The elaborate set-up of a scam HQ, staffed by people forced to scam(channelnewsasia.com)
channelnewsasia.com
The elaborate set-up of a scam HQ, staffed by people forced to scam
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cna-insider/inside-elaborate-set-scam-hq-staffed-people-forced-scam-3018966
173 comments
Reports like these make me so jaded and cynical about technology and all the supposed ills it cures. So much money goes into solving non-problems like 15-minute delivery or cryptocurrencies when such a huge swathe of the world still struggles with energy, security, and access to basic dignity.
It’s alright to work on things that don’t solve humanity’s problems.
But what’s so horrible in today’s tech is that a lot of people working on things like 15-minute delivery and cryptocurrencies pretend that they’re solving fundamental problems, improving the world, and rescuing third world people from poverty. Both gig apps and crypto are very much guilty of such overblown rhetoric.
But what’s so horrible in today’s tech is that a lot of people working on things like 15-minute delivery and cryptocurrencies pretend that they’re solving fundamental problems, improving the world, and rescuing third world people from poverty. Both gig apps and crypto are very much guilty of such overblown rhetoric.
It might be alright to work on things that don't solve humanity's problems, if they still give someone some joy or make something better or easier for someone.
But a lot of people spend a lot of time working on things that make things worse for a lot of people in order to enrich a few people, and I think maybe that's not okay.
But a lot of people spend a lot of time working on things that make things worse for a lot of people in order to enrich a few people, and I think maybe that's not okay.
If not wanting to harm others, AND wanting to help others were core beliefs held by everyone, I think quite soon we would have nothing to worry about.
A big chunk (most?) of the evil in the world is done by people convinced that they know what's best for everyone else, and so are justified in forcing it on them.
> A big chunk (most?) of the evil in the world is done by people convinced that they know what's best for everyone else
Not only do I think that's a small part of the harm done in the world, and that the vast majority of the harm done in the world is done through simple selfishness (with possibly overwrought moralistic rationalizations), but also that it's important to make the distinction that this is the source of none of the evil.
Evil can't include people trying to be kind badly, or else it's just become a general euphemism to give every petty grievance one has a grand, millennialist, Manichean cast. Or to be realistic, it's usually just warmed over early-mid 20c anti-New Dealer, anticommunist bullshit.
Not only do I think that's a small part of the harm done in the world, and that the vast majority of the harm done in the world is done through simple selfishness (with possibly overwrought moralistic rationalizations), but also that it's important to make the distinction that this is the source of none of the evil.
Evil can't include people trying to be kind badly, or else it's just become a general euphemism to give every petty grievance one has a grand, millennialist, Manichean cast. Or to be realistic, it's usually just warmed over early-mid 20c anti-New Dealer, anticommunist bullshit.
Consider the harm wrought by organized religions in the sincere belief that they were "saving" others.
> Evil can't include people trying to be kind badly
Oh, yes it can, and often is. I just gave you an example. How about another one? Trying to cure people of homosexuality.
> anticommunist bullshit
Communism has wrought more evil than about any other ideology. All with good intentions, of course.
> Evil can't include people trying to be kind badly
Oh, yes it can, and often is. I just gave you an example. How about another one? Trying to cure people of homosexuality.
> anticommunist bullshit
Communism has wrought more evil than about any other ideology. All with good intentions, of course.
I'm currently considering the Pentecostal church which sent missionaries to Congo to build hospitals and teach/train doctors, for instance dr. Denis Mukwege[1], who was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize for his work helping and saving thousands of women who have been raped. The reason these women were raped is not religion, it's technology (the war is about valuable land with rare earth minerals).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Mukwege
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Mukwege
The intense poverty and destitution and hopelessness in the inner cities suggests Americanism (America's brand of capitalism) isn't without it's own flaws though, so there's something to be learned from the communists
Something like 90% of it is drug addiction.
The communists simply made everyone poor and hopeless.
The communists simply made everyone poor and hopeless.
Corporate tax accountants should really be walking around in supervillain costumes, while janitors and sewer workers wear red and gold capes.
On the scale of banal evil, corporate tax accountants are a lot lower than the people directing them to do what they're doing. The benefits of Fancy Tax Practices are not accruing the people enacting them.
Hard agree on the second clause, though.
Hard agree on the second clause, though.
The benefits not accruing to them doesn't make them less evil, it merely means they're willing to do great evil for even less personal benefit.
And where do you work? Who's used your stuff to be an antisocial jerk? How's the beam in your eye?
Like, I generally pride myself on never having worked for any company I wouldn't admit to working for later, but even some of those are kinda bad. (I contracted at a daily fantasy sports company for a while, and I'm not proud of that.) The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
Like, I generally pride myself on never having worked for any company I wouldn't admit to working for later, but even some of those are kinda bad. (I contracted at a daily fantasy sports company for a while, and I'm not proud of that.) The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
Tu quoque is not a rebuttal.
In any case, I work at a small (< 100) company, with very selective clientele. I am unwilling to disclose exactly who. I have explicitly resisted recruiters from FAANG (well, neither Netflix nor Apple) because of the immoral work I would expect I would be doing, at a significant salary penalty.
Both accountants and programmers have immense freedom to make a decent living, while using their expertise, even while choosing to avoid ethically questionable roles and activities. At some point, yes, economic coercion is unavoidable. That's understandable for someone whose realistic prospects are $50k or nothing. $200k or $150k is a very different matter.
In any case, I work at a small (< 100) company, with very selective clientele. I am unwilling to disclose exactly who. I have explicitly resisted recruiters from FAANG (well, neither Netflix nor Apple) because of the immoral work I would expect I would be doing, at a significant salary penalty.
Both accountants and programmers have immense freedom to make a decent living, while using their expertise, even while choosing to avoid ethically questionable roles and activities. At some point, yes, economic coercion is unavoidable. That's understandable for someone whose realistic prospects are $50k or nothing. $200k or $150k is a very different matter.
> > "they're willing to do great evil for even less personal benefit."
> " And where do you work?"
This is not an appropriate response.
> The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
Some jobs are much, much worse than others. Finding corporate tax loopholes is hugely evil, if hugely banal. That those people do it for a *relatively* meager salary does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it's evil.
It is wildly destructive to society to spend all day working to funnel money from social services to the yachting class. While it's very weird that they aren't seen as the hugely banal, hugely evil jobs that they are, once it's pointed out you might start thinking about it more.
> " And where do you work?"
This is not an appropriate response.
> The recognition that labor is frequently if not generally in a compromised position is kind of the point when people are talking about "unrestrained late capitalism".
Some jobs are much, much worse than others. Finding corporate tax loopholes is hugely evil, if hugely banal. That those people do it for a *relatively* meager salary does absolutely nothing to change the fact that it's evil.
It is wildly destructive to society to spend all day working to funnel money from social services to the yachting class. While it's very weird that they aren't seen as the hugely banal, hugely evil jobs that they are, once it's pointed out you might start thinking about it more.
> It is wildly destructive to society to spend all day working to funnel money from social services to the yachting class.
I don't see how this is relevant, given that it's not what corporate tax accountants do? All they're doing is figuring out how to use the tax system designed by the government to minimize the amount of money going to the government.
The government does not, as a matter of fact, spend all of its money on social services - vast amounts go to administration, national defense, social security (which is supposed to be self-sustaining), and other things, so this entire line of argument is invalid.
Moreover, the very fact that there are exceptions intentionally added to the tax code means that they're explicitly meant to be used, and therefore that using them is not evil.
Meanwhile, the fact that there are enough exceptions in the tax code and therefore less wealthy individuals and smaller businesses without the resources to make use of them are disproportionately disadvantaged is bad, and solely the fault of those who wrote the code in the first place.
You have a problem with the corporate tax rate and want it to be higher? Sure, that's valid. But randomly, axiomatically claiming that some people using the system the way it was designed are evil because they make too much money? Invalid.
I don't see how this is relevant, given that it's not what corporate tax accountants do? All they're doing is figuring out how to use the tax system designed by the government to minimize the amount of money going to the government.
The government does not, as a matter of fact, spend all of its money on social services - vast amounts go to administration, national defense, social security (which is supposed to be self-sustaining), and other things, so this entire line of argument is invalid.
Moreover, the very fact that there are exceptions intentionally added to the tax code means that they're explicitly meant to be used, and therefore that using them is not evil.
Meanwhile, the fact that there are enough exceptions in the tax code and therefore less wealthy individuals and smaller businesses without the resources to make use of them are disproportionately disadvantaged is bad, and solely the fault of those who wrote the code in the first place.
You have a problem with the corporate tax rate and want it to be higher? Sure, that's valid. But randomly, axiomatically claiming that some people using the system the way it was designed are evil because they make too much money? Invalid.
By your logic, if a law makes torturing people legal, then the people who make it possible to do so - the psychologists advising, the guards, etc - are "valid" and not evil whatsoever. Only the law writer is at fault in your view.
While the US government may agree with you on that - other than the part where the law writer is at fault whatsoever - it's still very, very fucking evil to torture people. As is playing an essential part in the theft (morally and in reality, if not legally) of hundreds of billions of taxes.
Once again - legality is not morality. People seem confused on that point often, and it's very weird.
While the US government may agree with you on that - other than the part where the law writer is at fault whatsoever - it's still very, very fucking evil to torture people. As is playing an essential part in the theft (morally and in reality, if not legally) of hundreds of billions of taxes.
Once again - legality is not morality. People seem confused on that point often, and it's very weird.
I'm reading my comment and I can't see where I said that legality implies morality. Where did I state that?
If you're talking about "Moreover, the very fact that there are exceptions intentionally added to the tax code means that they're explicitly meant to be used, and therefore that using them is not evil." - that's because the government is the writer, enforcer, and beneficiary of tax code - they have completely control over it, unlike someone who being tortured, who is none of those things. Completely different scenarios.
> As is playing an essential part in the theft (morally and in reality, if not legally) of hundreds of billions of taxes.
This is literally factually incorrect. There's no "theft" here - the government wrote the law to explicitly include these exception that corporate tax lawyers are using. "Theft" is taking something that doesn't belong to you. Taxes are the government asserting that some of the money that you earn belongs to them. When the government writes an exception into the tax code, that's them asserting that they do not own the money covered by that exception, and therefore it is not theft by definition.
You haven't even provided a single justification for your baseless assertion that this is "evil" - just a lot of misdirection and emotionally manipulative statements like "People seem confused on that point often, and it's very weird."
