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Comment by erichocean | Hacker News Reader

> If you have no choice but to work or be discarded, then, when the value you can provide via work is less than that required to maintain your life, you have no choice but to attempt to indenture yourself. And failing that, you're truly, completely fucked.

Work or be discarded? Really? Most people have, you know, other people in their lives. Hell, 20% of the country at any given time is children, and they don't work at all. Somehow, miraculously, they aren't just discarded.

The same is true with old people (i.e. parents). This world you imagine is a complete fantasy, and has never, ever, anywhere been the case.

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Are you aware of the history of the U.S. before 1865?

Please don't post nasty sarcasm to Hacker News, either in the form of a question or in any other form.

I don't mean to pick on you personally. This is a community ailment.

Sure, under tyranny, all sorts of evil shit are possible. The parent is explicitly non talking about slavery, or situations like indentured service where you start there. I thought that was obvious.

The parent was talking about situations where you work in a free-ish market for a period of time, then can't work (for whatever reason) and then posits that these people will be discarded—as if that's the only option, or even, the most reasonable or likely option. It isn't.

I can't think of a single culture that fits the OPs premise and description of what happens to people that can't work. Can you?

Are you aware of the history of the US after 1868? Ever wanted to understand why the first section of the fourteenth amendment says "Subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States?

Subject, in this case, means subordinate. The newly-minted dual citizens (of federal and state citizenship) of 1868 and beyond are no longer "the people" that the government serves. They are the subordinates (slaves) of an authority no longer accountable to "The People", as there are technically none left post-1868.

If you think I'm exaggerating, I invite you to read SCOTUSblog sometime, and you'll eventually find someone (often a SCOTUS justice) mentioning how the first ten amendments of the bill of rights have now been "filtered" through the fourteenth, to see what stands and what doesn't. The only one yet to be filtered through the fourteenth is the third amendment (quartering troops). Thanks to DC V. Heller, the only one to escape unscathed is the second.

here's[1] a list of interesting cases directly affected by the 14th amendment.

[1] http://americanhistory.about.com/od/supremecourtcases/tp/Key...

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