I’m new to HN. How does this relate to the theme of Hacker News?
Despite the other comments attempting to expand the scope of "hacking" or general interest to pretty much anything, it doesn't.
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
#92I hoped the article would mention whether the woman desires to be "rescued" or wants changes in the way she lives now.
Something, something, Plato's allegory of the cave.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you see inequality as the problem, instead of poverty?
Because they go together. The hallmark of developed countries is that they're even, mostly egalitarian and developed everywhere. The hallmark of developing or underdeveloped countries is precisely the staggering levels of inequality. Not everyone is poor in a developing/underdeveloped country. Quite a few people there live lives that would make upper middle classes in developed countries blush. Life "just" sucks for…
Correlation is not causation.
Would you say USA is a developed country, considering for example Los Angeles slums? And there's a bigger inequality between Elon musk and a well paid software developer than between a poor person in a developing country and a rich politician from that country.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Prisoners are not slaves, because they are not the property of the prison or any other entity. It's called involuntary servitude. I'm sure the people affected do not care about the distinction, but words matter. It's also trivially easy to not end up in involuntary servitude.
> It's also trivially easy to not end up in involuntary servitude.
Stupid people always say nonsense like this as if no person in prison is innocent.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#95Hot take: As bad as this is, I wonder if it would be kinder to leave her with the family for the rest of her life. This lady is in her 60s, does she even know any other way to even live? Life with that family may be better than whatever Brazil's equivalent of welfare shelters are. Seems like that may have been why the case workers left her with that family for now.
If they pay her what she’s owed and the damages. She can get her place, hire people and pay them to care of her or help her.
The problem that often the victims also have not educated, have no worldly experience, often have no idea about money handeling beyond small items.
This can result in them being exploited again by even more unscrupulous people. The articles clearly mentioned how difficult these cases are to deal with. While they do not go into detail, the above is why.
Its very easy to gain peoples trust when they have no sense of normal anymore, and can you sign this paper, o, we need to go to a friendly notary to help with it. and before you know it, the people just handed over their apartment / or whatever.
There are a lot of good people with will want to help but it only takes one rotten apple to destroy peoples live again. Recently in Europe there was a case of a helper that took elderly their IDs and helped herself to their money. She made 100s of victims. Now imaging that type of person with somebody who probably did not have any proper education and normal independent life experiences that we all had the luxury of having.
In a ideal world, we have proper state funded solutions, with proper oversight to help people integrate into society. Reality is that if any services exist, they are underfunded, often lacking oversight and people fall into the often chasm of cracks.
These type of stories are never clean white and black, but a mix of gray sludge, where we all hope for the perfect ideal solution but often there are not many options. And naivety tend to often do more harm then good.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#96I 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.
The practice of live-in maids has been somewhat common throughout the world up until WWI and into WWII. Well-to-do families would taken in boys and girls from poor families and use them for house and yard work. It wasn’t slavery, or even indentured servitudes, but it did take opportunity of their misfortune. Aristocrats and well to dos would take girls and boys mostly from the less educated countryside or from war-torn areas of the rest of Europe and use them as cheap labor. Some would stay on and some would go off to seek better future outside those families. It was somewhat symbiotic the poor kids (and their families) needed the money and the wealthy could show off they had money to spend on domestic help.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#97> Although the family has agreed to compensate her, Maria, who lived in near-total isolation and without contact with her relatives, will remain with her employers What the fuck? Why did the law need the family's "agreement"?? Why is nobody going to jail for imprisoning someone for 55 years??
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It's not the pompous posh upscale establishment it likes to pretend to be either
heh look at the low effort shit that gets through and encouraged as long as it rides on a popular hatewagon or whatever:
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#98Oh the caste system of the west
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#99I 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.
I grew up with servants (in Subsaharan Africa and Morocco). However, they were paid (I have no idea whether it was a good wage, or not), and had pretty decent quarters (in Morocco). My parents were pretty kind, fairly liberal, people. I would be quite surprised (and shocked) if they took advantage of the servants. I know that my mother made damn sure that I had respect for poor folks.
Those things are a symptom of an undeveloped economy. It harkens back to a time of less development where there were more hands than jobs and much of the labor was manual. Not to excuse the practice in modern times but go back a few generations and that was the reality of the world -everywhere.
Re: Woman in Brazil enslaved for 55 years by 3 generations of the same family
#100I 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.
>$12 USD a day which is not a bad deal For the owner or the servant?
probably for both.. don't forget it includes an air conditioned place to live, food and internet plus a salary. In exchange they take care of domestic needs (cooking, shopping, house keeping)