If you're talking about "Moreover, the very fact that there are exceptions intentionally added to the tax code means that they're explicitly meant to be used, and therefore that using them is not evil." - that's because the government is the writer, enforcer, and beneficiary of tax code - they have completely control over it, unlike someone who being tortured, who is none of those things. Completely different scenarios.
> As is playing an essential part in the theft (morally and in reality, if not legally) of hundreds of billions of taxes.
This is literally factually incorrect. There's no "theft" here - the government wrote the law to explicitly include these exception that corporate tax lawyers are using. "Theft" is taking something that doesn't belong to you. Taxes are the government asserting that some of the money that you earn belongs to them. When the government writes an exception into the tax code, that's them asserting that they do not own the money covered by that exception, and therefore it is not theft by definition.
You haven't even provided a single justification for your baseless assertion that this is "evil" - just a lot of misdirection and emotionally manipulative statements like "People seem confused on that point often, and it's very weird."
What if I told you the villains are the ones writing the insanely complex tax codes with endless exclusions, not the ones using them?
Why is it ok for me to write off some tax breaks the government gave me, but the corporate tax lawyer is evil?
Why is it ok for me to write off some tax breaks the government gave me, but the corporate tax lawyer is evil?
> What if I told you the villains are the ones writing the insanely complex tax codes with endless exclusions, not the ones using them?
How do you figure? Every dollar a corporate tax accountant saves Walmart gets redirected from food stamps and building public transport to the yacht class.
> Why is it ok for me to write off some tax breaks the government gave me, but the corporate tax lawyer is evil?
Scale and intent.
How do you figure? Every dollar a corporate tax accountant saves Walmart gets redirected from food stamps and building public transport to the yacht class.
> Why is it ok for me to write off some tax breaks the government gave me, but the corporate tax lawyer is evil?
Scale and intent.
> How do you figure? Every dollar a corporate tax accountant saves Walmart gets redirected from food stamps and building public transport to the yacht class.
This is a non-argument. You can use the exact same emotional pleading to claim that its not ethical for corporations to do anything except donate all of their profit to the government (by overpaying their taxes) because every dollar is going to "food stamps and public transport" instead of "the yacht class".
> Scale and intent.
Whether something is evil or not is scale-invariant, so that doesn't matter, and there's no difference in intent between an individual trying to reduce their taxes and a corporation - the intent for both is "give the government less money".
Unless you have actually logical arguments against it, I think that the GP was pretty clearly correct in claiming that the root cause is overly complicated tax codes. US tax rates are set by the government ostensibly acting on behalf of its citizens and setting a fair tax rate. Companies and individuals are not only allowed but expected to take advantage of clauses that work in their favor (assuming that they're not behaving dishonestly to do so) - otherwise there would be literally no reason for those clauses to exist in the first place (it's obviously insane to add a tax clause to give tax breaks to college students and then condemn/prosecute them when they try to use it), so it's pretty clearly not wrong to do so.
Given that it's not wrong to (honestly) minimize your taxes, and the fact that complicated tax codes give a unique advantage to those able to spend lots of time and money on them (the wealthy and large corporations), you'd have to be crazy to think that it's not the fault of the authors.
(not to mention that complicated tax codes reduce government transparency, which is, uh, a bad thing)
This is a non-argument. You can use the exact same emotional pleading to claim that its not ethical for corporations to do anything except donate all of their profit to the government (by overpaying their taxes) because every dollar is going to "food stamps and public transport" instead of "the yacht class".
> Scale and intent.
Whether something is evil or not is scale-invariant, so that doesn't matter, and there's no difference in intent between an individual trying to reduce their taxes and a corporation - the intent for both is "give the government less money".
Unless you have actually logical arguments against it, I think that the GP was pretty clearly correct in claiming that the root cause is overly complicated tax codes. US tax rates are set by the government ostensibly acting on behalf of its citizens and setting a fair tax rate. Companies and individuals are not only allowed but expected to take advantage of clauses that work in their favor (assuming that they're not behaving dishonestly to do so) - otherwise there would be literally no reason for those clauses to exist in the first place (it's obviously insane to add a tax clause to give tax breaks to college students and then condemn/prosecute them when they try to use it), so it's pretty clearly not wrong to do so.
Given that it's not wrong to (honestly) minimize your taxes, and the fact that complicated tax codes give a unique advantage to those able to spend lots of time and money on them (the wealthy and large corporations), you'd have to be crazy to think that it's not the fault of the authors.
(not to mention that complicated tax codes reduce government transparency, which is, uh, a bad thing)
Btw, I actually do not believe that the majority of governments are evil in intent on tax law. I keep seeing instances where their intentions are clearly "good" but nobody seems to appreciate the true cost of complexity.
The metaphor for me is that you have a code base with 1000 contributors, minimal pr reviews, no integration testing at all, and lots of global state. It is spaghetti and nobody is incentivised to simplify it
The metaphor for me is that you have a code base with 1000 contributors, minimal pr reviews, no integration testing at all, and lots of global state. It is spaghetti and nobody is incentivised to simplify it
Yeah, I don't really think that most of them are "evil" either - perhaps "careless in a way that harms people" - I'm just arguing that the root of the harm stems from the tax code itself and not people trying to work it.
What exactly is evil about corporate tax accountants?
> "Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8410489.stm
You can call the study 'socialist' if you like, but the disparity between what corporations ought to be paying and what they are paying is staggeringly vast.
Yet their loophole finding tax accountants are generally respected. WHY? This, while we STILL treat nurses like dirt.
While what corporate tax accountants do is 'legal', it's one of the most destructive roles possible.
You can blame this aspect of society on the politicians, the lobbyists, the voters - but at the heart of it, some twat is using his education and training to funnel money from social services to luxury yachts.
- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8410489.stm
You can call the study 'socialist' if you like, but the disparity between what corporations ought to be paying and what they are paying is staggeringly vast.
Yet their loophole finding tax accountants are generally respected. WHY? This, while we STILL treat nurses like dirt.
While what corporate tax accountants do is 'legal', it's one of the most destructive roles possible.
You can blame this aspect of society on the politicians, the lobbyists, the voters - but at the heart of it, some twat is using his education and training to funnel money from social services to luxury yachts.
> But what’s so horrible in today’s tech is that a lot of people working on things like 15-minute delivery and cryptocurrencies pretend that they’re solving fundamental problems, improving the world, and rescuing third world people from poverty. Both gig apps and crypto are very much guilty of such overblown rhetoric.
It's testament to how effective the right kind of propaganda can be on the right kind of person. In a lot of these cases it seems to be founded on someone following base motives (e.g. personal greed) adopting a false, ego-protective narrative to justify their actions to themselves. But then they're so forceful and vocal about that narrative, a lot of other people are duped through repetition into believing it too.
It's testament to how effective the right kind of propaganda can be on the right kind of person. In a lot of these cases it seems to be founded on someone following base motives (e.g. personal greed) adopting a false, ego-protective narrative to justify their actions to themselves. But then they're so forceful and vocal about that narrative, a lot of other people are duped through repetition into believing it too.
Technology cannot cure human problems. Exploiting the weak are a problem only morals and values can solve.
I don't think it's a mere coincidence that these horror stories of people being enslaved, murdered, tortured, etc, all while the police is bribed to look the other way, seem much more common in countries suffering from desperate poverty. Not to say that such a thing cannot happen in a rich country, but it is certainly less common.
To say that only morals and values work to address these problems seems to imply that the suffering of these people in poor countries originates from a deficiency in morals and values.
It seems more likely to me that the root cause is their awful material conditions. Technology can help with improving material conditions (although it is not guaranteed to do so).
To say that only morals and values work to address these problems seems to imply that the suffering of these people in poor countries originates from a deficiency in morals and values.
It seems more likely to me that the root cause is their awful material conditions. Technology can help with improving material conditions (although it is not guaranteed to do so).
If you research history you'll find that not all societies share the same values and ethics. There isn't a perfect society, mind you, but some respect human life and diginity more than others.
Values and ethics can change very quickly, and can do so in response to material conditions. See for instance Germany's values and ethics 80 years ago vs now, and take note of the difference in material conditions.
Technology can help fix human problems; technology can destroy lives. That's what tools are.
> So much money goes into solving non-problems like […] cryptocurrencies…
More to the point: so much of this human suffering is dependent on the existence of this technology.
More to the point: so much of this human suffering is dependent on the existence of this technology.
[deleted]
I’d say that’s more of a capitalism problem than a technology problem
well if you look at world history, it always has been like this -- look at all those proudly-written enslavements, crimes and massacres.
But we're starting to grow out of it, and tech is helping us track down crimes that were near-impossible to track down.
But we're starting to grow out of it, and tech is helping us track down crimes that were near-impossible to track down.
Very often tech is enabling these crimes. Monitoring and punishment of millions of people was much more difficult before.
And exposure and transparency was much more difficult before too. A tool is a tool, how it is used is the important part.
The Soviet Union had no trouble at all monitoring and punishing tens of millions of people. It also operated forced labor camps (gulags) on a vast scale.
Actually, on average the rich countries that has diverged most from capitalism has been significantly worse.
I'm leaving out the developing countries on purpose here: they may have had it even worse but it doesn't feel fair to blame them.
Nazi Germany and Soviet/USSR (the whole time more or less) can't blame anyone else for the insane scale of human suffering that they created. Both are representatives of centrally planned economies where companies either don't exist in a western sense (Soviet), or only exist to serve the country (Germany).
I'm leaving out the developing countries on purpose here: they may have had it even worse but it doesn't feel fair to blame them.
Nazi Germany and Soviet/USSR (the whole time more or less) can't blame anyone else for the insane scale of human suffering that they created. Both are representatives of centrally planned economies where companies either don't exist in a western sense (Soviet), or only exist to serve the country (Germany).
Both nazi germany and soviet union were poor countries at the time.
Well, but I still don't want to put them in the same category as Congo or Bangladesh.
There are major differences.
There are major differences.
Nazi Germany became Nazi Germany in large part because of severe economic problems, but by the late 30s, living conditions for conforming, “good” Germans had improved somewhat.
There was a reasonable supply of consumer goods for “good” Germans in the late 30s and early 40s after the economy started turning around, and food wasn’t a serious issue until very late in the war, and was worst in the years right after (again, for “good” Germans).
Weird little anecdote: my mother-in-law had her feet x-rayed in a shoe shop to check the fit of her new shoes circa 1943 in Essen. Absolutely no military benefit to ensuring that a 3 year old’s shoes fit, but definitely a market advantage for a shoe shop competing for sales (remember, we didn’t know that casual x-ray usage by non-radiologists was a terrible idea).
