My Family’s Slave • Hacker News Board

Re: My Family’s Slave

#641

Post by mazerackham » Mon, May 22, 2017, 1:30 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #83

shas3 wrote: post #51

Great read! Many Asian countries have the concept of live-in housekeepers. I think the 'best' (scraping the bottom, here) arrangement is in Singapore, where the government, laws, and law-enforcement ensure that immigrant live-in housekeepers are treated fairly- kinda like au pairs, etc. in the US. I knew someone in India who brought their live-in maid's sister to the US in some capacity (and AFAIK, paid her wages- sh…

Humanity is both so strange and so static. We got 'rid' of slavery in most of the world no later than a century ago. It was bloody and difficult to do, but we managed it. Yet, there are still people living as just the same as slaves century or more ago, in a world of space ships and the internet. Yeah, tech has helped, we don't have smallpox anymore and the mass famines have stopped recently, but the deeper gestal ps…

While Lola's story is certainly tragic, it's a tangibly different class of slavery than that which existed in the western world 2 centuries ago. Chattel slavery is far, far crueler and not comparable

Re: My Family’s Slave

#642

Post by mazerackham » Mon, May 22, 2017, 1:35 PM UTC

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?

judging from history, pretty hard =[

Re: My Family’s Slave

#643

Post by mazerackham » Mon, May 22, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

seppin wrote: post #116

tmaly wrote: post #114

Lola happens to be the word for Grandma in the Philippines. The description of this idea of a live in slave is alive and well in many parts of Asian and the Middle East. Life in the Philippines is quite a struggle especially in the provinces. I know of a few people that live and work in Hong Kong doing the same job described in the article, but they are doing it for two families for very little pay.

I am wrong to think that this kind of thing is more acceptable in Asia than anywhere else?

yes you are wrong to think this

Re: My Family’s Slave

#644

Post by fjdlwlv » Thu, May 25, 2017, 4:46 PM UTC

5thaccount wrote: post #211

MrLeap wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like he's so hypnotized by being rich adjacent he couldn't ask some questions about something that weird. HN is the closest thing I have to a portal into the private lives of people with nigh infinite money, and eeeevery so often I read something like the gp that makes me want to gulag the rich and seize the means of production. Now I know there's evil people at every income level, but infinite money really inc…

> makes me want to gulag the rich and seize the means of production. I feel the opposite way. This sort of thing rarely happens in the west, but quite openly happens in other places, and that fact makes me want to help fix the inequities in OTHER countries that cause this, not tear down my own country. Specifically (and proselytizing to a degree) it makes me more determined to give a significant portion of my income…

Why not both?

Re: My Family’s Slave

#645

Post by frandroid » Tue, May 30, 2017, 4:21 PM UTC

praneshp wrote: post #278

frandroid wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Brahmins I know can't help themselves but tell others about it, unlike people from other castes.

Ha ha, you must know enough people from both sets ;) I've found that vegetarian-ism is a stronger indicator than someone telling me they are Brahmin. Or, if they are somewhat practicing, their sacred thread is sometimes visible.

Do only Brahmins wear a thread?