What disgusting subhumans. They should rot in jail until they close their eyes.
Nobody can tell me that such a life is not exploiting and slavery.
They dont need to play stupid and pay a laughable amount of money for a destroyed life.
But thats how some people got rich...pretty disgusting.
Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
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Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#62I’m new to HN. How does this relate to the theme of Hacker News?
Those of us that soldered wires, wrote custom drivers for esoteric hardware, and played with crazy things in the garage recognize that social systems are hackable too.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
To whatever degree this site isn't a cesspool, we owe it to Dang, not the bad word police. They didn't swear at you, so there's no reason to get bent out of shape about it. It's ironic you're taking this stance on an article about a respectable family that literally kept a slave. There's a difference between superficial trappings of respectability, and actually treating people with respect.
Dang (and the other dude) do great work, but still I disagree. The GP comment was extremely low-effort. and while "complaining that HN is turning into reddit" is against site guidelines, I still agree with the critical comment. It's not the profanity alone, but the reddit-ism of the OP using the site as a complaint board (that's a large portion of reddit, especially local subreddits), and then making a 0-effort comme…
I don't agree with the critical comment at all, particularly because the OP is incredibly guilty of making drive-by comments in their very recent post history that don't actually add anything to the conversation. People will complain about the site 'becoming reddit' while making inane posts that are clearly against the rules or don't actually bring anything to the conversation. People don't practice what they clearly preach.
In either case, this post and thread are entirely off topic. At least GPs comment was somewhat relevant as opposed to this entire set of pedantry.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#64"Statistics suggest that Maria was undoubtedly poor and, most likely, Black." That is a new way of reporting news, that journalist Gortázar seems to have invented here. When you don't know anything about the victim, just make something up from "statistics". Where else can we apply this technique? "Maria entered their lives around 1971 — the year Henry Kissinger visited China, John Lennon wrote Imagine, and Mexico hos…
At first I found interesting how you nitpick in irrelevant details while ignoring the bigger picture.
The point of the whole article is to use a single case to illustrate a bigger picture that you seem to deliberately oversee: abuse and exploitation of manual and unqualified workers.
But, then, I saw your Brazilian name and understood. Brazilian jingoism freaks out when Brazil "looks bad" to the world. It is a very common reaction among 3rd world countries. Indians, Pakistanis, Nigerians, etc are just like that too.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#65I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.
It's a symptom of inequality. It will start happening more and more even in the first world if inequality isn't tackled and wealth continues to concentrate.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#66Its a common occurrence for families to take in poor girls to do house work in exchange for food and lodging. And with the insidious nature of Brazilian racism, they will pretend that she is part of the family. They might even take her on vacations (to work, of course). If you grow up with this mentality it might even be hard for you to see the injustice. Brazil abolished slavery in 1888, the last country in the Amer…
Correction: The US still has not abolished slavery. It is still legal in the case of prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
yes! which is _the_ driving factor behind the US prison system with its private prison labor facilities.
there is zero financial motivation for the state for prevention or rehab or any other activities to reduce imprisonment rates
did I mention disenfranchisement of the imprisoned?
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was shocked to read how late even several prominent European countries abolished it. Most northern US states abolished slavery even before Britain, France, Portugal, and (especially) Spain did.
You'd be shocked how much of our "friends" in MENA still have legal slavery for non citizens. When an employer can legally confiscate someone's passport and one can only leave the country with their authorization, it is slavery. I have no idea why we in the west consider that normal and look the other way... What am I saying, I know, oil & VC money... Some of them also bring their Filipino, India, Nepali, or African…
> When an employer can confiscate someone's passport and one can only leave the country with their authorization, it is slavery.
This happens in Europe as well.
It is not legal, but it is the only way the Scandinavian berry market works at all. You don’t even need a huge market for this to be allowed to happen. You just need _a_ market and workers that are desperate enough to be tricked.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#68My wife's family were wealthy Chinese near Hong Kong. Her grandmother took in a poor girl as a servant. She was part of the family but also basically a slave. The grandmother arranged her marriage when the girl was older. We met the girls granddaughter when we visited china - she was a new college student. The two families still think of themselves as related.
Almost same story (except china), my grandmother lost her parents very young. A family took her in and she worked for them until 20 years old or something then she got married.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#69I’m new to HN. How does this relate to the theme of Hacker News?
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#70I was talking to a doctor who went to medical school in Brazil and said it was normal for upper-middle class people to have a live-in domestic servant. Many of the floorplans for condos or houses include a servants quarters. They were telling me theirs cost around $12 USD a day which is not a bad deal.
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