The big industrials were geared for military production, especially after 1939, but their owners often helped support the Nazis on their way to power, because they were more worried about Communists and Socialists, and either didn’t take the Nazis seriously, or figured the conservatives could get them under control… or actually agreed with them.
There’s a reason that the modern Social Democratic Party in Germany is the same organization that existed pre-NS era, but the Christian Democrats (conservatives) and Free Democrats (market liberals) were completely new post-war organizations.
Weird little anecdote: my mother-in-law had her feet x-rayed in a shoe shop to check the fit of her new shoes circa 1943 in Essen. Absolutely no military benefit to ensuring that a 3 year old’s shoes fit, but definitely a market advantage for a shoe shop competing for sales (remember, we didn’t know that casual x-ray usage by non-radiologists was a terrible idea).
The big industrials were geared for military production, especially after 1939, but their owners often helped support the Nazis on their way to power, because they were more worried about Communists and Socialists, and either didn’t take the Nazis seriously, or figured the conservatives could get them under control… or actually agreed with them.
There’s a reason that the modern Social Democratic Party in Germany is the same organization that existed pre-NS era, but the Christian Democrats (conservatives) and Free Democrats (market liberals) were completely new post-war organizations.
Labor camps in the Soviet Union suggest otherwise. More likely, being an evil asshole is a human universal, and the (relatively) peaceful life and society we enjoy in the west right now is the exception in history, not the rule. Capitalism as a system at least has the advantage of acknowledging the existence of self interest and attempts to harness it. Communist systems try and pretend it doesn't exist or can somehow be socialized away (i.e. the New Soviet Man).
There are a a lot of people who believe that evil assholes are only created due to the oppressive forces du jour (whether that be capitalism, white supremacy, or whatever), not that it is innately a part of human nature.
Which is just patently silly from a cursory glance at history and the horrific acts committed under every economic, religious, and social structure ever.
> Capitalism as a system at least has the advantage of acknowledging the existence of self interest and attempts to harness it.
Hey! Ayn Rand has joined the chat.
Hey! Ayn Rand has joined the chat.
"capitalism" (as used by critics) means "unregulated market', which means it's just the economic term for "human nature".
The only thing unnatural about capitalism is external enforcement of property claims, and that's not what causes slavery.
The only thing unnatural about capitalism is external enforcement of property claims, and that's not what causes slavery.
Slavery is the norm in non-capitalist societies.
The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery.
The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery.
> The emergence of free markets coincided with a dramatic decline in slavery.
Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world. The emergence of the real-world economic system for which the term “capitalism” was coined (which is not the same system as the modern mixed economy that has generally replaced it, though both critics and defenders of the modern mixed economy conflate it woth capitalism, with which it shares some core elements) corresponds with the expansion of chattel slavery and the development of the slave trade, and pressure for its abolition corresponds with (and often involved the same people as) early organized opposition to capitalism.
Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world. The emergence of the real-world economic system for which the term “capitalism” was coined (which is not the same system as the modern mixed economy that has generally replaced it, though both critics and defenders of the modern mixed economy conflate it woth capitalism, with which it shares some core elements) corresponds with the expansion of chattel slavery and the development of the slave trade, and pressure for its abolition corresponds with (and often involved the same people as) early organized opposition to capitalism.
> Free markets are an analytical fiction like frictionless surfaces; they don’t exist in the real world
Yes, they do exist. They aren't perfect. Nothing human is perfect.
Slavery goes back to the dawn of man. In America, slavery was the norm (including among the native americans) until the US was formed. Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865.
Yes, they do exist. They aren't perfect. Nothing human is perfect.
Slavery goes back to the dawn of man. In America, slavery was the norm (including among the native americans) until the US was formed. Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865.
> Yes, I know that only half the colonies had abolished slavery when the union was formed, it was forcibly abolished in the rest in 1865.
It had to be forcibly abolished because "free" market capitalism failed to bring about abolition itself; plantation owners had a vested interest in maintaining the institution of slavery.
In fact, said vested interest is sufficiently strong that we never actually abolished slavery in the US; we simply replaced plantations with private prisons, and chattel slaves with penal slaves. Said private prisons, penal slavery, and the broader prison-industrial complex are all the direct consequences of "free" market capitalism as applied to the American penal system.
It had to be forcibly abolished because "free" market capitalism failed to bring about abolition itself; plantation owners had a vested interest in maintaining the institution of slavery.
In fact, said vested interest is sufficiently strong that we never actually abolished slavery in the US; we simply replaced plantations with private prisons, and chattel slaves with penal slaves. Said private prisons, penal slavery, and the broader prison-industrial complex are all the direct consequences of "free" market capitalism as applied to the American penal system.
> said vested interest is sufficiently strong that we never actually abolished slavery in the US
Actually, the whole point of the Confederacy seceding was it needed to protect itself from free market capitalism, because it made the Southern economy uncompetitive.
> we simply replaced plantations with private prisons
The numbers don't remotely compare with the number of slaves in the Confederacy.
> private prisons, penal slavery, and the broader prison-industrial complex are all the direct consequences of "free" market capitalism
They are consequences of the government, not free markets. The Soviet gulags were penal slavery camps, which the communists liked because they could work people to death in them, saving money on food, housing, and medical care.
Penal slave labor long predated free markets.
A theory I see all the time is that slavery is somehow more efficient than free labor. The most obvious refutation of that is the United States during WW2. The US free market was able to not only conduct a war on both sides of the planet, it also supplied the British and Soviet war machines. The US didn't just win, it buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of advanced military equipment and supplies of every sort.
No slave based labor could possibly compete with that.
P.S. The Union also buried the Confederacy under a similar avalanche.
Actually, the whole point of the Confederacy seceding was it needed to protect itself from free market capitalism, because it made the Southern economy uncompetitive.
> we simply replaced plantations with private prisons
The numbers don't remotely compare with the number of slaves in the Confederacy.
> private prisons, penal slavery, and the broader prison-industrial complex are all the direct consequences of "free" market capitalism
They are consequences of the government, not free markets. The Soviet gulags were penal slavery camps, which the communists liked because they could work people to death in them, saving money on food, housing, and medical care.
Penal slave labor long predated free markets.
A theory I see all the time is that slavery is somehow more efficient than free labor. The most obvious refutation of that is the United States during WW2. The US free market was able to not only conduct a war on both sides of the planet, it also supplied the British and Soviet war machines. The US didn't just win, it buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of advanced military equipment and supplies of every sort.
No slave based labor could possibly compete with that.
P.S. The Union also buried the Confederacy under a similar avalanche.
> Actually, the whole point of the Confederacy seceding was it needed to protect itself from free market capitalism
The Confederates would disagree; from their point of view, they seceded to protect their "free" market - that being of chattel slaves - because their capitalist profit motive gave them a vested interest in minimizing labor costs to the bare minimum with which they could get away.
What the Union capitalists figured out (and the Confederate capitalists didn't) is that it's just as profitable (if not more so) to replace those chattel slaves with wage laborers, especially if you can get away with paying those laborers less than what it would cost to house and feed them. No need to care about their working conditions, either, since wage laborers are rentals and therefore (if you care more about profit than morals) entirely disposable (unlike chattel slaves, which had to be purchased upfront). Said laborers predictably recognized this to be effectively slavery/serfdom with extra steps, and thus organized into unions for better bargaining/negotiating power.
> The numbers don't remotely compare with the number of slaves in the Confederacy.
There were about 4 million chattel slaves by the Civil War, v. 1.6 million incarcerated today. Sure, it's lower nowadays, but not so much as to be incomparable.
> They are consequences of the government, not free markets.
They are consequences of the government seeking to save money by deferring government functions to privatized replacements competing in a "free" market.
You might've noticed those scare quotes I keep using around "free"; those are there because capitalism is at odds with an actually-free market (contrary to capitalists' claims); given the opportunity, a capitalist would vastly prefer to have absolute control over the market (a.k.a. monopolization) than to have to actually compete, because said control allows the maximization of profit for oneself.
> The US free market was able to not only conduct a war on both sides of the planet, it also supplied the British and Soviet war machines. The US didn't just win, it buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of advanced military equipment and supplies of every sort.
> [...]
> P.S. The Union also buried the Confederacy under a similar avalanche.
If I had a nickel for every confounding variable underlying those outcomes, I'd be able to bury the Axis powers and the CSA under avalanches of advanced military equipment and supplies of every sort.
The Confederates would disagree; from their point of view, they seceded to protect their "free" market - that being of chattel slaves - because their capitalist profit motive gave them a vested interest in minimizing labor costs to the bare minimum with which they could get away.
What the Union capitalists figured out (and the Confederate capitalists didn't) is that it's just as profitable (if not more so) to replace those chattel slaves with wage laborers, especially if you can get away with paying those laborers less than what it would cost to house and feed them. No need to care about their working conditions, either, since wage laborers are rentals and therefore (if you care more about profit than morals) entirely disposable (unlike chattel slaves, which had to be purchased upfront). Said laborers predictably recognized this to be effectively slavery/serfdom with extra steps, and thus organized into unions for better bargaining/negotiating power.
> The numbers don't remotely compare with the number of slaves in the Confederacy.
There were about 4 million chattel slaves by the Civil War, v. 1.6 million incarcerated today. Sure, it's lower nowadays, but not so much as to be incomparable.
> They are consequences of the government, not free markets.
They are consequences of the government seeking to save money by deferring government functions to privatized replacements competing in a "free" market.
You might've noticed those scare quotes I keep using around "free"; those are there because capitalism is at odds with an actually-free market (contrary to capitalists' claims); given the opportunity, a capitalist would vastly prefer to have absolute control over the market (a.k.a. monopolization) than to have to actually compete, because said control allows the maximization of profit for oneself.
> The US free market was able to not only conduct a war on both sides of the planet, it also supplied the British and Soviet war machines. The US didn't just win, it buried the Axis powers under an avalanche of advanced military equipment and supplies of every sort.
> [...]
> P.S. The Union also buried the Confederacy under a similar avalanche.
If I had a nickel for every confounding variable underlying those outcomes, I'd be able to bury the Axis powers and the CSA under avalanches of advanced military equipment and supplies of every sort.
[deleted]
You shouldn't be cynical about technology, it's what people choose to make. The reason is a combination of capitalism, greed, selfishness, etc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZDXvgUxAgQ
Friedman: tell me is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. This the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry in that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history is where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by free enterprise.
Donahue: so it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system.
