"Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good.” - Oscar Wilde
Just as America has the bizarre situation of healthcare being tied to employment, we may end up in the same situation for education, where becoming an indentured servant for Amazon or Starbucks takes the place of what should be a public education service.
> Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves ... the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good
Exactly, most people don't get this. This is exactly why I am vicious, cruel, and unkind to the employees of my small business - it seems counter intuitive, but I'm actually doing them the least harm this way, and so I'm actually optimizing for their long term happiness. They should be thanking me. /logic
Pretty sure the quote has something to do with the prolongation of the status quo (and therefore holding back improvement) instead of the individual slave-owner being better/worse.
I don't think a poet/playwright would ever roll with "the expected utility is less due to preventing a change to the status quo" instead of the original quote.
I mean it’s cute quip but this isn’t what that quote means and you know that.
[From the perspective of someone trying to abolish slavery] kind slavers are the worst because they make the situation just tolerable enough that people aren’t motivated to change the system.
[From the perspective of an individual slave] kind slavers are the best because they suffer the least.
Kind slavers force a system settle on a local minimum of suffering rather than a global one.
> [From the perspective of someone trying to abolish slavery] kind slavers are the worst because they make the situation just tolerable enough that people aren’t motivated to change the system.
Who says kind slavers weren't also helping to change the system? It's a pretty big assumption that all kind slavers were only being kind to keep their slaves from being uppity. Re: George Washington
> After George and Martha Washington married in 1759, she took many of these people with her to Mount Vernon. As property of the Custis estate, they could not legally be freed or sold, and were inherited by the Custis heirs upon Martha Washington’s death.
In this case, Martha Washington owned the rights to the labor of the people involved until she died, but did not own the people themselves; the Custis estate did.
(Now what she would have done if she did own them outright is a separate issue, of course. Nothing suggests she would have freed them.)
The capital was Philadelphia while Washington was president. Philly had a law that slaves who resided there for a year were freed, so Washington established a rotation system to make sure he had slaves around for help but didn't have to free them.
So to be clear, there were two separate sets of slaves involved:
1) The ones owned by George Washington himself. He did not free these while alive; he did have a will that said that once Martha died they were free. That is, he did not free them until he (1) made use of their labor himself and (2) ensured that what he viewed as his financial obligations to Martha upon his death were satisfied. Obviously this is not a hard-line abolitionist stance, and I do wonder what he would have done if he had living children when he died. As it was, he just had living step-grandchildren (kids of Martha's son from her previous marriage; the son had died earlier and George and Martha had raised his kids).
2) The ones owned by the Custis estate. Those could not be freed unilaterally by either George or Martha. They were inherited by the above-mentioned step-grandchildren when Martha died.
What would happen for people in set 2 if they were in Philadelphia for more than a year is a legal question I don't have an answer for... The most plausible way to reconcile the various legal bits I can think of is that they would be free but then Martha (or George? family property law in 1700s Virginia is not my strong suit) would owe restitution to the Custis estate for the lost value or something like that?
I looked up this law, fwiw: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/pennst01.asp . The actual provision is that non-residents of Pennsylvania could not keep slaves in the state for longer than 6 months. Unless those non-residents were "members of congress, foreign ministers [or] consuls".
The rules were considerably more complicated for Pennsylvania residents; the law basically grandfathered in existing slaves owned by Pennsylvanians and provided for a decades-long slow abolition as the children of existing slaves reached the age of 28.
It's interesting that the law exempted members of congress (and representatives of other countries, possibly for similar reasons) but not the president.
Well, they might still be people in a position to significantly affect the quality of the slave' lives. Which should not be conflated with "slave owner".
I used to say, "It's always darkest before the dawn, so bring on the darkness." My younger self is quite happy with the way things are going, but my present self thinks my younger self is a fool.
That is left-wing accelerationism, not liberal-accelerationism or right-wing accelerationism. Important distinction cause they are completely different.
You didn't understand the argument, it is about the carrot and stick and how the carrot can materialize. The style is a bit offensive to get people to maybe look for the horizon...
