegality and social rejection not actually doing much to address the underlying tendency to exploitation that (a) has prevented reconciliation and relief for formerly enslaved people and their descendants for more than a century and (b) is woven through the labor model common even in the West. Exploited paid laborers aren’t in the same category as enslaved persons, but we shouldn’t fall into the trap of believing that economic injustice has been meaningfully addressed.
aksss OP
No, we’re talking about actual slavery in modern times, not exploited labor. Actual slavery is still very much a thing.
ants_everywhere
To make room for slavery mentally you have to believe that some people are subhuman or at least beneath the threshold for human rights.

What's surprising to me is that it's become more common to describe people you dislike as subhuman and to for people to support violence or cruelty toward them. Similarly there is a trend to see hatred and anger as positive goods.

aksss OP
I would avoid analogizing this to the petty political fads of the west. Actual human slavery is still a very real thing in much of the world. Slavery is likely less about making mental room so much as being raised in an environment where it’s normalized. In other words, the mental room was allocated in the new construction of the world view more often than remodeled.
squigz
Out of curiosity, which parts of the world is actual slavery a normal thing?
niemandhier
The 13th amendment has a penal exception clause:

“ Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

So one might say, slavery is normal in the USA

econ
Depends on how you define it.

If you spend pretty much all waking hours dedicated to some task you don't care about entirely to avoid dire consequences I'd say you are close enough. People might still want to use a different word to describe the same thing but it requires they care more about appearance than substance.

squigz
No, you are not close enough. This minimizes the seriousness of actual slavery to an extraordinary degree.
econ
It does? In what way?

I think you underestimate the "normal" labor conditions in some places.

squigz
And I think you underestimate the reality of actual slavery.

There is nothing remotely comparable between slavery and a modern job. Feel free to make a more substantial argument as to how they are than "it's close enough"

2 More Comments →
eaurouge
> most of the world does not hold that view

“most” is a lot. Which parts of the world?

> While everyone WE know thinks slavery is morally evil

Who is “we”?

This item has no comments currently.