Friedman: and what does reward virtue? You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, do you think of American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us well now I don't even trust you to do that let alone myself
Friedman: tell me is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy, it's only the other fellow who's greedy. This the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry in that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history is where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by free enterprise.
Donahue: so it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system.
Friedman: and what does reward virtue? You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue? You think, excuse me, if you'll pardon me, do you think of American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us well now I don't even trust you to do that let alone myself
> You think the Communist commissar rewards virtue? you think a Hitler rewards virtue?
I know he meant it in a different way, but I find it makes more sense to think of political appointees as rewarding virtue. Of course, often times that virtue is simply personal fealty or loyalty to the party ideology, but I do believe that a despot rewards those he finds most virtuous -- as opposed to those that are the most productive or the most capable.
I know he meant it in a different way, but I find it makes more sense to think of political appointees as rewarding virtue. Of course, often times that virtue is simply personal fealty or loyalty to the party ideology, but I do believe that a despot rewards those he finds most virtuous -- as opposed to those that are the most productive or the most capable.
To borrow from Pilate…”what is virtue?”
> as opposed to those that are the most productive or the most capable.
Why wouldn't he select those that are the most productive or the most capable in the context of the job he has for them? I.e. if he's looking for an enforcer that will, with an iron fist, reign in a province that's talking about self-determination a bit too loudly, will he choose someone who's very virtuous, or will he choose someone who's happy, maybe even eager, to rule with an iron fist?
Did Putin make a deal with Kadyrov because he found him virtuous, or because he found him the most capable person available at the time for the job he needed him to do?
Why wouldn't he select those that are the most productive or the most capable in the context of the job he has for them? I.e. if he's looking for an enforcer that will, with an iron fist, reign in a province that's talking about self-determination a bit too loudly, will he choose someone who's very virtuous, or will he choose someone who's happy, maybe even eager, to rule with an iron fist?
Did Putin make a deal with Kadyrov because he found him virtuous, or because he found him the most capable person available at the time for the job he needed him to do?
If your appointee is charismatic, obviously competent, clearly virtuous, etc., perhaps more so than you are, then people may decide they prefer having him in your position. In that sense, a highly virtuous appointee may be a threat to a tyrant. I've seen claims that Putin has chosen some appointees where one can see that "not being a threat to Putin" was prioritized over other qualities.
Heh. Too good a line of argument to be David, but bad enough I was surprised it was Milton. Not that I know any other Friedmans than those two, but still.
[EDIT] Guess I should explain what's wrong with it. There are two chief problems:
1) It's not entirely clear which of these is going on without more context, but he's definitely either very wrong about a bunch of stuff or is operating, selectively on a definition of greed that is far too broad. I suspect the latter. This is what lets you pull tricks like "proving" that greed (extremely broad sense) is what makes the world run and then conclude "greed is good" like Michael Gecko (but you mean, specifically, the more narrow, generally-considered-a-vice kind—"huh, maybe not all greed is good" yeah, exactly my point, we have the word "greed" to describe the bad kind, it is all it describes). This and similar tricks are a favorite in... a certain crowd, let's say. You see it again with "This the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests." Well... sure, if you do some tap-dancing with words you can make this seem true, but you're just playing games with semantics. "This world runs on individual cells pursuing their separate self-interests". I mean... yes, and also very much no.
2) This argument displays some major blind spots about the role of government in making markets function well, and in the nature of firms, such that several of his examples fall apart as soon as you think for half a second and some of his points should also apply to firms, but he refrains from taking that step, presumably because it would ruin the appealing simplicity of his argument. Again, pretty common error and/or deliberate trick to encounter in a certain category of writing.
[EDIT] Guess I should explain what's wrong with it. There are two chief problems:
1) It's not entirely clear which of these is going on without more context, but he's definitely either very wrong about a bunch of stuff or is operating, selectively on a definition of greed that is far too broad. I suspect the latter. This is what lets you pull tricks like "proving" that greed (extremely broad sense) is what makes the world run and then conclude "greed is good" like Michael Gecko (but you mean, specifically, the more narrow, generally-considered-a-vice kind—"huh, maybe not all greed is good" yeah, exactly my point, we have the word "greed" to describe the bad kind, it is all it describes). This and similar tricks are a favorite in... a certain crowd, let's say. You see it again with "This the world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests." Well... sure, if you do some tap-dancing with words you can make this seem true, but you're just playing games with semantics. "This world runs on individual cells pursuing their separate self-interests". I mean... yes, and also very much no.
2) This argument displays some major blind spots about the role of government in making markets function well, and in the nature of firms, such that several of his examples fall apart as soon as you think for half a second and some of his points should also apply to firms, but he refrains from taking that step, presumably because it would ruin the appealing simplicity of his argument. Again, pretty common error and/or deliberate trick to encounter in a certain category of writing.
> "greed is good" like Michael Gecko
It's Gordon Gekko.
It's Gordon Gekko.
Hard to imagine it happening at that scale in the West. Is it just wealth that keeps most people here from becoming slavers and murderers? Is it the fear of the law coming down on them? Cultural norms? How "accepted" is that trade in the wider community, do the owners of these scams (or the Thai fishermen) get respected, or do they live in constant fear that someone takes justice in their own hands and ends them?
A) The west just has fewer people. The most populous country in Europe - Germany - would be only the 10th most populous country in Asia.
B) A substantial amount of people in Asia live in rural areas. In India, nearly 920M people live in rural areas. The lack of infrastructure in rural areas means that things can happen that never ever reach the local authorities. People can simply slip away without a trace.
C) State power is weak outside of major population centers. Corruption is rife. Povery is rampant. Earning opportunities are limited. Combined, it means that criminals know they can get away with anything as long as they bribe the right people.
D) A substantial percentage of Asian population lives under failed states (same for Africa). State power isn't just weak; it's absent.
E) Asia is just way too large and geographically diverse. Easy to hide away illicit activity in a dense rainforest or deserted mountain than in wide open plains and farmland.
B) A substantial amount of people in Asia live in rural areas. In India, nearly 920M people live in rural areas. The lack of infrastructure in rural areas means that things can happen that never ever reach the local authorities. People can simply slip away without a trace.
C) State power is weak outside of major population centers. Corruption is rife. Povery is rampant. Earning opportunities are limited. Combined, it means that criminals know they can get away with anything as long as they bribe the right people.
D) A substantial percentage of Asian population lives under failed states (same for Africa). State power isn't just weak; it's absent.
E) Asia is just way too large and geographically diverse. Easy to hide away illicit activity in a dense rainforest or deserted mountain than in wide open plains and farmland.
Thank you, very good points. Combining those factors probably makes for a perfect storm.
"State power is weak" is a weird claim since the powerful states don't prevent trade with slavers.
Powerful states like US and China run slavery operations directly. It's even explicitly enshrined in the US Constitution.
The US didn't become a powerful state until the Constitution was amended to ban slavery.
The Confederacy, for example, was militarily and economically a very weak state. It couldn't even supply shoes to its soldiers. It was unable to pierce the blockade on them by the Union. And so on.
The Confederacy, for example, was militarily and economically a very weak state. It couldn't even supply shoes to its soldiers. It was unable to pierce the blockade on them by the Union. And so on.
It's a far stretch to say that allowing slavery or involuntary servitude as a penalty for duly convicted criminal is somehow "enshrining" it.
Human trafficking is a real issue in the West. Restaurant workers and prostitutes may not end up outright killed, but the conditions can be close to slavery.
Can we please stop complaining about "trafficking"? If slavery exists, the least of anyone's concerns is that the slaves are being moved from here to there. The salient issue that the slavery itself is occurring!
Two things can be bad and we're allowed to complain about both.
But either way trafficking is typically shorthand for slavery in practise. The thing with trafficking specifically is that it is more likely to go somewhere that it can be spotted. Airports have signs in the bathrooms saying "if you're being held against your will try to get to this part of the airport" because it's the trafficking piece of the slavery/trafficking combo that takes the victim into the airport in the first place. Being trained to spot trafficking in jobs like TSA agents is thus very useful regardless of the slavery situation.
But either way trafficking is typically shorthand for slavery in practise. The thing with trafficking specifically is that it is more likely to go somewhere that it can be spotted. Airports have signs in the bathrooms saying "if you're being held against your will try to get to this part of the airport" because it's the trafficking piece of the slavery/trafficking combo that takes the victim into the airport in the first place. Being trained to spot trafficking in jobs like TSA agents is thus very useful regardless of the slavery situation.
But it's not two things. One is a subset of the other.
It's as absurd as creating a special term for whipping slaves using sticks of a certain color.
It's as absurd as creating a special term for whipping slaves using sticks of a certain color.
I'm really not seeing what you're complaining about unless you have some "all lives matter"-esque point that you're trying to make. Nobody's communication is being impeded by saying "let's stop sex trafficking" instead of "let's stop sexual slavery" and nobody's behaviour is going to be different on hearing those two sentences and nobody is going to pass different laws or behave differently in any way. I hadn't even thought of those two as separate previously but even taking the effort to mentally separate them to argue with you, I don't feel enlightened or challenged to act differently. There's nobody out there saying "Trafficking is bad but slavery is a-OK!". I really don't know where you're going with this.
Why did we feel the need to isolate a minor aspect of slavery, teach everyone the new term, and then arouse outrage against it, instead of simply organizing against "slavery", which had already been considered wrong for generations?
Trafficking refers to people who are generally not slaves in their home country but are lured or transported to a foreign country to be exploited. It’s a distinct phenomenon, so I don’t see why it should be lumped under slavery.
How is it distinct? They're enslaved abroad! That doesn't make it any less slavery than if they were enslaved in their home countries.
The concern is because it's almost impossible to have slavery in a place where it's (de facto) illegal without some trafficking.
Trafficking is what enable slavers to stay hidden.
Trafficking is what enable slavers to stay hidden.
Moving slaves around, during which the authorities may notice, is a better hiding strategy than keeping them in one location? Are you quite sure?
Then keeping them around their home and families? I'm quite sure.
Is it a real issue? I hear it constantly from the right but I'd like to see some numbers
The existence of human trafficking isn’t really a left/right question (at least under the traditional definition — I suppose the QAnon-style folks may have been playing their usual games of redefining a real issue into some story they’ve invented out of whole cloth).
In Europe trafficking happens in tomato fields in Italy, online prostitution in Scandinavia, and everywhere in between. Victims can be in the country legally or illegally. I remember a case in Finland where an Indian restaurant hired a foreign worker legally, but then they took away his passport and coerced him to work 18-hour shifts using lies and threats of being sent back. That’s trafficking too.
