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So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatmen

So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment, that apart from you nobody else can witness? Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. How can people be rich and not have the decency to give the person feeding you and your family a freaking room. And I really had to constrain myself from using expletives in this reply.

MrLeap 9y ago
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 increases the ability of a person to project evil. My intuition tells me this story isn't even that exceptional. I bet the evil rich hedonism spectrum has some real nightmare fuel.
- 5thaccount 9y ago
  > 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 to https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income so that at least some of the poorest people on the planet can be empowered to make their own choices.
  - fjdlwlv 9y ago
    Why not both?
cdelsolar 9y ago
Yes, my goodness, do something about this!
lordnacho 9y ago
> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. Sounds like you haven't been in this situation. You know, there's often a gap between how good we think we are, and how good we are. I feel terrible about it, and the subject comes up now and again of whether we should say something, and my wife and I feel bad. It's easy to tell people what they should do, I do it all the time as well, even to myself.
- bflesch 9y ago
  I understand your reasoning and try acting decently (even though I probably fail often). Of course it is easier to point out mistakes instead of changing oneself to the better. I think it is commendable that you were so open about your thoughts, which empowered a stranger like me to take a moral shit on your behavior in this specific situation. I have some acquaintances with weird/antisocial/borderline illegal behavior and never addressed it directly with them, just avoided them.
  - MrLeap 9y ago
    I've had some acquaintances do some weird, antisocial, definitely illegal things. I can't recall a time when an acquaintance has done something that appears as evil as the situation we're discussing. Best case interpretation that I can make, ignoring the floor mat. They were micromanaging when their employee wakes up despite their daily responsibilities being temporarily reduced (home owners were away). If I had a friend doing even the above, I'd at LEAST ask "explain to me how this isn't you being a dick." That's just getting to know them. Don't you want to know the people you're friends with?
    - pyre 9y ago
      > If I had a friend doing even the above, I'd at LEAST ask "explain to me how this isn't you being a dick." Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like the "master of the house" (the one calling in the morning) wasn't the friend, but the friend's father?
      - 9y ago
Chaebixi 9y ago
> your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment > Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category. The people who unfailingly and immediately know and do the moral thing, regardless of personal cost or expectation of results, are often literally saints. The rest of us muddle through; being uncertain, un-confident, and only occasionally recognizing and mustering the strength to act against an injustice.
- obstinate 9y ago
  > I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category. What of it? You still don't allow people to remain in a state of slavery when it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police. It doesn't have to be easy to do to be unacceptable not to do.
  - Chaebixi 9y ago
    > it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police Maybe not. Sounds like the situation was in another country. Who knows if the police there would care or not. And applying the term "slavery" to the story in the comment is jumping to a conclusion that provides more moral clarity than there may actually be. We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself: > I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives. I only say that to emphasize that this stuff, in reality, is probably a lot harder to deal with than some people seem to think.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - frandroid 9y ago
      > Who knows if the police there would care or not. That's not a reason not to call. > We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself: Well, if police were to check, all the "friend" would have to do is provide proof of salary and most everything would be fine if it was a mistake.
amyjess 9y ago
Yeah, all I could think of reading that was "If I found out my friend kept a slave (outside a consensual BDSM context), that person would no longer be my friend."
retube 9y ago
In some parts of the world a lot of people make do with a spot on the floor. I stayed at a guest house in India recently and the staff all slept on the roof or in the kitchen. Places are poor.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Sure, and that sucks. But we're talking about someone wealthy who has a lot of space. Making your live-in housekeeper sleep on a mat when you have plenty of space to spare as at best being a horrifying asshole, and if this guy is truly a "friend", I would hope he'd find out what's going on.
retube 9y ago
In some parts of the world a lot of people make do with a spot on the floor. I stayed at a guest house in India recently and the staff all slept on the roof or in the kitchen. Some places in the world are poor. Better that than on the street.

