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Comment by Helianthus16 | Hacker News Reader

I hope he was talking about something a little more subtle, like the fact that we have so many Hispanic people here without citizenship and have therefore created a sort of lower subservient class. But probably not, slavery's a bit too strong a term unless there's a somewhat-mitigating "wage" in front of it.

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Actually I was thinking about both situations. Others as well but the sex slave trafficking and migrant slavery are two of them.

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/mar/03/farmworker-slaver... and http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/columns/modern-day-slavery-m... are some articles about recent situations in Florida.

There's also domestic servant slavery and even factory worker slavery, such as the slaves that are imported to US Territory Saipan to work in Chinese owned garment factories. (http://articles.sfgate.com/1999-01-22/news/17677080_1_garmen...) Workers there are raped by managers, kept in guarded chained enclosures, and have to undergo forced abortions when they get pregnant from the rapes.

There's also legal slavery, such as prison labor, which is explicitly permitted under the Constitution, although many legal experts believe that it actually has to be part of the sentence as punishment for the crime, and not just something that applies to all prisoners without a judge's approval during sentencing. To simplify things we'll skip those as being "OK" slavery since some believe there is legal justification for it even when not part of sentencing. Don't want to confuse the issue.

By slavery we mean you are not free to leave and you are not paid wages for your work. Many workers in the US are even shackled up and beaten.

Gosh look I even just now found a new book on Modern American Slavery.

http://www.amazon.com/Nobodies-Modern-American-Global-Econom...

Of course there was also slavery of black people in the US that lasted until the 1940s. Oh, didn't know about that? http://www.slaverybyanothername.com/

Most people prefer not to know why the goods and food they buy are so cheap.

It is possible to link all of these happenings by the single term "slavery" but that does not make it prudent for the course of communication. In your original post you elucidated images of chattel slavery, the actual written right to own another person within the law, which does not exist in the United States. In practice there are other forms of slavery, of course, as you demonstrate, some more subtle and some less.

But don't fall into the trap of over-applying the label, particularly one as loaded (in the US) as slavery.

Also, your smugness is... well, smug. Yes. Yes I did know about that. Stick to the information and cut out the assumption that you're delivering a revelation, because you're not.

However, I appreciate your bitterness and rage towards the unfairness of the world.

Huh, what's that word where someone describes themselves and applies it to others? Like a smug person calling another person smug? Oh yeah, projection, it's called projection.

Lots of real modern slavery in the US and elsewhere regardless of your personal opinions about it.

Yeah, I'm perfectly willing to admit I was being smug, though I might prefer the term coldly critical or openly irritated. Your deflection of my criticism does not address my criticism, it merely weakly attempts to declare it unimportant. "You're smug too!"

Additionally you have failed to address anything about my point concerning precision of definition, except perhaps _very_ obliquely by using the phrase "real modern slavery" to deselect chattel slavery.

I do not question that some (many) form(s) of slavery exist(s). I was the one that suggested a form of slavery you might have meant.

When your terms are overbroad, you fail to communicate (as has happened in this topic). Clarity is your responsibility as a writer.

The selection of chattel is your own arbitrary distinction. Being held against one's will, forced to labor, and not paid, is slavery.

Is your concern that slaves are not being bought and sold as property? Well they are bought and sold in many of these cases. Not all of them are, but not all slaves in plantation days were bought and sold either. You're trying to claim that slavery doesn't exist because you want to make it be only something exactly the same as plantation era slavery, which is an absurd claim for which there is no justification.

It is arbitrary but so far as it is my own, it is also most people's, tying into my point about clarity of definition. Chattel slavery means the public acceptance of slavery--slave markets, the fugitive slave act. Chattel is a legal term connoting legal approval of slavery.

It is also what people think of first when someone starts talking about slavery. Alongside chattel slavery was indentured servitude, which might well fall into your definition of slavery.

>You're trying to claim that slavery doesn't exist because you want to make it be only something exactly the same as plantation era slavery

No, I am not. I am asking you to be more precise in your language, because typing off a one-line post about non-hypothetical slavery was confusing. Notice how more people upvoted you when you were expanded the precision of what you meant by slavery?

Perhaps in your imagination. Speaking of clarity, I hope you will come to some clarity in your mind that you are the only person here trying to insert these qualifiers into this discussion.

there are two of us here, though this will be my last post. I already inserted the qualifier into the discussion, way back in response to Charuru. I clarified your point. Karma's not important, but it does demonstrate how many people resonated with concepts; and as I already said, the flow of karma demonstrates that when you actually communicated, people agreed with you more.

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