The left and right have somewhat different ideas for solutions of course, with the usual recipes being further labor laws on one side and further limits on immigration on the other side. But probably such small tweaks won’t do anything to address the root issue, and in that sense it transcends left and right.
In Europe trafficking happens in tomato fields in Italy, online prostitution in Scandinavia, and everywhere in between. Victims can be in the country legally or illegally. I remember a case in Finland where an Indian restaurant hired a foreign worker legally, but then they took away his passport and coerced him to work 18-hour shifts using lies and threats of being sent back. That’s trafficking too.
The left and right have somewhat different ideas for solutions of course, with the usual recipes being further labor laws on one side and further limits on immigration on the other side. But probably such small tweaks won’t do anything to address the root issue, and in that sense it transcends left and right.
> In 2020, 10,583 situations of human trafficking were reported to the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline involving 16,658 individual victims. Shocking as these numbers are, they are likely only a fraction of the actual problem.
https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-traffickin...
To be clear though, what you’re hearing (or at least what I’m hearing) from the US right wing is not referring to this. It’s referring to a theory that specifically cultural elites are specifically trafficking children for sex. There’s no reason to believe this is a large issue, though obviously there were systemic failures in the whole Epstein ordeal that gave conspiracists a lot of ammunition.
The majority of trafficking is of laborers, which the right wing generally opposes protections of, and immigrants, which again the right wing generally opposes easy paths to legal citizenship and legal protection for illegal immigrants wherever possible (leading victims to believe they cannot contact law enforcement). Having grown up in a US border state I strongly suspect labor trafficking is dramatically underreported because a lot of immigrant laborers don’t even know they’re being trafficked. They’re essentially told they have no rights in the US and that’s just how it is. The reality of course is that you have ~100% of the legal protection offered to citizens the moment you set foot on US soil.
All of this applies equally to another large source of trafficking which is sex work. US right wing is fixated on the morality of sex work rather than the morality of building a system that rewards and enables coerced sex work.
https://polarisproject.org/2020-us-national-human-traffickin...
To be clear though, what you’re hearing (or at least what I’m hearing) from the US right wing is not referring to this. It’s referring to a theory that specifically cultural elites are specifically trafficking children for sex. There’s no reason to believe this is a large issue, though obviously there were systemic failures in the whole Epstein ordeal that gave conspiracists a lot of ammunition.
The majority of trafficking is of laborers, which the right wing generally opposes protections of, and immigrants, which again the right wing generally opposes easy paths to legal citizenship and legal protection for illegal immigrants wherever possible (leading victims to believe they cannot contact law enforcement). Having grown up in a US border state I strongly suspect labor trafficking is dramatically underreported because a lot of immigrant laborers don’t even know they’re being trafficked. They’re essentially told they have no rights in the US and that’s just how it is. The reality of course is that you have ~100% of the legal protection offered to citizens the moment you set foot on US soil.
All of this applies equally to another large source of trafficking which is sex work. US right wing is fixated on the morality of sex work rather than the morality of building a system that rewards and enables coerced sex work.
As someone who had inside knowledge of the sex work industry the incident rate of trafficking was extremely low. Most trafficking was related to Asian gangs in LA, SF, NY. It's an anecdote, take it with a grain of salt.
Yeah this meshes with my understanding as well. To be clear, my comment above is that sex work is a substantial part of human trafficking, not that human trafficking is necessarily a substantial part of sex work.
What number is "extremely low"?
Criminal activity should be compared to other countries and historical data (per capita)
Slavery is caused by one thing: imbalance of power between people. Whenever one entity or group gets too much power, slavery follows.
You’d be surprised. I’ve chanced upon operations of this kind in Malta, Bulgaria, and Israel.
As an Israeli former soldier, could you elaborate?
I remember our commanders telling us that there used to be a trafficking route through the border of Egypt, but it stopped when the border patrol improved, couple years back. They were smuggling Eastern European girls to prostitute.
Did something change to your knowledge? Or are you talking about another route?
I remember our commanders telling us that there used to be a trafficking route through the border of Egypt, but it stopped when the border patrol improved, couple years back. They were smuggling Eastern European girls to prostitute.
Did something change to your knowledge? Or are you talking about another route?
Just today there was an article about police operation in UK with Czech people being slaved for sex work.
It's the same basic model as any criminal enterprise: people who value money above all else self-select into these roles, and the owners insulate themselves from the guy wielding the cattle prod with layers of underlings. See also drug cartels, extortion rackets, etc.
And the leaders are supported by huge throngs of people who need or want money and are willing to ignore their role (wittingly or unwittingly) or are blackmailed into compliance.
> Hard to imagine it happening at that scale in the West.
I think this idea is quite dangerous and reeks of superiority. It has happened before and it could happen again.
Sister comment made a point about forced prostitution and human traficcing being common.
I want to make a point that to get rid of this as a matter of policy, we've had revolutions and guillotines. To enforce this, we have well armed, strong goverments with long reach.
The fact that this keeps happening in every area without a strong government -from failed states to international waters - undercuts libertarian argument quite a bit. Youd think they would move to somalia en masse and turn it into the promosed land
I think this idea is quite dangerous and reeks of superiority. It has happened before and it could happen again.
Sister comment made a point about forced prostitution and human traficcing being common.
I want to make a point that to get rid of this as a matter of policy, we've had revolutions and guillotines. To enforce this, we have well armed, strong goverments with long reach.
The fact that this keeps happening in every area without a strong government -from failed states to international waters - undercuts libertarian argument quite a bit. Youd think they would move to somalia en masse and turn it into the promosed land
> It has happened before and it could happen again.
Sure, I wasn't implying that it couldn't happen here, I'm just clumsy with words. I was trying to say it's hard to imagine it happening at similar scale _right now_, i.e. Danish fishing vessels buying slaves and throwing them overboard when they're too weak to continue working, in 2022.
I'm aware of trafficking, forced prostitution and indentured servitude with work in nail salons etc, but as far as I understand, the scale is (currently) very different, and it's much less extreme (assuming there are no secret mass graves we'll find in the future).
Sure, I wasn't implying that it couldn't happen here, I'm just clumsy with words. I was trying to say it's hard to imagine it happening at similar scale _right now_, i.e. Danish fishing vessels buying slaves and throwing them overboard when they're too weak to continue working, in 2022.
I'm aware of trafficking, forced prostitution and indentured servitude with work in nail salons etc, but as far as I understand, the scale is (currently) very different, and it's much less extreme (assuming there are no secret mass graves we'll find in the future).
Libertarianism requires a government strong enough to enforce the rights of its citizens.
Somalia is not a libertarian country by any stretch of the imagination.
Somalia is not a libertarian country by any stretch of the imagination.
The "libertarian argument" (insofar as any one ideology can be summarized in a sentence) is for enough government for the rule of law to exist, with as many things as possible on top built by private efforts, not government. Somalia is about as far a place from the rule of law as conceivable.
>The fact that this keeps happening in every area without a strong government -from failed states to international waters - undercuts libertarian argument quite a bit
Myanmar is a hardcore communist military dictatorship, I'd hardly call that a weak government.
Myanmar is a hardcore communist military dictatorship, I'd hardly call that a weak government.
Evil doesn't imply strong.
Communist ? The communist party of Burma (CPB) would be surprised to learn that
Effective institutions, independent judiciary helps a great deal.
[deleted]
That is Part I of the investigation, looking at the scammers.
Part II [1] looks at the victims
[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cna-insider/online-love-inve...
Part II [1] looks at the victims
[1] https://www.channelnewsasia.com/cna-insider/online-love-inve...
Thank you! I was curious what some of the actual scams were.
Several of my friends were targeted by these scammers, and one of them even lost 10000 USD (a big sum in Vietnam) to a fake prosecutor. They even cloned the website of the Ministry of Public Security to scam him. Out of curiousity I took a look at their website source code, found an url to some kinds of a gateway for scammer where they have tools for scamming people, and also an android app that aid them. After finding that the whole operation is based abroad I told my friend that there is zero chance he will get his money back.
I have my suspicions that fighting this would be the best way to fight terrorism. It may not be true for all the syndicates, but colluding with terrorists does come with some great criminal perks; especially if you're looking at human trafficking.
What would fighting this look like?
These operations are often in failed / significantly less free states and ignored or otherwise protected by them.
Regime change?
These operations are often in failed / significantly less free states and ignored or otherwise protected by them.
Regime change?
Arrest the cops who are accepting bribes. The rest would topple pretty quickly.
Who does that, the locals who are working in a failed or corrupt state?
Just arrest them seems like a very simplistic idea here...
Just arrest them seems like a very simplistic idea here...
I have no idea in that case. I never indicated I had any idea on how to tackle the problem specifically, only that solving it might solve larger problems. I never claimed to be an expert at unrooting syndicates, so I really don't get the justification for this discussion.
I kinda figured there was more of an idea there if you're suggesting fighting it in some specific way.
This is pretty terrible. I still don’t get whey they need to enslave their workers though. Looking at average loss numbers per victim it seems even if the typical victim loss was $10,000 and the average employee got one victim a week that is still substantially over the average wage in Cambodia and is almost entirely pure profit. Even if you account for governments seizing funds a third of the time it seems like they’d be more successful operating on a commission model for employees.
> I still don’t get whey they need to enslave their workers though.
They work for free until they prove they can get results under such a system. I think most orgs would like to only pay for employees that actually generate revenue and given the lack of regulation of the black market they have that opportunity.
Also trafficking in people from elsewhere means that the local police are much more willing to co-operate because they're not getting as much hassle from locals about the foreigners suffering as they would if locals were being treated as shittily.
They work for free until they prove they can get results under such a system. I think most orgs would like to only pay for employees that actually generate revenue and given the lack of regulation of the black market they have that opportunity.
Also trafficking in people from elsewhere means that the local police are much more willing to co-operate because they're not getting as much hassle from locals about the foreigners suffering as they would if locals were being treated as shittily.
I suspect that many people will exploit others for personal gain under 'duress,' when they would not take that action if they could not justify their immorality by claiming that they had no choice. Of course, most will suddenly fail to make any effort to escape this duress. The canonical example is soldiers who rape and pillage but complain that they were just conscripts following orders.
One possibility is that some have a higher moral standard then you.
Why so personal? I’m not saying I would do it. After reading victim stories I don’t think I’d have the heart to take a nickel from these people. I’m just saying that there are enough people out there with no morals who would do it and would probably be pretty good at it. Go on Nigerian twitter and you’ll find people bragging about these kind of scams all the time. Even America in the late 90s had all those stock pump and dump call centers (see Boiler Room) so I don’t think there’s a society where there aren’t people willing to do pretty terrible things.
