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nazgulnarsil comments on What is Evil about creating House Elves? - Less Wrong Discussion

16 [deleted] 13 December 2010 01:57PM

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Comment author: nazgulnarsil 13 December 2010 11:13:15PM 3 points [-]

the word slavery is used as a blanket term for far too many phenomena. IIRC "slaves" in roman times had regular work hours, could own property, could buy out their contract etc.

Comment author: Costanza 14 December 2010 01:22:42AM 2 points [-]

True. On the other hand, historically, perhaps the majority of humans since the invention of agriculture have lived lives of what we would regard as continual drudge work, poverty, little or no protection from authority, and very little opportunity for advancement. Until recently, philosophers -- and everyone else -- took it for granted that this was how the world would always work. Certainly some "slaves" were privileged, but by the same token, huge numbers of nominally "free" people had it worse than canonical house elves. Even today, this is how it is for many, many people.