432
Google’s Search AI Says Slavery Was Good, Actually
(futurism.com)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
432 points (88.6% liked)
Technology
59414 readers
1021 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
That really bad for a modern consumer economy yes. But those werent a thing before the industrial revolution. Before that the large majority of people were subsitance/tennant farmer or serfs who consumed basically nothing other than food and fuel in winter. Thats what a slave based economy was an alternantive to. Its also why slvery died out in the 19th century, it no longer fit the times.
I wish it did die out in the 19th century. We have more slaves now than ever.
There being more slaves now then ever is heavily disputed. There is also the fact that was little more than a billion people in the world when the trans-Atlantic slave trade stopped, so there would have to be 8 times as many for slavery to be as prevalent.
Yes, I agree, our per capita slave figure has to be much lower these days, mathematically speaking.
Even one slave is a slave too many, and knowing there are still so many (whatever figure we put it at) is heartbreaking.
Things like the cocoa plantation slaves and the slave fishing ships have people kidnapped and forced to work for nothing. Actual slavery by any definition.
Of course, when I said it died out I didn't mean slavery was entirely gone and doesn't exist at all. I mean it died out as a prevalent societal structure.
100s of people in slavery on a cocoa plantation is of course awful, but it shouldn't obscure the fact that there used to be vast swathes of land where slaves outnumbered free people and their children were born into bondage - that is what has died out.
I understand your wider point and I agree with it.
But I think the point I was making actually supposts what you were saying upthread.
The agrarian model of the cocoa industry is economically reliant on slavery. 2.1 million children labour on those plantations in Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire, and a significant number have been trafficked or forced.
And isn't the economy much better now than before the industrial revolution?
Obviously, but my point was that slaves weren't economically terrible in an agrarian peasant/serf economy, which everywhere was before the industrial revolution.