I'd argue if you don't have any money left over after paying food and board (and need food stamps), it's functionally the same as indentured servitude. So, not all employment is like this; but only those jobs that do not pay a living wage.
The difference is that you can't decide to fuck off (eg. go backpacking or live with your parents) whenever you feel like it if you're an indentured servant. Furthermore, "food and board" is an imperfect metric, because even though it may seem essential, it has a lot of discretionary components built in. For instance, buying organic or ordering takeout for "food", or getting a luxury condo or a nice school district for "housing". I'm not saying everyone working on amazon living paycheck to paycheck is because they ordered ubereats every night and live in a luxury condo, but it's something to keep in mind when we're narrowing down what exactly "indentured servitude with extra steps" means.
> The difference is that you can't decide to fuck off (eg. go backpacking or live with your parents) whenever you feel like it if you're an indentured servant.
Do you honestly think people willingly work at McJobs that still require them to live on food stamps when they have better options available to them, like living with their parents?!
Amazon's warehouse workers are not buying organic takeout or getting luxury condominiums, they are buying the cheapest (unhealthy) food and living in the cheapest parts of town. What you asking to keep in mind sounds a lot like a rehash of Reagan's incorrect "welfare queen" characterization from the 70's. Or more recently: "Why do poor people need a smartphone for?"
> Do you honestly think people willingly work at McJobs that still require them to live on food stamps when they have better options available to them, like living with their parents?!
Just less than an hour ago I was listening to the radio and they were interviewing someone who literally fits this description: They voluntarily left their parent's house and worked at McDonalds for a bunch of years. Not going to school or anything. Living their own life.
I also personally know someone who did this. Comes from an upper middle class family. Not kicked out of the house or anything. Just didn't like the small town he was in. Moved to another state and worked at McDonald's while doing some art projects when not working.
People do this. All. The. Time.
People here on HN (and especially in the comments for this submission) are showing how way out of touch their world view is from reality. How many of you here even know any Amazon warehouse workers? I know two, and talking to them has impacted my view of Amazon.
Anti-disclaimer: I don't work for Amazon and prefer not to buy from them.
>Do you honestly think people willingly work at McJobs that still require them to live on food stamps when they have better options available to them, like living with their parents?!
Living with their parents is an alternate option, that may or may not be the better option. Maybe it is cheaper and has comparable living standards, but at the same time it might also be in the middle of nowhere. The point is that there's a choice available, which isn't the case for indentured servitude.
>Amazon's warehouse workers are not buying organic takeout or getting luxury condominiums [...]
I specifically said they're not all doing it. I brought that up not to disparage the plight of the average amazon worker, but to point out just factoring in room and board fails to account for certain cases.
Comparing Amazon's fulfillment center's condition to actual slavery on a thread about them offering free tuition to their worker might be the most out of touch HN reply I have seen in a while.
You do understand that these people, regardless of your opinion on how the government should handle education at a state and federal level, will actually benefit from this move? It's not some kind of dystopian agreement, usually the employer pays for your education and you must stay there for ~2 years or reimburse what the employer paid. That's it, you can leave, you can go work anywhere.
> Comparing Amazon's fulfillment center's condition to actual slavery on a thread about them offering free tuition to their worker might be the most out of touch HN reply I have seen in a while.
I understand what you are hinting at, but it's not just the quote, the commenter I replied to wrote:
> we may end up in the same situation for education, where becoming an indentured servant for Amazon or Starbucks takes the place of what should be a public education service.
Where "indentured servitudes" means "a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years". Yes there is a difference with actual slavery, but this is still very much the parallel he was drawing.
Ergo I feel very comfortable saying that this is a very out-of-touch comparison.
You're conflating "being kind" with "empowering" and it causes your point to collapse onto itself like a black hole. An education is a means to escape slavery or indentured servitude, so comparing it to the kindness of some plantation owners is ridiculous.
We already kinda do with the military; no other options for high paying work? Join the military for a few years, let them pay for school if you survive.
