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My Family’s Slave

theatlantic.com

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Re: My Family’s Slave

#531

Post by goldenkey »

randyrand wrote: post #189
valuearb wrote: post #136

Horribly compelling story. When Ulysses S Grants father-in-law died a few years before the civil war, he left them his slave. The Grants were dead broke, Ulysses had failed at farming and the slave was worth a lot of money, they could have worked him or sold him to make the their life instantly better. Instead Ulysses took him to the courthouse and made him a free man. How hard is it to have empathy for others?

> How hard is it to have empathy for others? That really depends on the person. Some people don't have empathy. As a sufferer of DPDR, a lot of times I don't even feel I have emotion.

As if DPDR blocks empathy...True empathy is based on logic. Based on knowing ones' situation isn't a one-off.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#532

Post by ecnal »

MockObject wrote: post #327
Mz wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might look into the insane stuff that has happened to housing. That is possibly a better explanation for why it now takes two incomes to try to keep a roof over our heads.

I hear repeatedly that "real wages have been constant since 1970". What started happening around then? Labor follows the same supply demand curves as any other commodity.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

Re: My Family’s Slave

#533

Post by ajross »

emodendroket wrote: post #260
ajross wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. In isolation, I think I can agree with that. But in context you seem to be making a moral point using "slavery" as a jumping-off point to an economic argument. Needless to say, slavery isn't well-defined by "compensation". That whole "freedom" angle tends to be more important to most people.

Certainly one could question to what extent wage earners are truly "free" given the need to continue to perform wage labor to survive.

One could, and in response I think one would point to this very linked article, which does a really compelling job of exploring the distinction between a housewife (or wage-dependent employee) and a near-literally slave. It's not the same.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#534

Post by jedrek »

gambiting wrote: post #433
anovikov wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are typing this sitting at your comfortable 1% Valley workplace. Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good life'. It means endless misery and generational psychological poverty passed on to your children. Only reason of doing it is if your desire to exert psychological pressure on your wife is greater than even desire to consume. It simply doesn't sound healthy, and it i…

Maybe you should stick your nose outside a bit more often? In Poland if you make ~$20k/year you are super rich, can easily afford to not just buy but build a new house. There's absolutely nothing miserable about it. Saying that "nowhere in the world" $55k provides a good life is just hilariously wrong. Even in UK, I make ~$35k before tax and I'm living a very comfortable life.

That is bullshit. At $20k a in Warsaw (75k PLN/year, 6250/month), your take home is about 5000. The absolutely cheapest houses, run down shitholes from the communist era with few windows and lots of stairs, cost at least 600k in the city limits. That's your entire salary for 10 years just to cover the capital. With a 30 year mortgage you'd be paying half your salary.

It's been a long time since I've made less than $20k and I do well, but I have a 25 year mortgage on a flat, much less a house.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#536

Post by JPLeRouzic »

baby wrote: post #483
throwaway66494 wrote: post #216

My family adopted my female cousin nearly 30 years ago from Guatemala. The country was in civil war at the time so bringing her to the U.S. was in her best interest. Unfortunately my mother and aunt (sisters of her birth father) kept her so locked down that she is effectively a slave. My aunt hasn't worked in decades because my little sister has always signed every paycheck over to my aunt. After working for nearly 2…

My mother was telling me that in her village, in the country side of France, some of her classmates ran away to her house (my mother's father was the mayor of the village). These were foreign kids that were adopted by farmers. They would get mistreated in class and mocked by other kids (which my mother found normal until this accident happened) and they would get exploited in the fields by the farmers. Apparently thi…

I was born in country side in France (Morbihan) but I never heard that farmers would adopt kids to exploit them. The closer to this that I know are some professional foster people [1] who have a bad reputation among the orphans that I met, that said I know also some perfect foster people. Those "professionals" are usually themselves quite poor and it is a second job for them (or at least for the spouse).

However I read on BBC news some stories that are more similar to slavery in UK and in Switzerland [0]. If we trust BBC (I do) in UK there are still awful slavery stories.

[0] http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29765623

[1] "Famille d'accueil" in French, see https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aide_sociale_%C3%A0_l%27enfanc...

Re: My Family’s Slave

#537

Post by merpnderp »

creepydata wrote: post #257
merpnderp wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing how base authorities handle off-base housing, I'd say the chances of this are next to zero. I doubt there's a military officer who isn't fully aware that the US's war with the most casualties was the one to end slavery.

Curious, How do base authorities handle off base housing? My husband is in the military and our off base housing is just a normal house we bought. Base authorities have nothing to do with our house. I'm wondering if you're talking about military owned off base housing? Here they are wholly operated by a private company and also rent to civilians and aren't really much different than renting normal private housing. We…

I grew up in a town with an air force training base and the students seem to have some oversight from the base housing authority to make sure they aren't doing anything to piss off the locals.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#538

Post by lazyasciiart »

cmdrfred wrote: post #489
baby wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth thinking about: is it worth destroying a dysfunctional but happy family? Are our own standards for freedom worth enforcing on other people's life? I'm also thinking about that last child in Arrested Development. A lot of families and people are dysfunctional. But are we functional enough to tell them what to do?

There is another aspect to this. Consider 911, you had 4 planes full of people and yet it is believed that only 2 - 3 people on a single plane did anything to stop the hijackers (ultimately saving many lives at the cost of their own). Uncommon valor is prized and honored simply because it is so uncommon. It is easy to say how you would act in a situation from the comfort of your keyboard but when the shit hits the fa…

At the time, the assumption was that the plane would be flown away, passengers held hostage for some demands, then released. The first planes had no reason to think that they were going to die when the hijackers struck. Passengers on the final plane heard by phone of the other attacks and so knew better what they were dealing with. And it was more than 2 or 3 of them that did anything once they did know that.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#539

Post by placeybordeaux »

anovikov wrote: post #383
creepydata wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>neither men nor women really have the option of just "being a housewife." We kind of both have to work....in most marriages, both people have to work. Says who? Sure if you take out a fat mortgage and car loans that require two incomes to repay then, sure, you need two incomes. But you can also just choose to live in a smaller house and drive cheaper cars instead. The issue is the lifestyle inflation that comes with…

I think you are typing this sitting at your comfortable 1% Valley workplace. Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good life'. It means endless misery and generational psychological poverty passed on to your children. Only reason of doing it is if your desire to exert psychological pressure on your wife is greater than even desire to consume. It simply doesn't sound healthy, and it i…

Where have you lived?

> Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good life'.

Are you defining 'good life' in relative terms or absolute? Because 55k a year would put you in the top 1% of earners in many parts of the world.

Re: My Family’s Slave

#540

Post by BearGoesChirp »

cbr wrote: post #487
pervycreeper wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it's usually uncompensated too In Western society, the act of marriage confers (often vastly) increased wealth and status to the lower status partner, and it is usually women who prefer to "marry up". Furthermore, it is also vastly more fulfilling and satisfying to care for one's own children than one's mistress's children. No two roles could be more different, frankly.

it is usually women who prefer to "marry up" Regardless of preferences, what I'd expect to happen is that this would end up pretty balanced. Are a substantial fraction of high status women deciding not to get married? Much more than the fraction of high status men?

I've seen a number of articles about college educated women having trouble finding enough college educated men to meet the demand. Also consider the factor age can play in this, given that people tend to gain wealth throughout most of their life. If women married men who were a bit older than them, you would see a marry up effect and you would also have more widows at older age since their older husband has passed.
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