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Suppose I were to write "slavery is economically beneficial, ...a bunch of evidence goes here...". Do you believe an intellectual discussion would result? I'd

Suppose I were to write "slavery is economically beneficial, ...a bunch of evidence goes here...". Do you believe an intellectual discussion would result? I'd gamble at 3:1 odds that I'd be downvoted and called racist. Just look what happened to Yarvin for merely comparing slavery to government (a more longwinded version of this: http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/nozick_slave.html http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/no... ).

jordanb 10y ago
> Suppose I were to write "slavery is economically beneficial, ...a bunch of evidence goes here...". Do you believe an intellectual discussion would result? The problem is that the distortion of your ethics and values would have to be so extreme to arrive at such a conclusion that anyone who read that sentence would know that you have an extremely "different" way of looking at the world, and not in a good way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Not true. I might just be a utilitarian who for whatever reason believes that slavery produces more utility than other arrangements.
  - eastWestMath 10y ago
    That's exactly what he's addressing, utilitarians with messed up definitions of utility. Your head needs to be awfully far up your ass to come to the conclusion that slavery is good without questioning the principles that lead to that conclusion.
    - sillysaurus3 10y ago
      Your head needs to be awfully far up your ass to come to the conclusion You're not allowed to comment like this on HN.
      - yusee 10y ago
        Lesson learnt: Much better to defend slavery without ad hominem than use a bad word.
        todd8 10y ago
        Well,yes. HN is one of those places where, as frustrating as it might be, the rules of discourse encourage thoughtful interchange. Here, we at least have the hope that we can be educated or enlightened, and in some cases we may be able to show others the errors in their thinking in a manner that doesn't close off communication.
        eastWestMath 10y ago
        Exactly, you need to treat those jerk-offs advocating for feudalism with respect.
        dang 10y ago
        You allowed yourself to be trolled into going on tilt in this thread. Please don't let that happen again. It makes for tedious flamewars.
        dang 10y ago
        The real sin here is to post unsubstantive comments and get involved in tedious spats. Please don't do that.
      - eastWestMath 10y ago
        "You know, I think we need to reconsider the whole 'slavery is bad' thing. There could be economic benefits." "You've have your head up your ass." "Ohmygod, you can't talk like that here."
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Utilitarianism defines utility as whatever people value. The hard part is interpersonal comparisons. Most arguments I can come up with are reasonably close to contemporary arguments for socialism or basic income. Do you consider those arguments (far more socially acceptable) to be similarly "messed up"? (Note that most of those who have advocated for slavery in recent years, e.g Obama and Rangell, did so from a socialist perspective. Slaves would serve the state, either as "volunteers" for social programs or in the military. I'm not the only one who finds the cases to be pretty close.)
      - eastWestMath 10y ago
        Do you only value white people's well being? Otherwise, if you actually knew anything about the history of slavery you'd have never had that thought. People aren't actually exaggerating about generational PTSD - splitting up over half of new families, corporal punishment, sexual abuse, the list goes on.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Scroll up. I didn't defend slavery on economic grounds. I argued that if someone did attempt to do so, the response to them is likely to be anti intellectual. I appreciate you supporting my case.
    - IanCal 10y ago
      They said economically beneficial, not good. This whole exchange seems to prove their point. I'd like to read arguments on both sides for the economic effects of, say, slavery in America. Did America benefit? If so, over what timescales? Were there benefits in the short term but the ongoing divisions now hurt the economy more? And I can wonder about these things while still not thinking it was good.