But, Oscar Wilde's quote here is partially right at the societal level, and absolutely wrong on the individual level. Both can be true. Amazon isn't to be lauded as a company for something that is, ultimately, a competitive advantage, in a landscape they don't seek to change, but the change itself can be lauded as a good one in that it's something they can control
> ...we may end up in the same situation for education, where becoming an indentured servant for Amazon or Starbucks takes the place of what should be a public education service.
I'm amazed at this criticism. College is and was difficult for many people to handle because it's expensive. It's not lack of will or ability to find time.
I got my bachelor's degree while I was serving in the US Air Force at 40 hours plus per week. Yeah, it was a bit of a grunt. But I got the degree. I'm still grateful for their help in funding tuition as well as the flexibility to attend evening classes. I think most people in that situation would feel the same.
A brilliant and helpful quote. Reminds me of the King quote about white moderates. It's a bit different, but what they have in common is emphasizing that when you "do good" on top of a foundation of fundamental injustice you do the most damage. Because you appeal to the most reachable minds (and therefore the most needed as supporters, the most precious resource) and implore them to support the status quo instead of helping.
Is there any path to a perfect world system within one lifetime? I’d be extremely skeptical. If you agree there isn’t, then no matter what the world looks like during our lifetime, it will be imperfect. It will be the wrong system.
The problem with views like the ones being expressed in this thread is that they suggest at every moment that the thing we need is revolution. That there is no way to advance an imperfect system by doing good. And after any revolution, you’ll still be left with an imperfect foundation, so you’re still forbidden from doing good, and you need another revolution.
It is insightful, pointing out where good intentions cause an imperfect status quo to perpetuate longer than it otherwise would. But the status quo will always be imperfect, so we must find ways of advancing it that don’t force everyone through a lower point in order to reach the next maxima (which is sorta what you do when you encourage all those with good intentions to stand down).
Not that I’m saying all revolutions past weren’t valid. When you lose the freedom of movement that allows people to seek out higher maxima, then the only way forward actually is revolution.
Society could look for ways to fund education, as it is quite a sensible investment into the future. This isn't utopia or a perfect world, this is reality in a lot of places.
Countries that have implemented free public education still have contacts to the industry of course and their involvement is under scrutiny for several reasons.
I don't believe you need a revolution, you just need better policy makers. I understand why that feels impossible for many.
Do good on top a foundation of fundamental injustice? I'm sorry, do you have any other foundations laying around? I surveyed 5000 years of written history and couldn't find any.
You're wasting both my time and yours interpreting my comments in some of the most foaming-at-the-mouth bad faith I've ever encountered on hacker news. King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail really was critical of white moderates for reasons I described, despite your furious protestations to the contrary.
But encouraging workers to pursue education, may potentially free them from servitude, to Amazon at least. If you want a company to reform itself you need to stand ready to praise the steps they take toward reform.
I agree that this is setting a precedent for perverse incentives to manifest, but I don't see how Amazon is to blame here. The government is failing to provide higher education to those who can benefit from it. Given this void, the free market inevitably would come with a solution of its own, even if it's suboptimal.
Exactly the comment I was thinking about. The price of education in the US is quite high and with programs like this you cement this circumstance while penalizing everyone not working for Amazon since universities will ensure the educational product you receive aligns with requirements of Amazon and form students in accordance to that.
This is just capturing the offspring, not too different from other strategies to get control of the market.
> becoming an indentured servant for Amazon or Starbucks takes the place of what should be a public education service.
We already have a public education system, and any employee working at Amazon or Starbucks for minimum wage should qualify for Pell Grants that would make community college free anyways.
I love Oscar Wilde to bits and regard him as one of the wittiest writers to live, but he was more of a satirist than political commentator, and at any rate, that quote is utter bollocks.
Precisely. This fukuyama dream of corporate liberalism paints exactly such a picture:
that the tax evading Monopoly which has subsumed a significant portion of US capital (stripped from the common man) can be seen as beneficent for merely satisfying their own need for skilled labor in an economic context they helped foment wherein education has been made unreachable by normal means.
Just as America has the bizarre situation of healthcare being tied to employment, we may end up in the same situation for education, where becoming an indentured servant for Amazon or Starbucks takes the place of what should be a public education service.