
The Great Trap for All Americans - samclemens
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/13/slavery-great-trap-for-all-americans/
======
Jtsummers

      New England was never a “slave society”—where slaves
      performed the bulk of labor—but it depended heavily on
      slavery nonetheless, due to its economic entanglement
      with the Caribbean. As a crucial supplier of provisions
      to the sugar islands, New England, one captain
      observed, was truly “the key of the Indies without
      w[hi]ch Jamaica, Barbados & the Caribee Islands are not
      able to subsist.”
    

Something that, we should note, still occurs to a degree today. At the end of
the last century it was an outcry over sweatshops in, particularly,
impoverished countries. These past several years over where and how our
electronic products are produced. Deliberately or not, wealthier nations and
people are still exploiting poorer nations and people by a similar dynamic as
New England and the Indies.

~~~
wojcech
Indeed, just finished the book "Cod" which gives some fascinating details for
one example of new England (and also "nonslaving" European countries)
indirectly profiting of the slave trade

------
TimTheTinker
I think this article touches on a very interesting philosophical paradox of
human nature. It's hard to state pithily, but I'll try. We're all slaves to
something or someone (Bob Dylan's "Gotta Serve Somebody" comes to mind).
There's no way to escape that... a well-functioning society is made up of
laborers serving other people (if you disagree, you haven't made any money).
So in a sense "freedom" comes from voluntary service.

~~~
lisper
The escape mechanism from this generalized view of slavery is _competition_.
Yes, you have to serve someone, but if you have a _choice_ of who serve that
gives you leverage, because if one master mistreats you, you can go serve a
different one.

But maintaining competition is not easy because there's a positive feedback
effect: once an entity starts to accumulate disproportionate power, they can
then use that power to effect political change that makes it harder -- or even
impossible -- for others to compete. In network-based markets where the value
of the product increases with the number of people using it, the positive
feedback effect is even stronger. It's a hard problem, but crucially
important.

~~~
avivo
Why not _cooperation_? Competition lets a market — something not known to have
human values — decide how you can serve. With cooperation, you work together
with other humans and can decide together the best way to serve each other.

Of course, scaling cooperation, and especially decision mechanisms is hard.
Markets are great at scaling at least (well, until externalities crop up), but
they definitely aren't the _only_ solution! (especially in a world with
realtime worldwide computer mediated collaboration systems)

~~~
TimTheTinker
Scaling cooperation is impossible because for a given person, it can only work
within that person's trust network.

~~~
Retra
That would only imply that it is difficult, not impossible.

~~~
TimTheTinker
Good point.

------
crpatino
What the article is about, is the history of Slavery in the North-American
continent since the time of the English Colonies. The actual content is pretty
interesting, from a historical point of view.

The headline was meant to highlight a crap shot the author takes at current
American society; everybody claims that every _perceived_ slight to their
dignity is equivalent to an actual attempt at their freedom.

However, that is not what this piece is about and you will do yourself a
diservice if you skip it because it is 'click-baity'. Just trim down the first
2 paragraphs and the last one and you will filter out the noise without any
lose of the actual signal.

~~~
mzw_mzw
>Just trim down the first 2 paragraphs and the last one and you will filter
out the noise without any lose of the actual signal.

No. It's not the readers' responsibility to approach an article and then have
explicitly filter out the casual outrage-baiting and thinly veiled, poorly
informed political advocacy which is par for the course in most online media.
If they want us to read their articles, they can damn well not insult our
intelligence in the process. Until then, there's plenty of other things to
read.

~~~
rokoshan
We live in an age of abundant, easily vettable information. By your presence
here on HN I would assume in fact that you are a rather well-educated person,
which is why I figured I'd respond to something on the internet.

Sadly the abundance of information out there, not to mention the seeming
biological inability for humans to think in a purely rational way (
[https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Bias](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Bias) )
means that it's very difficult not to encounter some noise in scholarship. If
you cannot read past even open bias to engage with a reading critically and
openly, you handicap your ability to gain new knowledge (even that which may
disagree with a reading's thesis!) and to respond to the misconceptions and
biases of those who do not read or think critically. This advances ignorance
or apathy over knowledge and does a disservice to free-thinking citizens the
world over, especially in a democracy if you're so fortunate to live in one.

Now no one can force you to engage in a discussion or debate you'd rather not
be a part of, and it's perfectly normal to not find interest in historical
questions and essays. But to dismiss a scholarly reading on the basis of
whether it has bias at all, rather than the more reasonable basis that said
bias is not identified, not minimized or not properly segregated from the
argument in question, is irrational.

~~~
mzw_mzw
There's a difference between having the ability to tune out noise when you
come across it, and deliberately seeking it out -- or not avoiding it if you
are warned in advance.

Furthermore, this type of noise in particular is generally an excellent hint
that the actual "educational" content is going to be less educational and more
propaganda.

------
raldi
De-clickbaited headline: "The great trap for all Americans is prejudice"

~~~
Haul4ss
Is every intriguing headline called clickbait now?

It's not like they said "9 great traps all Americans fall into. Number 3 will
blow your mind!"

~~~
raldi
The headline was clearly written to get people to say, "Hmm, a great trap? And
it affects _all_ Americans? I wonder what this trap is. Some kind of
alligator, maybe? My brain will not allow me to get any work done until I find
out the nature of said trap."

~~~
leoc
Literary-journal article titles have been clickbait of this nature since
before the Web existed. Buzzfeed has nothing to teach the NYRB.

~~~
raldi
This is true; before it was bait for clicks, it was bait to get you to pull
the magazine off the rack.

Different technology, same user-hostile purpose.

~~~
sotojuan
I wonder what the line between "user hostile" and just regular writing is. In
English class I'm pretty sure we were told to do things similar to this (get
the reader's attention).

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's a difference between not boring your user _after_ he decided to read
your piece, and tricking your user into reading your piece.

------
emodendroket
The Empire of Necessity was a very interesting book.

------
sverige
"Comments" is clickbait in this instance.