      - eastWestMath 10y ago
        That topic has actually been researched, the slave states had less developed economies than the northern states. For the same reason all feudal/slave states have underdeveloped economies. Of course, some people in this thread are probably ready to laud Hitler's economic acumen, while ignoring his economic gains were due to public spending building a war machine and taking Jewish people's stuff.
- mafribe 10y ago
  distortion of your ethics It's interesting to reflect on the fact that there were many slave revolts in antiquity, but the revolting slaves did not seek to abolish slavery, they merely wanted to stop being slaves and have their own slaves. In other words, even slaves had no problem with slavery as an institution. We also should always be aware that every serious discussion of slavery must begin with the question: what do you mean by "slavery", for the term is used in wildly different ways.
  - yardie 10y ago
    Could you give examples of this. Of the slave revolts I can remember in recent history none of them wanted to replace their masters. They just wanted out. But pondering further. If you have a successful revolt what do you believe the punishment for the perpetrators should be. Would death be a just punishment? What if the empowered slaves offered enslavement of their former masters as an alternative?
    - mafribe 10y ago
      Could you give examples of this. Example of what? The standard text on the subject [1] says there are no known instances of slave revolts in antiquity that sought to abolish slavery as an institution. If you know counterexamples, I'd be interested to learn about them. Would death be a just punishment? What if ... I can't see either being particularly productive. It's really very simple -- albeit unpleasant: there is a reason why some small group of people manage to enslave a large number of people: slavers are better than slaves. Better at cooperation, better at conflict avoidance, better at socially organising violence, better at dividing-and-conquering their enemies, better at science, better at engineering, better at teaching their children, better at forming and maintaining society. Slaves should learn from slavers, not kill them. But learning is hard, and not immediately emotionally gratifying. The Haitian slave revolution of the late 18th, early 19th century lead to immediate genocide of the remaining whites and and mixed race inhabitants [2]. Haiti, which was once the wealthiest Caribbean island has been a basket case ever since. Coincidentally, after the successful revolution, the black leadership reinstituted slavery, albeit symbolically abolishing the whip [3]. The Haitian slave rebellion teaches us a large number of lessons about humanity, most not very palatable. [1] Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realencyclop%C3%A4die_der_classischen_Altertumswissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realencyclop%C3%A4die_der_clas... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution#Free_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution#Free_republ...
- IanCal 10y ago
  I think you're rather making their point. Something could be both evil and economically beneficial, and while the statement only mentioned the economy you assume that they have a bad way of looking at the world. We should be able to have a reasoned, intellectual discussion about the economic side of slavery whilst still agreeing it shouldn't be done.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    I think the point made in this sketch is pretty relevant: https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg
ajross 10y ago
That's the same weird meta-argument as the grandparent called out! I mean, out with it: do you want to argue that slavery is economically beneficial? If so, do so. I'll even provide you the non-judgement question I'd ask in return: beneficial to whom? (i.e. "the economy" isn't a unitary entity). But you don't want to. You want to smear the rest of us without actually getting your hands dirty.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  It is. I'm defending the weird meta-argument. Do you believe the meta-argument is false, or merely annoying? (Note: I don't believe slavery is beneficial.) If you want evidence, I'm sure I can search my posting history for all sorts of examples where I make very straightforward and defensible claims that fall far short of "slavery is beneficial" on a spectrum of offensiveness, and where the result falls very far short of intellectual discussion. Should I do this?
