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An excellent case study of what can happen when an engineer's ethical framework amounts to: "does it work?", given the cotton gin's impact on slavery. To think,

An excellent case study of what can happen when an engineer's ethical framework amounts to: "does it work?", given the cotton gin's impact on slavery. To think, if only it was invented after the civil war.

March_f6 7y ago
Interesting to be down-voted for this comment.
- March_f6 7y ago
  Keep em coming.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - March_f6 7y ago
    Take me to zero and beyond. Only affirms what a trolling echo chamber any forum can become when a thought is proposed that seems to challenge members of the community (even if only slightly). The number of downvotes is more than the number of actual responses to my post which is what I'm basing this off of. I get it, the down vote is easier and intellectually lazier by comparison.
    - Jedd 7y ago
      > Take me to zero and beyond. Only affirms what a trolling echo chamber any forum can become when a thought is proposed that seems to challenge members of the community (even if only slightly). The number of downvotes is more than the number of actual responses to my post which is what I'm basing this off of. I get it, the down vote is easier and intellectually lazier by comparison. In case it's of interest, my take is that half your comments in this thread are complaints about how the other half of your comments are being treated. It's not clear what kind of response you would expect on HN from a comment 'Keep em coming' -- it's not conducive to constructive discussion, and consequently it's unsurprising you're downvoted without comment. Comments complaining about voting are also typically downvoted (refer the HN guidelines), so again you shouldn't be surprised that those have a high (down)vote to comment ratio.
      - March_f6 7y ago
        Thanks Jedd, this is all super enlightening!
- petermcneeley 7y ago
  I dont blame James Watt for the exploitation during the Industrial revolution.
  - March_f6 7y ago
    Deciding if you're a part of the problem or part of the solution can be done without thinking about blame in any sort of absolute terms. Also, the steam engine and cotton gin are two completely different inventions.
- horomeme 7y ago
  Honestly Kark Marx himself would downvote that comment.
- tlb 7y ago
  You might get a better response by saying something constructive, such as how Whitney could have predicted its effect on society given what was known at the time. Because it’s easy to want to have an ethical framework that results in good outcomes for everyone, but predicting outcomes is very hard.
  - March_f6 7y ago
    Predicting outcomes is one thing. Putting the two questions: "Should I do something?" and "Can I do something?" on equal footing is another. Maybe don't conflate wishful thinking and foresight. And as far as the statement of a fact being constructive or nonconstructive, maybe don't conflate those things either.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bjornlouser 7y ago
from https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent: "... In 1798 he figured out how to manufacture muskets by machine so that the parts were interchangeable. It was as a manufacturer of muskets that Whitney finally became rich. If his genius led King Cotton to triumph in the South, it also created the technology with which the North won the Civil War."
- March_f6 7y ago
  That's one take, sure. But the original point I was making was what if southern farmers had failed to make a large profit off of slave labor in the first place (with the help of the cotton gin), then maybe they wouldn't have been so attached to the idea of slavery to begin with and the civil war would have been radically different or entirely averted.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    The cotton gin was invented in the 1790s. African slaves were used to work the American south for hundreds of years before that.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      Depending on what you want to define as the start of slavery, slavery started in the US south between about 1650 and 1700--at best 150 years, and maybe not even 100 years. The entire institution of slavery in the US lasted only 200 years.

March_f6 7y ago

Interesting to be down-voted for this comment.

March_f6 7y ago
Keep em coming.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- March_f6 7y ago
  Take me to zero and beyond. Only affirms what a trolling echo chamber any forum can become when a thought is proposed that seems to challenge members of the community (even if only slightly). The number of downvotes is more than the number of actual responses to my post which is what I'm basing this off of. I get it, the down vote is easier and intellectually lazier by comparison.
  - Jedd 7y ago
    > Take me to zero and beyond. Only affirms what a trolling echo chamber any forum can become when a thought is proposed that seems to challenge members of the community (even if only slightly). The number of downvotes is more than the number of actual responses to my post which is what I'm basing this off of. I get it, the down vote is easier and intellectually lazier by comparison. In case it's of interest, my take is that half your comments in this thread are complaints about how the other half of your comments are being treated. It's not clear what kind of response you would expect on HN from a comment 'Keep em coming' -- it's not conducive to constructive discussion, and consequently it's unsurprising you're downvoted without comment. Comments complaining about voting are also typically downvoted (refer the HN guidelines), so again you shouldn't be surprised that those have a high (down)vote to comment ratio.
    - March_f6 7y ago
      Thanks Jedd, this is all super enlightening!
petermcneeley 7y ago
I dont blame James Watt for the exploitation during the Industrial revolution.
- March_f6 7y ago
  Deciding if you're a part of the problem or part of the solution can be done without thinking about blame in any sort of absolute terms. Also, the steam engine and cotton gin are two completely different inventions.
horomeme 7y ago
Honestly Kark Marx himself would downvote that comment.
tlb 7y ago
You might get a better response by saying something constructive, such as how Whitney could have predicted its effect on society given what was known at the time. Because it’s easy to want to have an ethical framework that results in good outcomes for everyone, but predicting outcomes is very hard.
- March_f6 7y ago
  Predicting outcomes is one thing. Putting the two questions: "Should I do something?" and "Can I do something?" on equal footing is another. Maybe don't conflate wishful thinking and foresight. And as far as the statement of a fact being constructive or nonconstructive, maybe don't conflate those things either.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

bjornlouser 7y ago

from https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/cotton-gin-patent: "... In 1798 he figured out how to manufacture muskets by machine so that the parts were interchangeable. It was as a manufacturer of muskets that Whitney finally became rich. If his genius led King Cotton to triumph in the South, it also created the technology with which the North won the Civil War."

March_f6 7y ago
That's one take, sure. But the original point I was making was what if southern farmers had failed to make a large profit off of slave labor in the first place (with the help of the cotton gin), then maybe they wouldn't have been so attached to the idea of slavery to begin with and the civil war would have been radically different or entirely averted.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  The cotton gin was invented in the 1790s. African slaves were used to work the American south for hundreds of years before that.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    Depending on what you want to define as the start of slavery, slavery started in the US south between about 1650 and 1700--at best 150 years, and maybe not even 100 years. The entire institution of slavery in the US lasted only 200 years.