Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

fivethirtyeight.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 117 posts

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#71

Post by lliamander »

RingwormOne wrote: post #54
bjl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 13th Amendment explicitly legalises slavery as the punishment for a crime, and its used all the time.

And when we talk about slavery it's usually in the sense of racialized, bondage-from-birth slavery rather than penal labor. The two are very different, and using the word 'slavery' to refer to both conflates meaning and disguises the important differences between the two.

I think the term you may be looking for is "Noncentral Fallacy"

http://lesswrong.com/lw/e95/the_noncentral_fallacy_the_worst...

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#72

Post by Tyrek »

ashark wrote: post #11
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true and is hardly limited to the Old South. Rural Upstate New York is effectively in the same boat. Frankly I think trying to develop rural America to be economically competitive to urban America is a bad idea wrapped in the cloak of a well-meaning idea. Infrastructure and services and much (like 2-5x) more expensive over a wide area. And you need a LOT of infrastrucute to reasonably support a professional c…

Can confirm that from the perspective of a Midwesterner who grew up largely in smaller towns, one grows up feeling that moving to a major coastal city is nearly impossible. Even as a software developer I have to remind myself that no, really, I could move to one of those places. It's a hard mindset to get out of, and for most, it's also kind of true . Smaller non-coastal cities retain, in the mind of the typical rura…

While I am sympathetic to the cultural forces at play, it seems that most of the anti-city sentiment is from a position of...pickiness? you might call it? If it was literally a choice between starving and moving to a City, I suspect the choice would be much easier. But for most of rural America, the choice is between the misery that you know, and the alien world of 'the city'.

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#73

Post by ashark »

riot504 wrote: post #66
ashark wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Water, power, communication, unemployment and other poverty support, mail, law enforcement. Everything. Are you arguing rural living comes with cheaper services and less environmental harm, in the typical case? That'd be great, if true. [EDIT] Transportation. Worth including on the list, in particular.

Having lived in small communities all my life, I would say they are cheaper as far less is required. Water, power and communication I am uncertain, though internet appears better in certain smaller communities. You need far less law enforcement as crime is typically lower. Mail might cost more, but that is factored into shipping costs. Smaller towns when done correctly can be more self-sufficient. Within an hour and…

You should look up the costs of supporting rural living. They're heavily subsidized, at least in the US. Living in rural communities is cheaper to the individual right now, but significantly more expensive to society overall. If you can find data to the contrary I'd be interested in it.

Lots of utopian plans for city designs and such revolve around spreading people out farther and having lots of "green space" and farmland interspersed with living and business districts, but fail on closer examination because it's really hard to be more efficient (cheaper) and more environmentally friendly than having very dense cities yielding, as quickly as possible (i.e. minimizing sprawl and low-density suburbs/exurbs) to farmland. If you can find data supporting the case for lower-density living as cheaper (overall) and more environmentally friendly than denser living, again, I'd be very interested in seeing it. People come up with those spread-out hypothetical cities for a reason—agrarian (even faux-agrarian) living is appealing, if difficult to advocate given the economics of it.

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#74

Post by mod »

eropple wrote: post #16
ashark wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd probably pick a smallish (sub-250k population) city, I think. The kind that rural folks mean when they say they're going to The City to shop. Maybe a "university town". Beats exurbs or ultra-pricey real cities. The trick is finding one small enough that you aren't stuck with shitty schools if you want to live in the city core.

That's part of it. The other part is transit. Cars are bad; I don't really want to ever own one again and I definitely don't want to have to drive one every day if I do. So anywhere I'd want to move would need to either be super walkable or have transit. And small cities usually, IME, aren't the first and don't have the second. I live in a 50K-population city adjoining Boston, so they exist, I just don't know how wel…

Regardless of where I live, I don't feel the need to leave my "home" every day. Not to say I don't go outside, but I don't need to commute somewhere (I own some acreage and I spent plenty of time on outside on it).

I live a few miles from pavement, so I definitely need a car to go anywhere. But I don't need to go anywhere on a normal day. I go to the nearest city about 3-4 times per month.

I do take advantage of UPS deliveries a lot, but I could do without if I were more patient.

I've set up my life to not need a daily commute, but I haven't taken the car out of it. If I tried harder, I could probably go without the car, but I don't think that would be healthy (Amazon Pantry options are lackluster last I looked).

To reiterate, I'm not even close to a paved road, let alone a grocery store or city, and I can manage not to drive very often. Seems like you could too, if you made it your focus. But we've all gotten used to living a few minutes from this and that and so we have to go do something, in our car, nearly every day.

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#75

Post by PatientTrades »

RingwormOne wrote: post #38
occultist_throw wrote: post #18

Ive always taken an unpopular view about slavery. "We never quit doing slavery." It is true the Constitution was amended after the Civil war to include banning of slavery in most circumstances. However, slavery is explicitly still allowed as a "punishment for a crime". Instead of "Black = Slave", it's "Black = criminal , criminal = slave". After all, it only takes only 6-12 angry white men to find you guilty. I would…

Slavery has had significant long term effects on the black community. That can't be denied. Disproportionate poverty in the black community is directly tied to slavery. However I disagree that slavery - as the term is usually meant to mean - still exists in the form of incarceration. We as a society have decided that certain things are illegal. The black community, because of poverty (so because of slavery), dispropo…

> because of poverty (so because of slavery), disproportionately breaks those laws.