  - sgt101 10y ago
    The meta-argument is unfalsifiable. We are invited to either buy into the integrity of the person presenting it (side with them in their view that they being censored and believe in the secret knowledge without knowing ourselves - or being seen to conive in views that other attribute to this side of the argument) or, alternatively to attack ad-hominem "I disbelieve you". Then the view : those who don't buy this are simply not doing their research! This doesn't help us get anywhere apart from into groups that shout at each other.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      The existence of secret knowledge is unfalsifiable, unless we engage in prediction contests or something like that [1]. However, we can verify that non-intellectual arguments in response to certain ideas are quite common here. Here is one example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353366 You can dig up more by reading my posting history, for example. [1] I actually happen to have secret forbidden knowledge on politically incorrect factors in lending and educational performance. For example, I'd let you purchase a portfolio of consumer loans and then I'd use my secret knowledge about the predictive effect of race on defaults to buy the best ones for myself.
woodandsteel 10y ago
One of the problems with the meta-argument is you never expose your views to critical scrutiny by people with other views, and so never find out if they are mistaken. >I'd gamble at 3:1 odds that I'd be downvoted and called racist. Yeah, you would, so you would need to argue back. Is that so painful? And note there might be others who are not certain which side is correct, and might be persuaded by your arguments. Or they might be persuaded they are wrong. That is what open discussion is about, and it is the best system we have. I do think you have one good point. That is that calling someone "racist" because they disagree with you on something is usually not helpful. It is better to just state points of disagreement.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Downvoting and calling someone racist is not an argument. And note there might be others who are not certain which side is correct, and might be persuaded by your arguments. I'm aware. I actually receive a consistent flow of emails of the form "I'd never say this in public, but you made me rethink what I previously believed." That's because I'm willing to be called racist or whatever. Most people aren't. It significantly hinders rational discussion.
dang 10y ago
Would you please stop provoking useless, degenerate subthreads? The word for that is 'trolling'. If you poke a stick into a machine and cause it to seize up, which is effectively what you did here, you're responsible for the effect. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953821 and marked it off-topic.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Can you tell me concretely what you'd like me to do? A meta topic was raised by others, and I became involved. What did I do above and beyond others to be singled out? If the topic was useless, shouldn't you be detaching at the parent of the thread (which wasn't me)?
  - dang 10y ago
    > Can you tell me concretely what you'd like me to do? I'd like you to optimize for the quality of the thread as a whole. You've been here for years and have more than enough information to do that.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      The only way I can see to do this is to not openly state unpopular opinions. Is that really what you are telling me to do? HN is no longer open to ideas that the hecklers wish to veto? Or is there some alternate option you are aware of which I am not? How would you propose that I make my point without resulting in eastwestmath becoming hostile?
      - dang 10y ago
        I'm happy to discuss this but I need an indication that you're asking it in good faith and not just stonewalling (and putting words in my mouth a la "HN is no longer open to ideas"). Good faith means being willing to take some of the responsibility for these outcomes instead of putting 100% on everybody else and 0% on yourself. Self-responsibility is a conservative value and you generally espouse those, so that shouldn't be too hard.