You did say "I still don’t get whey they need to enslave their workers though", I suggested a possible explanation.
Oh man, if we've exhausted the pool of people willing to work for scammers so much that you can't pay people to scam any more, that's the best news I've heard this year.
It is a "stick and carrot" situation, that is the way I read the article. The higher the moral and emotional barriers there are, the more furniture and vegetables are required.
To your comment, that stick is required at all is kinda +1 for humanity.
To your comment, that stick is required at all is kinda +1 for humanity.
The amount of effort that these groups have put into their "pig butchering" operations is impressive.
My experience with online dating and the catfishing that I received (is that even the correct verb?) ranged between poor and mediocre (if I drank as much alcohol as I did in my 30s, I suspect that I could have been scammed out of lots of money - I am a bit too cynical and analytical these days). What I see on videos about "pig butchering" is orders of magnitude more intense. What the article documents is frightening.
My experience with online dating and the catfishing that I received (is that even the correct verb?) ranged between poor and mediocre (if I drank as much alcohol as I did in my 30s, I suspect that I could have been scammed out of lots of money - I am a bit too cynical and analytical these days). What I see on videos about "pig butchering" is orders of magnitude more intense. What the article documents is frightening.
these people are preying on sorrow and loneliness, and the victim is not only robbed, but emotionally assaulted, some dont surive that.
Scams like this, selling get rich quick, often depend on the poor ethics of the victim. A lot of the work of the scammers amounts to filtering out the skeptical and the honest.
This statement can only come from someone born in a 1st world country and have no sense of what its like to be poor. The desperation and clinging on to a hope no matter how slim of earning a wage higher than what they already have.
The victims mostly come from the first world or the rich in the rest of the world ... No one poor gets scammed for 20000 in fake investments ...
As your average westerner, if I found a scam convincing enough to fall for, I still have no way of producing 20,000 USD for it.
This is horrible. Thanks for the investigative effort, I feel I want to step out of internet for a while now.
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This reminds me of a point I feel progressives (usually steeped in several generations of western living) tend to miss.
The underwritten currency of human society is violence. Using it, you can take what you want and the only way to stop you is more violence. If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime.
Organized crime like gangs, cartels, the mafia, corrupt cops--these are not "unfortunate byproducts of imperialism and capitalism", they are the basest, fundamental expression of human dominance. If they central government weakens, they will take over.
I deeply hate people who violate the safety and freedom of civilized society, and it sometimes frustrates me that so many westerners who believe in "human rights" are convinced these problems can be solved with a light touch.
The underwritten currency of human society is violence. Using it, you can take what you want and the only way to stop you is more violence. If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime.
Organized crime like gangs, cartels, the mafia, corrupt cops--these are not "unfortunate byproducts of imperialism and capitalism", they are the basest, fundamental expression of human dominance. If they central government weakens, they will take over.
I deeply hate people who violate the safety and freedom of civilized society, and it sometimes frustrates me that so many westerners who believe in "human rights" are convinced these problems can be solved with a light touch.
>The underwritten currency of human society is violence.
Perhaps this should be changed to life in general, with a possible exception for the forms of life that produce their own energy. All others engage in some form of violence to secure their energy, even if it is against plant life, something we don't often consider as violence.
Perhaps this should be changed to life in general, with a possible exception for the forms of life that produce their own energy. All others engage in some form of violence to secure their energy, even if it is against plant life, something we don't often consider as violence.
And plants too compete for energy, in a less directly violent way towards each other but with the same outcome: causing other plants to die from deprivation so that they may live. Life's prime directive to spread itself into every available space necessitates violence.
I thought about saying it that way, but a lot of biological violence between organisms is outside of morality. I wanted to draw a very specific connection between "civilized society" and "the deliberate application of violence".
I’m not sure what that has to do with “progressives”.
The majority of people in the US who bother to care about human rights abuses and exploitation of vulnerable populations are "progressives".
That's simply not true.
Libertarianism holds human rights above all else. The entire purpose of a libertarians government is guaranteeing peoples' rights.
Libertarianism holds human rights above all else. The entire purpose of a libertarians government is guaranteeing peoples' rights.
> Libertarianism holds human rights above all else.
Only through a bizarre redefinition of peoples' rights. Same thing they do with "violence" by saying that the only justification for violence is as a reaction to violence, which when translated ends up only justifying (unredefined, classical) violence against "violence."
Only through a bizarre redefinition of peoples' rights. Same thing they do with "violence" by saying that the only justification for violence is as a reaction to violence, which when translated ends up only justifying (unredefined, classical) violence against "violence."
> Only through a bizarre redefinition of peoples' rights
What is bizarre about them, and how does it "redefined" rights?
What is bizarre about them, and how does it "redefined" rights?
> Libertarianism holds human rights above all else.
Libertarianism holds a very particular and highly contentious conception of human rights (which differs radically, but with some common elements, between different flavors of libertarianism) above everything else. So do several other ideologies, with different conceptions of human rights.
Libertarianism holds a very particular and highly contentious conception of human rights (which differs radically, but with some common elements, between different flavors of libertarianism) above everything else. So do several other ideologies, with different conceptions of human rights.
What's highly contentious about rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
> Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?
Those are slogans, not substantive conceptions of rights, and the last of those a slogan that was used because the thing many then-contemporary liberals would have preferred and that reflects (but still does bot substantively specify) what they and most modern libertarians value most, property, was too contentious even at the level of a slogan.
Those are slogans, not substantive conceptions of rights, and the last of those a slogan that was used because the thing many then-contemporary liberals would have preferred and that reflects (but still does bot substantively specify) what they and most modern libertarians value most, property, was too contentious even at the level of a slogan.
Sure, they are short, that doesn't make them slogans. For example, you have the right to your life. That means you have a right to not be murdered by others or the state. How is that difficult to understand?
> most modern libertarians value most
That's an invention on your part.
> property
Yes, I know the original wording was "pursuit of property". Property rights have turned out to be a very fundamental right. Not being allowed to own anything has proved disastrous again and again and again.
> most modern libertarians value most
That's an invention on your part.
> property
Yes, I know the original wording was "pursuit of property". Property rights have turned out to be a very fundamental right. Not being allowed to own anything has proved disastrous again and again and again.
But what does that mean?
Isn't that just people who care generally? And if they do what should they do differently?
Isn't that just people who care generally? And if they do what should they do differently?
Did you read my first comment with intent to understand my point or just to nitpick me? I said pretty clearly:
> If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime.
If people care about human rights abuses, they need to seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge their regime.
For instance: there are known sex traffickers inside the United States who are sent to prison for years when they're caught and then they get out. If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote. Another option is indefinite containment, but that's a large drain on resources and extremely difficult to operate without simply ending up with a prison system like the US has, which is low-status and overtly corrupt and underfunded (in the sense that the funding goes to profit rather than to the effective operations of the prisons).
In short: the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them. This is obviously not the case in the US, and it's certainly not the case in outlying rural regions in Asia and Africa, where people are forced to scam under threat of punishment.
> If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime.
If people care about human rights abuses, they need to seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge their regime.
For instance: there are known sex traffickers inside the United States who are sent to prison for years when they're caught and then they get out. If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote. Another option is indefinite containment, but that's a large drain on resources and extremely difficult to operate without simply ending up with a prison system like the US has, which is low-status and overtly corrupt and underfunded (in the sense that the funding goes to profit rather than to the effective operations of the prisons).
In short: the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them. This is obviously not the case in the US, and it's certainly not the case in outlying rural regions in Asia and Africa, where people are forced to scam under threat of punishment.
> If you want to curtail that practice to a greater degree than it is, you need to murder or expel people who do it, not just give them an official time-out and then make life more difficult for them afterwards by reducing their employment options and curtailing their right to vote
Interesting. Upstream you said that human rights was mostly a progressive issue, but this is a decidedly conservative, perhaps even regressive, approach.
edit - later, I see that you refer to yourself as conservative
> the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them
I associate civilization with staunch defense of the humanity and dignity even of the worst of us. It might for me even be the primary defining characteristic of the term. We could publically behead those who "take advantage", but then, that would be uncivilized. Medieval and barbaric, actually.
Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically. Use only the bare minimum violence necessary to maintain actual, real civilized society, constantly vigilant against its overuse
Interesting. Upstream you said that human rights was mostly a progressive issue, but this is a decidedly conservative, perhaps even regressive, approach.
edit - later, I see that you refer to yourself as conservative
> the safety of civilized people who participate in society in good faith needs to be violently protected from people who take advantage of them
I associate civilization with staunch defense of the humanity and dignity even of the worst of us. It might for me even be the primary defining characteristic of the term. We could publically behead those who "take advantage", but then, that would be uncivilized. Medieval and barbaric, actually.
Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically. Use only the bare minimum violence necessary to maintain actual, real civilized society, constantly vigilant against its overuse
I tried to imply the meaningless of labels by using quotes around "progressives" in this phrase:
> The majority of people in the US who bother to care about human rights abuses and exploitation of vulnerable populations are "progressives".
What I am interested in is an effective approach, regardless if it's considered progressive, conservative, regressive, old-fashioned, etc. I am tired of watching the primary discourse over human rights in the US play out between uneducated "conservatives" who would establish a Christian fascist state in a week if left to their own devices and naive "progressives" who think that violent criminals just need "access to resources" in order to civilize themselves.
> Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically.
Sure, good luck with reintegrating a slaver into society with those they enslaved or a violent rapist into society with those they raped. I am not opposed to an atonement/reintegration cycle, but it needs far more rigorous severity than I've seen any "progressive" ever argue for.
> The majority of people in the US who bother to care about human rights abuses and exploitation of vulnerable populations are "progressives".
What I am interested in is an effective approach, regardless if it's considered progressive, conservative, regressive, old-fashioned, etc. I am tired of watching the primary discourse over human rights in the US play out between uneducated "conservatives" who would establish a Christian fascist state in a week if left to their own devices and naive "progressives" who think that violent criminals just need "access to resources" in order to civilize themselves.
> Or, we could create the circumstances to enable atonement and redemption. A "time out", as you say, followed by a reintegration into society. The effects can be monitored for optimal outcomes, empirically.
Sure, good luck with reintegrating a slaver into society with those they enslaved or a violent rapist into society with those they raped. I am not opposed to an atonement/reintegration cycle, but it needs far more rigorous severity than I've seen any "progressive" ever argue for.
