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It both stupid and offensive to compare student debt to slavery. > Some would probably even prefer being beaten once in a while, than to have no hope of ever g

It both stupid and offensive to compare student debt to slavery. > Some would probably even prefer being beaten once in a while, than to have no hope of ever getting free of the debt after a decade of trying. You are missing that slavery means your owner can beat you up and rape you as much as they want and you still have no hope of getting free.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
The world back then was very physically violent to the underclasses. I would argue our world is very mentally violent to our underclasses.
- bazoom42 2y ago
  Slavery is physically and mentally violent. Imagine your owner can do literally anything they want with not just you but also your spouse and kids, including selling them off at any time.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - pyrale 2y ago
      > True, but I think it’s possibly exaggerated (if that were possible). There are documented examples, if you care to educate yourself.
    - giraffe_lady 2y ago
      Holy shit are you serious.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - rangerelf 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - argiopetech 2y ago
        [flagged]
        bazoom42 2y ago
        There are plenty of first-hand testimonies of slaves available. For example Frederick Douglas: > The wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, living but a short distance from where I used to live, murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward.
        argiopetech 2y ago
        I am, perhaps, missing the parent's argument, but GP (to my previous comment) seems to cover this case. In that framing, either the wife or Mr. Giles Hicks was well off and could murder a slave with financial and legal (given lax enforcement of slave codes, if even applicable) impunity, or it was a significant financial loss for her to have done so. I don't think GP ever argued that murder of slaves didn't happen, just that its occurrence was likely rare due in part to the financial incentives involved.
        bazoom42 2y ago
        Maybe I should ask you for evidence then? I have provided a source, as requested, which shows first hand that horrible mistreatment was widespread. You counter seem to be…your own gut feeling? You may not know it, but you and GP are parroting a common slavery-apologist myth that slaves were treated well becuse they were expensive. This a blantantly contradicted by first hand accounts by former slaves and by mortality statistics.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - deleted 2y ago
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    - Wytwwww 2y ago
      > Slaves were generally expensive That varied extremely relative to time and place but yeah there was a pretty clear prelateship between that and how they were treated (e.g. Ancient Romans treated as slaves as entirely disposable during the Republican period but began introducing various laws protecting their rights etc. when the supply dried out by the 100s AD). Also you're disregarding the massive societal disruption and loss of life the slave raids themselves had (historically slave populations were almost always non-self sustaining, besides a few exceptions like the Antebellum US). Victims of the Atlantic, Islamic, Mediterranean, East European etc. had a 15-50% chance of dying before ever reaching their final destination), at the start of the "logistics chain" their lives were almost entirely worthless. > most slaves, it was farm labor. In which case, there would absolutely be a few horrible traumatic events I would suggest you read about slavery in Haiti and other Caribbean colonies. The life expectancy for newly arrived slave might have been as low as 4-5 years (they were basically disposable "tools" since the prices of new slaves were quite low). And this wasn't really that exceptional (about 2x more slaves were imported to Haiti alone than to British North America/US). > I am daring to suggest that life for the lowest classes > right now isn't as much of an improvement as we would like to believe. That's extremely delusional.
hydrogen7800 2y ago
Not to mention the hereditary nature of American slavery that ensured your grandchildren would be slaves the moment you were even born, and the erasure of your history and culture to further untether you from anything but the utility of your labor.
- busterarm 2y ago
  There's nothing uniquely American about that. Chattel slavery in Africa goes back uninterrupted to ancient Egyptian times. Heck, if you just want to look at the Atlantic slave trade, the United States was _second to last_ among nations in terms of trade volume.
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    North America was at the end of the logistics chain which resulted in higher prices, though. Also Native American slavery in the 1600s and 1700s was pretty huge (relative to the size of European populations) so there wasn't as much demand for African slaves until that "source" was depleted. e.g. most of Carolinas and the area between Spanish Florida and English colonies up the coast was almost entirely depopulated largely due to slave raids (and at least by then the Spanish and English had a very different attitude towards enslaving natives so British-American colonies were somewhat unique in that respect). And this extended to the North as well. Supposedly the proportion of households that owned Native American slaves in Rhode Island in the early 1700s was comparable to that in Virginia in the 1860s (of the average number of slaves per household was probably much lower)

gjsman-1000 2y ago

The world back then was very physically violent to the underclasses. I would argue our world is very mentally violent to our underclasses.