jordanb 10y ago

> Suppose I were to write "slavery is economically beneficial, ...a bunch of evidence goes here...". Do you believe an intellectual discussion would result? The problem is that the distortion of your ethics and values would have to be so extreme to arrive at such a conclusion that anyone who read that sentence would know that you have an extremely "different" way of looking at the world, and not in a good way. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owI7DOeO_yg

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Not true. I might just be a utilitarian who for whatever reason believes that slavery produces more utility than other arrangements.
- eastWestMath 10y ago
  That's exactly what he's addressing, utilitarians with messed up definitions of utility. Your head needs to be awfully far up your ass to come to the conclusion that slavery is good without questioning the principles that lead to that conclusion.
  - sillysaurus3 10y ago
    Your head needs to be awfully far up your ass to come to the conclusion You're not allowed to comment like this on HN.
    - yusee 10y ago
      Lesson learnt: Much better to defend slavery without ad hominem than use a bad word.
      - todd8 10y ago
        Well,yes. HN is one of those places where, as frustrating as it might be, the rules of discourse encourage thoughtful interchange. Here, we at least have the hope that we can be educated or enlightened, and in some cases we may be able to show others the errors in their thinking in a manner that doesn't close off communication.
        eastWestMath 10y ago
        Exactly, you need to treat those jerk-offs advocating for feudalism with respect.
        dang 10y ago
        You allowed yourself to be trolled into going on tilt in this thread. Please don't let that happen again. It makes for tedious flamewars.
      - dang 10y ago
        The real sin here is to post unsubstantive comments and get involved in tedious spats. Please don't do that.
    - eastWestMath 10y ago
      "You know, I think we need to reconsider the whole 'slavery is bad' thing. There could be economic benefits." "You've have your head up your ass." "Ohmygod, you can't talk like that here."
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Utilitarianism defines utility as whatever people value. The hard part is interpersonal comparisons. Most arguments I can come up with are reasonably close to contemporary arguments for socialism or basic income. Do you consider those arguments (far more socially acceptable) to be similarly "messed up"? (Note that most of those who have advocated for slavery in recent years, e.g Obama and Rangell, did so from a socialist perspective. Slaves would serve the state, either as "volunteers" for social programs or in the military. I'm not the only one who finds the cases to be pretty close.)
    - eastWestMath 10y ago
      Do you only value white people's well being? Otherwise, if you actually knew anything about the history of slavery you'd have never had that thought. People aren't actually exaggerating about generational PTSD - splitting up over half of new families, corporal punishment, sexual abuse, the list goes on.
      - yummyfajitas 10y ago
        Scroll up. I didn't defend slavery on economic grounds. I argued that if someone did attempt to do so, the response to them is likely to be anti intellectual. I appreciate you supporting my case.
  - IanCal 10y ago
    They said economically beneficial, not good. This whole exchange seems to prove their point. I'd like to read arguments on both sides for the economic effects of, say, slavery in America. Did America benefit? If so, over what timescales? Were there benefits in the short term but the ongoing divisions now hurt the economy more? And I can wonder about these things while still not thinking it was good.
    - eastWestMath 10y ago
      That topic has actually been researched, the slave states had less developed economies than the northern states. For the same reason all feudal/slave states have underdeveloped economies. Of course, some people in this thread are probably ready to laud Hitler's economic acumen, while ignoring his economic gains were due to public spending building a war machine and taking Jewish people's stuff.
mafribe 10y ago
distortion of your ethics It's interesting to reflect on the fact that there were many slave revolts in antiquity, but the revolting slaves did not seek to abolish slavery, they merely wanted to stop being slaves and have their own slaves. In other words, even slaves had no problem with slavery as an institution. We also should always be aware that every serious discussion of slavery must begin with the question: what do you mean by "slavery", for the term is used in wildly different ways.
- yardie 10y ago
  Could you give examples of this. Of the slave revolts I can remember in recent history none of them wanted to replace their masters. They just wanted out. But pondering further. If you have a successful revolt what do you believe the punishment for the perpetrators should be. Would death be a just punishment? What if the empowered slaves offered enslavement of their former masters as an alternative?
  - mafribe 10y ago
    Could you give examples of this. Example of what? The standard text on the subject [1] says there are no known instances of slave revolts in antiquity that sought to abolish slavery as an institution. If you know counterexamples, I'd be interested to learn about them. Would death be a just punishment? What if ... I can't see either being particularly productive. It's really very simple -- albeit unpleasant: there is a reason why some small group of people manage to enslave a large number of people: slavers are better than slaves. Better at cooperation, better at conflict avoidance, better at socially organising violence, better at dividing-and-conquering their enemies, better at science, better at engineering, better at teaching their children, better at forming and maintaining society. Slaves should learn from slavers, not kill them. But learning is hard, and not immediately emotionally gratifying. The Haitian slave revolution of the late 18th, early 19th century lead to immediate genocide of the remaining whites and and mixed race inhabitants [2]. Haiti, which was once the wealthiest Caribbean island has been a basket case ever since. Coincidentally, after the successful revolution, the black leadership reinstituted slavery, albeit symbolically abolishing the whip [3]. The Haitian slave rebellion teaches us a large number of lessons about humanity, most not very palatable. [1] Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realencyclop%C3%A4die_der_classischen_Altertumswissenschaft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realencyclop%C3%A4die_der_clas... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1804_Haiti_massacre [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution#Free_republic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution#Free_republ...
IanCal 10y ago
I think you're rather making their point. Something could be both evil and economically beneficial, and while the statement only mentioned the economy you assume that they have a bad way of looking at the world. We should be able to have a reasoned, intellectual discussion about the economic side of slavery whilst still agreeing it shouldn't be done.
- IanCal 10y ago
  I think the point made in this sketch is pretty relevant: https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg https://youtu.be/owI7DOeO_yg