Not correct. Blacks don't disproportionally break laws. The problem is that non-violent crimes in America are disproportionally enforced. Several Thousand, probably close to a million cases of illegal white collar crime go unenforced every year. Stuff like insider trading, corruption, fraud, laundering, etc. Crimes that white people are more likely to break simply are not regularly enforced. Non-violent crimes like drug possession in Black urban areas are highly enforced, while whites in suburb areas use drugs at the same rate, are not enforced. There is a bias in the enforcement laws

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#76

Post by dominotw »

gumby wrote: post #61
dominotw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which were then used as cheap or free labour... much like slaves were. Are prisons really profitable though? Do they produce anything of real value from this free labor ?

Prisons are hugely profitable (see the video elsewhere of the Louisiana sheriff) and the prison industrial complex throws off so much cash that its lobbying effort is one of the largest in California (and is why we still have, for example, the three strikes law)

sorry I was referring to GP's comment about cheap labor, not the profitability of prison itself.

Are private companies generating significant profit off of cheap prison labor ? Am I buying something from a walmart shelve made from prison labor ?

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#77

Post by swasheck »

fmitchell0 wrote: post #70

As an engineer, I always get frustrated when it seems like a lot of our customers are more concerned with the perception of the existence of something, rather than its actual existence. I'm continuing to learn (UX not withstanding) that just because you solve a problem, it doesn't mean the user believes the problem is solved. As a black engineer, I've often thought that if there were data, science, math, and straight…

> Think of how we've added data to sports and created a new economy on improving outcomes because the definitions of success are clear with many pathways.

I've thought about this, too - using data to work toward solutions to problems that plague our society. I'm constantly haunted by the belief that there is a set of solutions "out there" but am bedeviled by my own inability to accumulate, homogenize, and aggregate that data that I _can_ find. Even still, sites like 1degree.org do give me hope that the data is available and that there are folks who are willing to do the work of using it (though that's an admittedly different application).

At any rate, thank you for your post. It's stirred that thought within me again.

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#78

Post by RingwormOne »

PatientTrades wrote: post #75
RingwormOne wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery has had significant long term effects on the black community. That can't be denied. Disproportionate poverty in the black community is directly tied to slavery. However I disagree that slavery - as the term is usually meant to mean - still exists in the form of incarceration. We as a society have decided that certain things are illegal. The black community, because of poverty (so because of slavery), dispropo…

> because of poverty (so because of slavery), disproportionately breaks those laws. Not correct. Blacks don't disproportionally break laws. The problem is that non-violent crimes in America are disproportionally enforced. Several Thousand, probably close to a million cases of illegal white collar crime go unenforced every year. Stuff like insider trading, corruption, fraud, laundering, etc. Crimes that white people a…

Don't the statistics show that violent crime is much higher among blacks than other racial groups?

I'd be interested to see statistics on white collar crime, but I know that there are significant resources put towards catching and sentencing white collar criminals.

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#79

Post by swasheck »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #53
mikeash wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Constitution explicitly permits slavery for criminals, and many prisons take advantage of this. How is that simplistic?

It is simplistic exactly because that is not equivalent to slavery circa 1860 which is what is suggested through "we never quit doing slavery".

So the post is missing nuance in favor of a "big picture" opinion. I still view it as a thoughtful take on the situation. Then again, I generally only downvote trolls and distractions, not thoughtful posts with which I disagree.

Re: Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the Outlines of Slavery

#80

Post by mod »

Tyrek wrote: post #72
ashark wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm that from the perspective of a Midwesterner who grew up largely in smaller towns, one grows up feeling that moving to a major coastal city is nearly impossible. Even as a software developer I have to remind myself that no, really, I could move to one of those places. It's a hard mindset to get out of, and for most, it's also kind of true . Smaller non-coastal cities retain, in the mind of the typical rura…

While I am sympathetic to the cultural forces at play, it seems that most of the anti-city sentiment is from a position of...pickiness? you might call it? If it was literally a choice between starving and moving to a City, I suspect the choice would be much easier. But for most of rural America, the choice is between the misery that you know, and the alien world of 'the city'.

Yes, of course. They're not the only picky ones, though.

For instance it's very common for income debates on HN to be full of comments about how people "cannot live on 12k/year."

Replace 12 with whatever threshold you think it is.

But they can, of course. I did for half of my adult life. It's a matter of pickiness. I had roommates I didn't enjoy, I ate rice and beans and ramen, I cooked for myself, I drove beater cars, I had no cell phone or no phone at all. But I always had money in the bank and I could pay my bills. It's a matter of choices.

So yes, it's a matter of pickiness about the city. They're destitute in the country, perhaps, but they're living in the home their grandfather built, on the land he farmed, their cousin lives a mile up the dirt road, etc. Many of them aren't unhappy, frankly--people here have decided they are.

But they aren't sure they'll make a lot more money by moving to the city, and they're definitely unsure about how they'll like it. My best guess is that most of them wouldn't. I moved away from the city on purpose, so perhaps my perspective is skewed.

I would move back before I starved, but not much before that.

Post reply on HN