bazoom42 2y ago
Slavery is physically and mentally violent. Imagine your owner can do literally anything they want with not just you but also your spouse and kids, including selling them off at any time.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - pyrale 2y ago
    > True, but I think it’s possibly exaggerated (if that were possible). There are documented examples, if you care to educate yourself.
  - giraffe_lady 2y ago
    Holy shit are you serious.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - rangerelf 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - argiopetech 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - bazoom42 2y ago
        There are plenty of first-hand testimonies of slaves available. For example Frederick Douglas: > The wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, living but a short distance from where I used to live, murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward.
        argiopetech 2y ago
        I am, perhaps, missing the parent's argument, but GP (to my previous comment) seems to cover this case. In that framing, either the wife or Mr. Giles Hicks was well off and could murder a slave with financial and legal (given lax enforcement of slave codes, if even applicable) impunity, or it was a significant financial loss for her to have done so. I don't think GP ever argued that murder of slaves didn't happen, just that its occurrence was likely rare due in part to the financial incentives involved.
        bazoom42 2y ago
        Maybe I should ask you for evidence then? I have provided a source, as requested, which shows first hand that horrible mistreatment was widespread. You counter seem to be…your own gut feeling? You may not know it, but you and GP are parroting a common slavery-apologist myth that slaves were treated well becuse they were expensive. This a blantantly contradicted by first hand accounts by former slaves and by mortality statistics.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - Wytwwww 2y ago
    > Slaves were generally expensive That varied extremely relative to time and place but yeah there was a pretty clear prelateship between that and how they were treated (e.g. Ancient Romans treated as slaves as entirely disposable during the Republican period but began introducing various laws protecting their rights etc. when the supply dried out by the 100s AD). Also you're disregarding the massive societal disruption and loss of life the slave raids themselves had (historically slave populations were almost always non-self sustaining, besides a few exceptions like the Antebellum US). Victims of the Atlantic, Islamic, Mediterranean, East European etc. had a 15-50% chance of dying before ever reaching their final destination), at the start of the "logistics chain" their lives were almost entirely worthless. > most slaves, it was farm labor. In which case, there would absolutely be a few horrible traumatic events I would suggest you read about slavery in Haiti and other Caribbean colonies. The life expectancy for newly arrived slave might have been as low as 4-5 years (they were basically disposable "tools" since the prices of new slaves were quite low). And this wasn't really that exceptional (about 2x more slaves were imported to Haiti alone than to British North America/US). > I am daring to suggest that life for the lowest classes > right now isn't as much of an improvement as we would like to believe. That's extremely delusional.

hydrogen7800 2y ago

Not to mention the hereditary nature of American slavery that ensured your grandchildren would be slaves the moment you were even born, and the erasure of your history and culture to further untether you from anything but the utility of your labor.

busterarm 2y ago
There's nothing uniquely American about that. Chattel slavery in Africa goes back uninterrupted to ancient Egyptian times. Heck, if you just want to look at the Atlantic slave trade, the United States was _second to last_ among nations in terms of trade volume.
- Wytwwww 2y ago
  North America was at the end of the logistics chain which resulted in higher prices, though. Also Native American slavery in the 1600s and 1700s was pretty huge (relative to the size of European populations) so there wasn't as much demand for African slaves until that "source" was depleted. e.g. most of Carolinas and the area between Spanish Florida and English colonies up the coast was almost entirely depopulated largely due to slave raids (and at least by then the Spanish and English had a very different attitude towards enslaving natives so British-American colonies were somewhat unique in that respect). And this extended to the North as well. Supposedly the proportion of households that owned Native American slaves in Rhode Island in the early 1700s was comparable to that in Virginia in the 1860s (of the average number of slaves per household was probably much lower)