I'm from the US, live in Finland. From here, it really seems like the US needs to upgrade its prisons to be safe. Hard to meditate on atonement and redemption when you're in a constant struggle for survival. The implicit idea that rape for instance is a potential, extra-legal added punishment is outrageous.
I completely agree with you. As a matter of fact, I often say that if I had to pick one reform issue to support it would be to "make prison safe".
Out of the people labelled "criminal" or "legally deviant" in the US, I believe there is a big split between people who could reintegrate given a safe prison sentence and people that I think need to be exiled or executed. If prison was safe for the prisoners we could absolutely use a "light touch" for some offenders.
A lot of the worst damage to society, though, is orchestrated by chronic offenders who through whatever mix of genetics and environment have developed a set of beliefs and motivations that I think are unacceptable to keep around. To quote the example from the original article, forcing someone to commit crimes under pain of punishment or death simply isn't someone I have any interest in rehabilitating. Second-order organized crime is almost always worse for society than first-order crimes of passion or need.
Out of the people labelled "criminal" or "legally deviant" in the US, I believe there is a big split between people who could reintegrate given a safe prison sentence and people that I think need to be exiled or executed. If prison was safe for the prisoners we could absolutely use a "light touch" for some offenders.
A lot of the worst damage to society, though, is orchestrated by chronic offenders who through whatever mix of genetics and environment have developed a set of beliefs and motivations that I think are unacceptable to keep around. To quote the example from the original article, forcing someone to commit crimes under pain of punishment or death simply isn't someone I have any interest in rehabilitating. Second-order organized crime is almost always worse for society than first-order crimes of passion or need.
> If prison was safe for the prisoners we could absolutely use a "light touch" for some offenders.
We do that already. Level 1 yards (in California-ese) are quite safe and filled with white collar criminals, fraudsters, drunk drivers, drug-dealing doctors, etc. Some facilities don't even have perimeter fences. The safest are the fire camps, because nobody there wants to get kicked back to general population (these inmates voluntarily work as wilderness firefighters).
OTOH, Level 4 yards are filled with murderers serving life sentences and the like. As a visitor or staff, you can't even go on the yard without wearing stab-resistant armor. Some particularly troublesome inmates don't even get yard time — they exercise in cages or isolated rec areas, never leave their cells without full shackles, and are never escorted by fewer than 2-3 correctional officers (depending on the facility). They are strip searched every time they leave their cells. That kind of treatment is generally "earned" by one's behavior on the inside, with few exceptions — we sometimes treat convicted spies (e.g. Ames, Hanssen) like this as a deterrent to others contemplating betraying their loyalties.
We do that already. Level 1 yards (in California-ese) are quite safe and filled with white collar criminals, fraudsters, drunk drivers, drug-dealing doctors, etc. Some facilities don't even have perimeter fences. The safest are the fire camps, because nobody there wants to get kicked back to general population (these inmates voluntarily work as wilderness firefighters).
OTOH, Level 4 yards are filled with murderers serving life sentences and the like. As a visitor or staff, you can't even go on the yard without wearing stab-resistant armor. Some particularly troublesome inmates don't even get yard time — they exercise in cages or isolated rec areas, never leave their cells without full shackles, and are never escorted by fewer than 2-3 correctional officers (depending on the facility). They are strip searched every time they leave their cells. That kind of treatment is generally "earned" by one's behavior on the inside, with few exceptions — we sometimes treat convicted spies (e.g. Ames, Hanssen) like this as a deterrent to others contemplating betraying their loyalties.
I don't agree with punitive solitary confinement, but yes it's great that some prisoners in the US do not experience unrelenting, unmitigated hell.
FWIW, PREA [0] has made a major impact on sexual assaults in American prisons & jails. It is really taken very seriously at the facilities I've visited (for work purposes). In fact, I've seen the allegations made by a clearly mentally ill person taken seriously and investigated, though the statement was obviously a work of fiction and the product of a deranged mind. Some units have dedicated "PREA Phones" to facilitate anonymous tips, and inmates with tablets can report via an app.
Also, mentally ill inmates are (at least in California) generally put into their own housing units to prevent predation by the rest of the population. They have access to medication but cannot be forced to take them.
[0]: https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/about/prison-rape-elimina...
Also, mentally ill inmates are (at least in California) generally put into their own housing units to prevent predation by the rest of the population. They have access to medication but cannot be forced to take them.
[0]: https://www.prearesourcecenter.org/about/prison-rape-elimina...
That's a marvelous development.
> good luck with reintegrating a slaver into society with those they enslaved or a violent rapist into society with those they raped.
I forget what this fallacy is, and I cannot be arsed to look it up. False dichotomy? The choice is not atonement and redemption OR reintegrating slavers and violent rapists into society alongside their victims.
If you think that way for real, no wonder you think the only real option is death or exile.
I forget what this fallacy is, and I cannot be arsed to look it up. False dichotomy? The choice is not atonement and redemption OR reintegrating slavers and violent rapists into society alongside their victims.
If you think that way for real, no wonder you think the only real option is death or exile.
All right, then take an example. Recently in a town I'm near, a young man kidnapped his girlfriend's adoptive parents with her knowledge, attempted to rob them, took them to a nature preserve and shot them dead. He had a long history of theft and assault and was proud of his crime.
The state elected to give him a life sentence. (That's just exile except now someone has to take care of him the entire time.)
From your point of view, what are the other options here?
The state elected to give him a life sentence. (That's just exile except now someone has to take care of him the entire time.)
From your point of view, what are the other options here?
Presumably, you want to reduce the instances of nitwits perpetrating atrocities upon their neighbor, yeah? That is your end goal? And we're pretending here that the only input available to us in order to get the outcome of reduced nitwit-perpetrated atrocity is that of criminal penalties? Ok, I'll play.
First, understand that we now live in an era of unprecedented personal safety. Death from homicide-by-nitwit is generally less likely now than at any time in the past. Obviously not true in specific situations like adopting a murderous nitwit, but it's true in general.
So, if we're accepting the premises so far, then whatever we have now is better than the past.
Second, understand that throughout history "death or exile" were the only real criminal punishments ever meted out, discounting "torture or mutilation". It's not like it's a radical idea you have there.
Even the arguing style of bringing up the most horrific shit possible and using it to argue for harsher punishment in general is not new. In fact, it's basically used every single time someone advocates for =>
Imprisonment as a genuinely sincere attempt to redeem criminals is pretty radical, and I would argue has not been tried with conviction, so to speak, in the US. Wherever it's genuinely practiced, crime is low.
Still, even prison-as-deterrence- through-horror is a step up from medieval-era death-or-exile.
Why, if your goal is reduce crime, would you seriously advocate for returning to methods used during a time of more crime?
Ok, I think I'm done here. Know that I promise to read and think carefully about whatever you write in response, but I will probably not reply.
First, understand that we now live in an era of unprecedented personal safety. Death from homicide-by-nitwit is generally less likely now than at any time in the past. Obviously not true in specific situations like adopting a murderous nitwit, but it's true in general.
So, if we're accepting the premises so far, then whatever we have now is better than the past.
Second, understand that throughout history "death or exile" were the only real criminal punishments ever meted out, discounting "torture or mutilation". It's not like it's a radical idea you have there.
Even the arguing style of bringing up the most horrific shit possible and using it to argue for harsher punishment in general is not new. In fact, it's basically used every single time someone advocates for =>
Imprisonment as a genuinely sincere attempt to redeem criminals is pretty radical, and I would argue has not been tried with conviction, so to speak, in the US. Wherever it's genuinely practiced, crime is low.
Still, even prison-as-deterrence- through-horror is a step up from medieval-era death-or-exile.
Why, if your goal is reduce crime, would you seriously advocate for returning to methods used during a time of more crime?
Ok, I think I'm done here. Know that I promise to read and think carefully about whatever you write in response, but I will probably not reply.
You haven't actually answered my question, which is: what do you do with someone who has done severe, irreparable damage to society and has sociopathic feelings about it?
It seems that you don't like continuous internal exile via imprisonment, and that you're in favor of "re-integration", but you have no real plan for what happens when re-integration proves impossible besides "create a massive, resource-intensive cycle to continuously attempt to re-educate violent criminals and then put them back in the communities they terrorized". If you put them in other places, it's exile. If you put them in prison only, it's internal exile. As I've stated, the only real options are death, exile, or re-integration into the community they came from. You have not provided another option.
It doesn't matter what the frequency of "murder-by-nitwit" is; if your society experiences that phenomena, you have to handle the "nitwits", although "dangerous sociopaths" is the phrase I would use. Murder rates depend on historical epoch. Is living in a cartel-controlled area in Mexico any more or less dangerous then living on the same patch of land before the invention of the country of Mexico? It doesn't matter what era it is or whether or not your technique for controlling it is "old-fashioned". The important legal and moral practices are the ones that lead to the protection, safety, and flourishing of people who collaborate with the rest of society in good faith.
You said elsewhere that "the definition of civilized behavior is defending humanity in each person, even the wickedest and worst among us". I disagree; I think the definition of civilized behavior is "the deliberate, collaborative practice of law, agriculture, and retention of wisdom via knowledge transfer". We seem to have little common ground on this idea, and as a result of our ideological differences you are willing to welcome people who have committed murder, rape, thievery, slavery, intimidation, corruption, etc. back into your community and I am not.
It's also curious that you choose to paint the man I described as a "nitwit", lessening his moral culpability for what he did by alleging his stupidity. If I, an intelligent and educated man, committed the same crime, would you call me a nitwit, or would you grant me enough humanity to actually hold me responsible for my narcissism and cruelty?
It seems that you don't like continuous internal exile via imprisonment, and that you're in favor of "re-integration", but you have no real plan for what happens when re-integration proves impossible besides "create a massive, resource-intensive cycle to continuously attempt to re-educate violent criminals and then put them back in the communities they terrorized". If you put them in other places, it's exile. If you put them in prison only, it's internal exile. As I've stated, the only real options are death, exile, or re-integration into the community they came from. You have not provided another option.
It doesn't matter what the frequency of "murder-by-nitwit" is; if your society experiences that phenomena, you have to handle the "nitwits", although "dangerous sociopaths" is the phrase I would use. Murder rates depend on historical epoch. Is living in a cartel-controlled area in Mexico any more or less dangerous then living on the same patch of land before the invention of the country of Mexico? It doesn't matter what era it is or whether or not your technique for controlling it is "old-fashioned". The important legal and moral practices are the ones that lead to the protection, safety, and flourishing of people who collaborate with the rest of society in good faith.