ajross 10y ago

That's the same weird meta-argument as the grandparent called out! I mean, out with it: do you want to argue that slavery is economically beneficial? If so, do so. I'll even provide you the non-judgement question I'd ask in return: beneficial to whom? (i.e. "the economy" isn't a unitary entity). But you don't want to. You want to smear the rest of us without actually getting your hands dirty.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
It is. I'm defending the weird meta-argument. Do you believe the meta-argument is false, or merely annoying? (Note: I don't believe slavery is beneficial.) If you want evidence, I'm sure I can search my posting history for all sorts of examples where I make very straightforward and defensible claims that fall far short of "slavery is beneficial" on a spectrum of offensiveness, and where the result falls very far short of intellectual discussion. Should I do this?
- sgt101 10y ago
  The meta-argument is unfalsifiable. We are invited to either buy into the integrity of the person presenting it (side with them in their view that they being censored and believe in the secret knowledge without knowing ourselves - or being seen to conive in views that other attribute to this side of the argument) or, alternatively to attack ad-hominem "I disbelieve you". Then the view : those who don't buy this are simply not doing their research! This doesn't help us get anywhere apart from into groups that shout at each other.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The existence of secret knowledge is unfalsifiable, unless we engage in prediction contests or something like that [1]. However, we can verify that non-intellectual arguments in response to certain ideas are quite common here. Here is one example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353366 You can dig up more by reading my posting history, for example. [1] I actually happen to have secret forbidden knowledge on politically incorrect factors in lending and educational performance. For example, I'd let you purchase a portfolio of consumer loans and then I'd use my secret knowledge about the predictive effect of race on defaults to buy the best ones for myself.

woodandsteel 10y ago

One of the problems with the meta-argument is you never expose your views to critical scrutiny by people with other views, and so never find out if they are mistaken. >I'd gamble at 3:1 odds that I'd be downvoted and called racist. Yeah, you would, so you would need to argue back. Is that so painful? And note there might be others who are not certain which side is correct, and might be persuaded by your arguments. Or they might be persuaded they are wrong. That is what open discussion is about, and it is the best system we have. I do think you have one good point. That is that calling someone "racist" because they disagree with you on something is usually not helpful. It is better to just state points of disagreement.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Downvoting and calling someone racist is not an argument. And note there might be others who are not certain which side is correct, and might be persuaded by your arguments. I'm aware. I actually receive a consistent flow of emails of the form "I'd never say this in public, but you made me rethink what I previously believed." That's because I'm willing to be called racist or whatever. Most people aren't. It significantly hinders rational discussion.

dang 10y ago

Would you please stop provoking useless, degenerate subthreads? The word for that is 'trolling'. If you poke a stick into a machine and cause it to seize up, which is effectively what you did here, you're responsible for the effect. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13953821 and marked it off-topic.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Can you tell me concretely what you'd like me to do? A meta topic was raised by others, and I became involved. What did I do above and beyond others to be singled out? If the topic was useless, shouldn't you be detaching at the parent of the thread (which wasn't me)?
- dang 10y ago
  > Can you tell me concretely what you'd like me to do? I'd like you to optimize for the quality of the thread as a whole. You've been here for years and have more than enough information to do that.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    The only way I can see to do this is to not openly state unpopular opinions. Is that really what you are telling me to do? HN is no longer open to ideas that the hecklers wish to veto? Or is there some alternate option you are aware of which I am not? How would you propose that I make my point without resulting in eastwestmath becoming hostile?
    - dang 10y ago
      I'm happy to discuss this but I need an indication that you're asking it in good faith and not just stonewalling (and putting words in my mouth a la "HN is no longer open to ideas"). Good faith means being willing to take some of the responsibility for these outcomes instead of putting 100% on everybody else and 0% on yourself. Self-responsibility is a conservative value and you generally espouse those, so that shouldn't be too hard.