MrLeap 9y ago

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 increases the ability of a person to project evil. My intuition tells me this story isn't even that exceptional. I bet the evil rich hedonism spectrum has some real nightmare fuel.

5thaccount 9y ago
> 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 to https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income so that at least some of the poorest people on the planet can be empowered to make their own choices.
- fjdlwlv 9y ago
  Why not both?

cdelsolar 9y ago

Yes, my goodness, do something about this!

lordnacho 9y ago

> Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. Sounds like you haven't been in this situation. You know, there's often a gap between how good we think we are, and how good we are. I feel terrible about it, and the subject comes up now and again of whether we should say something, and my wife and I feel bad. It's easy to tell people what they should do, I do it all the time as well, even to myself.

bflesch 9y ago
I understand your reasoning and try acting decently (even though I probably fail often). Of course it is easier to point out mistakes instead of changing oneself to the better. I think it is commendable that you were so open about your thoughts, which empowered a stranger like me to take a moral shit on your behavior in this specific situation. I have some acquaintances with weird/antisocial/borderline illegal behavior and never addressed it directly with them, just avoided them.
- MrLeap 9y ago
  I've had some acquaintances do some weird, antisocial, definitely illegal things. I can't recall a time when an acquaintance has done something that appears as evil as the situation we're discussing. Best case interpretation that I can make, ignoring the floor mat. They were micromanaging when their employee wakes up despite their daily responsibilities being temporarily reduced (home owners were away). If I had a friend doing even the above, I'd at LEAST ask "explain to me how this isn't you being a dick." That's just getting to know them. Don't you want to know the people you're friends with?
  - pyre 9y ago
    > If I had a friend doing even the above, I'd at LEAST ask "explain to me how this isn't you being a dick." Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like the "master of the house" (the one calling in the morning) wasn't the friend, but the friend's father?
    - 9y ago

Chaebixi 9y ago

> your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment > Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category. The people who unfailingly and immediately know and do the moral thing, regardless of personal cost or expectation of results, are often literally saints. The rest of us muddle through; being uncertain, un-confident, and only occasionally recognizing and mustering the strength to act against an injustice.

obstinate 9y ago
> I think your advice falls into the "much easier to say (from a great distance) than do" category. What of it? You still don't allow people to remain in a state of slavery when it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police. It doesn't have to be easy to do to be unacceptable not to do.
- Chaebixi 9y ago
  > it is within your power to free them with just a phone call to the police Maybe not. Sounds like the situation was in another country. Who knows if the police there would care or not. And applying the term "slavery" to the story in the comment is jumping to a conclusion that provides more moral clarity than there may actually be. We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself: > I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives. I only say that to emphasize that this stuff, in reality, is probably a lot harder to deal with than some people seem to think.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - frandroid 9y ago
    > Who knows if the police there would care or not. That's not a reason not to call. > We don't know enough to say if the situation is that of a shitty employer or that of a slaveowner, and our only source of information doesn't even know himself: Well, if police were to check, all the "friend" would have to do is provide proof of salary and most everything would be fine if it was a mistake.

amyjess 9y ago

Yeah, all I could think of reading that was "If I found out my friend kept a slave (outside a consensual BDSM context), that person would no longer be my friend."

retube 9y ago

In some parts of the world a lot of people make do with a spot on the floor. I stayed at a guest house in India recently and the staff all slept on the roof or in the kitchen. Places are poor.

kelnos 9y ago
Sure, and that sucks. But we're talking about someone wealthy who has a lot of space. Making your live-in housekeeper sleep on a mat when you have plenty of space to spare as at best being a horrifying asshole, and if this guy is truly a "friend", I would hope he'd find out what's going on.

retube 9y ago

In some parts of the world a lot of people make do with a spot on the floor. I stayed at a guest house in India recently and the staff all slept on the roof or in the kitchen. Some places in the world are poor. Better that than on the street.