You said elsewhere that "the definition of civilized behavior is defending humanity in each person, even the wickedest and worst among us". I disagree; I think the definition of civilized behavior is "the deliberate, collaborative practice of law, agriculture, and retention of wisdom via knowledge transfer". We seem to have little common ground on this idea, and as a result of our ideological differences you are willing to welcome people who have committed murder, rape, thievery, slavery, intimidation, corruption, etc. back into your community and I am not.
It's also curious that you choose to paint the man I described as a "nitwit", lessening his moral culpability for what he did by alleging his stupidity. If I, an intelligent and educated man, committed the same crime, would you call me a nitwit, or would you grant me enough humanity to actually hold me responsible for my narcissism and cruelty?
Very well done! You got me to answer back. I'm a bit upset with myself for engaging on this, to be honest.
Your question is a poison pill logical fallacy. It elides essential detail to channel your interlocutors into your predetermined conclusions. These conclusions are bundled with other assumptions. You might as well ask if torture is ok when you have only 24 hours to stop a planet-busting bomb in which billions will die. It sounds very serious and sober but is fundamentally unserious. Rather than clarifying, these questions are designed, intentionally, to prompt dramatic, emotional answers.
Answering "well of course in the very unlikely scenario you describe, we should [execute|torture|sentence-to-life-plus-cancer]" and then the slippery-slope chipping begins, leading inevitably to "well, sure execution can be useful to deter bread-stealing".
It might help your case if you, first of all, abandon that kind of rhetorical trickery, really define your terms and then grapple with the edge cases yourself, such as:
What do you mean by exile? How is that different from jail? Is exile permanent? What happens during exile? Can someone earn a living? Are they physically safe?
Who is a "dangerous sociopath"? Is it someone who is predisposed to violent behavior and is completely resistant to any intervention? What interventions were tried? Medication? Gene therapy? Hormones? Threats of exile and death?
What did this dangerous sociopath do? What defines her as a sociopath in this case? No expression of remorse? What if the expression of remorse is fake? What if it is real but comes off as fake?
What about the case of someone who robs her adoptive parents? What if the parents had inflicted 20 years of horrific abuse? What if the abuse were sexual? What if her abuse were filmed for distribution? What if she murdered them? What if the murder were accidental, occurring in the course of the robbery? What if she asked her boyfriend to help? What if the adoptive daughter and boyfriend are themselves loving and caring parents? What to do with their children? Should the children also go into exile? Should the children also be executed, as fruit of a poisoned womb?
What about false accusations? What about prosecutorial misconduct? What about the case of stealing food to feed a starving child? What about when something that you think is beneficial to society is redefined as a crime? What happens when "dangerous sociopathy" is redefined in political terms to control political opposition?
What if, in order to address these issues, a well-meaning judge had only "Death. Or exile!"
Your question is a poison pill logical fallacy. It elides essential detail to channel your interlocutors into your predetermined conclusions. These conclusions are bundled with other assumptions. You might as well ask if torture is ok when you have only 24 hours to stop a planet-busting bomb in which billions will die. It sounds very serious and sober but is fundamentally unserious. Rather than clarifying, these questions are designed, intentionally, to prompt dramatic, emotional answers.
Answering "well of course in the very unlikely scenario you describe, we should [execute|torture|sentence-to-life-plus-cancer]" and then the slippery-slope chipping begins, leading inevitably to "well, sure execution can be useful to deter bread-stealing".
It might help your case if you, first of all, abandon that kind of rhetorical trickery, really define your terms and then grapple with the edge cases yourself, such as:
What do you mean by exile? How is that different from jail? Is exile permanent? What happens during exile? Can someone earn a living? Are they physically safe?
Who is a "dangerous sociopath"? Is it someone who is predisposed to violent behavior and is completely resistant to any intervention? What interventions were tried? Medication? Gene therapy? Hormones? Threats of exile and death?
What did this dangerous sociopath do? What defines her as a sociopath in this case? No expression of remorse? What if the expression of remorse is fake? What if it is real but comes off as fake?
What about the case of someone who robs her adoptive parents? What if the parents had inflicted 20 years of horrific abuse? What if the abuse were sexual? What if her abuse were filmed for distribution? What if she murdered them? What if the murder were accidental, occurring in the course of the robbery? What if she asked her boyfriend to help? What if the adoptive daughter and boyfriend are themselves loving and caring parents? What to do with their children? Should the children also go into exile? Should the children also be executed, as fruit of a poisoned womb?
What about false accusations? What about prosecutorial misconduct? What about the case of stealing food to feed a starving child? What about when something that you think is beneficial to society is redefined as a crime? What happens when "dangerous sociopathy" is redefined in political terms to control political opposition?
What if, in order to address these issues, a well-meaning judge had only "Death. Or exile!"
So invade other countries? Establish new governments that do what we like?
That doesn't have a history of good outcomes for anyone.
That doesn't have a history of good outcomes for anyone.
> So invade other countries? Establish new governments that do what we like?
You have described the history of every single western country, within which the majority of dominant-ethnicity citizens enjoy a physical safety and quality of life unprecedented in world history.
Modern human rights campaigns and progressive philosophy spring mostly from western countries with ideologies downstream of the Enlightenment. (Note that I am not claiming that only Europeans ever developed sub-societies where human rights were respected, merely that out of the surviving capable violent states today, the western ones are the ones more focused on progressive ideals.)
The Western countries were invented after violent conquer and rebellion against regional warlords by sub-factions within their own lands, and the rule of law and power of finance was allocated mostly to people who had ties to the most powerful warlords at the time of the founding of the countries. One example is England, which conquered Wales, Ireland, and Scotland through a military alliance of the internal (English) territories that recognized a seat of power based in London and an ethnic identity manufactured whole-cloth to encompass Danish, Angle, Saxon, and Scandinavian immigrants to the Isle. The "United Kingdom", once a brutally violent and despotic place, is now one of the number one immigration targets for people freeing lawless, economically depressed war-torn regions.
You have described the history of every single western country, within which the majority of dominant-ethnicity citizens enjoy a physical safety and quality of life unprecedented in world history.
Modern human rights campaigns and progressive philosophy spring mostly from western countries with ideologies downstream of the Enlightenment. (Note that I am not claiming that only Europeans ever developed sub-societies where human rights were respected, merely that out of the surviving capable violent states today, the western ones are the ones more focused on progressive ideals.)
The Western countries were invented after violent conquer and rebellion against regional warlords by sub-factions within their own lands, and the rule of law and power of finance was allocated mostly to people who had ties to the most powerful warlords at the time of the founding of the countries. One example is England, which conquered Wales, Ireland, and Scotland through a military alliance of the internal (English) territories that recognized a seat of power based in London and an ethnic identity manufactured whole-cloth to encompass Danish, Angle, Saxon, and Scandinavian immigrants to the Isle. The "United Kingdom", once a brutally violent and despotic place, is now one of the number one immigration targets for people freeing lawless, economically depressed war-torn regions.
Every nation is a result of a series of events, revolts, etc... I don't see that as unique in any way to any type of nation nor does it change the history of attempting to make a nation into what some outsider would like it to be.
I think this is untrue, if you're contrasting to "conservatives"* Conservatives fear the effects of fast change and unintended consequences, but do still care about human rights and the exploitation of vulnerable populations.
* The caveat here is that I do think there is a significant minority of people who call themselves conservative or progressive or whatever, who are not on the side of a better society, but are only for themselves.
* The caveat here is that I do think there is a significant minority of people who call themselves conservative or progressive or whatever, who are not on the side of a better society, but are only for themselves.
I have sympathy for the semantic point you're making, as I call myself "conservative", but match ideologies with very few people in the US that self-identify using the same word.
>The underwritten currency of human society is violence. Using it, you can take what you want and the only way to stop you is more violence. If you are part of an ideological tribe that wants to protect humans from each others' petty brutality you must seize land, establish the rule of law, and murder or expel people who challenge your regime.
I don't think any progressives deny the state's "monopoly on violence". Of course the state must establish the rule of law, and possibly murder (or is it not murder before the rule of law is established?) those who seek to overthrow the state.
>it sometimes frustrates me that so many westerners who believe in "human rights" are convinced these problems can be solved with a light touch.
But do you really need to murder scammers and slave owners unless they try to resist with insurrectionery violence? A light touch of a long prison sentence can work. I feel you want the state to gun down these people immediately without a trial or anything. I don't think that's right, and you haven't argued for why it's right, just ranted on barely related things.
I don't think any progressives deny the state's "monopoly on violence". Of course the state must establish the rule of law, and possibly murder (or is it not murder before the rule of law is established?) those who seek to overthrow the state.
>it sometimes frustrates me that so many westerners who believe in "human rights" are convinced these problems can be solved with a light touch.
But do you really need to murder scammers and slave owners unless they try to resist with insurrectionery violence? A light touch of a long prison sentence can work. I feel you want the state to gun down these people immediately without a trial or anything. I don't think that's right, and you haven't argued for why it's right, just ranted on barely related things.
I never said anything about "no trial", I said that murder and exile are the only two effective sentences for people like slavers. There's no amount of "personal rehabilitation" that excuses it.
A light touch only ensures that people who are effective at manipulation of those with better goodwill than them can avoid the two fair sentences. Long prison sentences are unnecessarily cruel and a net drain on resources. The only reason to forgive slave-owners is if you're grandfathering them into a new nation-state and offering amnesty under threat of death for their participation.
A light touch only ensures that people who are effective at manipulation of those with better goodwill than them can avoid the two fair sentences. Long prison sentences are unnecessarily cruel and a net drain on resources. The only reason to forgive slave-owners is if you're grandfathering them into a new nation-state and offering amnesty under threat of death for their participation.
>The only reason to forgive slave-owners is if you're grandfathering them into a new nation-state and offering amnesty under threat of death for their participation.
But Britain did this and it wasn't a new state at all. It worked out well enough and was apparently cheaper than the American Civil War.
But Britain did this and it wasn't a new state at all. It worked out well enough and was apparently cheaper than the American Civil War.
A government isn't much different. Stop giving the government your money and watch what happens to you. I agree with everything you've written though.
Oh I completely agree with you. "All laws are enforced at gunpoint". Even if the current US government was somehow reformed into something I didn't find reprehensible evil and incompetent there would still be a necessary armed standoff between the government and the citizens.
gsatic(1)
A corollary to this are the infamous fish processing boats of Thailand, where illegal immigrants (mostly from Myanmar) are held as slaves and simply pushed into the sea once they outlive their usefulness.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jul/20/t...