Come on, this is just lazy.

Again, that’s a structural problem that it shares with any Reddit-like site, at least when karma has any sort of significance. Anything with a low barrier to entry will allow bots.

Exactly, I think Twitter could have continued on indefinitely if Elon hadn’t dropped in and mucked everything up. The model worked well enough and they were finally tamping down the moderation issues more or less. There were problems with monetizing, but even that gap was being shrunk.

From what I can gather, there were repeated problems with brigading. It’s also worth noting that Lemmy uses much the same structure as Reddit, so the complaints from r/banned about “supermods” apply just as much here.

Currently, no. Digg collapsed because the format of the site was changed in extreme and unpopular ways. Elon is massively mismanaging Twitter while also learning that moderation is hard. Reddit of course has its own balancing act, but it shows no signs of complete collapse like with previous sites.

This implies…

And here’s where you’re making a mistake. You’re drawing all sorts of inferences to put words in my mouth. I don’t know if you’re just a spiteful individual, but it’s a pattern of behavior.

Evidently, he’d be perfectly fine with the system as long as the slave owners weren’t allowed to egregiously abuse their slaves.

Slavery is intrinsically abusive. I didn’t think I needed to bother saying that. Chattel slavery is intrinsically more abusive than other forms of slavery, especially as was practiced in the South.

Thus he even argues that the modern prison slavery in US is not comparable to chattel slavery.

Comparable? Hell no, in the same way that the Holocaust is not comparable with a few dozen people being murdered. Obviously both are evil, but one is terrible on a completely different scale than the other.

Exactly. Won by the labor movement after the American Civil War. Not achieved by capitalists and not involved in abolishing chattel slavery.

Things like the 8 hour work day?

Well, I made an attempt. I just ask that you consult with someone who you will actually pay attention to as to whether this comparison is an offensive one to make. As I said, when you’re starting to sound like a neo-confederate, step back and ask whether you’re saying something offensive.

• Spends money on purchasing slaves vs. Can exchange one “slave” (worker) for another: This leaves out the horrors of the slave trade, both transatlantic and domestic. Families were routinely split apart. Slave auctions were dehumanizing. Enslaved people were entirely at the mercy of their enslavers. The states would help track down escaped slaves, and the federal government attempted to force Northern states to cooperate via the Fugitive Slave Act. I won’t whitewash the poor balance in employer-employee relationships, but it’s offensive to put it in the same league. Workers can leave. They can move companies, cities, states, or countries. Workers are not forced to leave their family, at least not at a level that is utterly non-negotiable.
• Pays for the total upkeep of the slaves: Yeah, in the same way you keep up a piece of machinery. If it was no longer profitable to pay for the “upkeep” of an enslaved person because of age or disability, they were subject to being sold off for medical experiments, left in the woods to die, etc. Quality health care was not in the cards.
• If a slave gets sick it’s [the enslaver’s] problem: Only if it interfered with work. And if you’re making a comparison with modern capitalism, workplace injuries are very much the employer’s problem because of worker’s compensation. Likewise health care insurance is commonly employer provided. There are also pieces of the social safety net, with are partially paid for by businesses in various ways.
• Slaves come to work on their own: I see no downside to people having their own homes instead of whatever half-assed shack their enslaver provides.
• Only has to pay for 8 hours of their lives: That other 16 hours was a hard won victory by unions. Going over 8 means paying overtime. Slaves didn’t get overtime, but they did get over 8 hours of work.

Then all I can say is you badly need to go back to your history books on slavery (and the post-Reconstruction era for that matter) before you keep ragging on about how ignorant I am about my own country.

I’m not whitewashing the current state of things as being perfect. If that wasn’t already obvious from our numerous interactions, I don’t know what to tell you. Chattel slavery was incredibly brutal on a systemic level, far beyond anything present in the US today. Yes, you could cherrypick parallels and try to cast them as the current system being worse, like this meme does. You would just be utterly wrong to the point where most Black people in the US would find this meme incredibly offensive.

Your white supremacist friends see these facts and advocate going back to slavery

Neo-confederates are primarily of the “Lost Cause” variety, where they diminish the horrors of slavery, make comparisons with the industrialized North, and romanticize the South. I’m not exaggerating when I say that you are snatching words right out of their mouth.

Chattel slavery was never ended in US.

While the prison system arguably allows a form of slavery via the felony exception to the 13th Amendment, it is not chattel slavery since no ownership is involved. There are of course plenty of pieces of history that I could in depth on like Black Codes, debt traps, and terrorism by the KKK and other white supremacist groups. Still not chattel slavery.

I am amazed just how ignorant you are about your own country. A quintessentially American moment here.

Oh teacher, I was unaware that you required a ten page single spaced Times New Roman paper on African American history following the period between Reconstruction and the present day. I’m quite well versed in US history around slavery, thank you.

Except that I’m not making the same argument that a white supremacist makes, that’s just your deranged reading what my argument.

Every single one of the points in that image could be coming out of a neo-confederate’s mouth. Yes, the North had its problems with exploitation and industrialization, this is well known. But it was nothing close to chattel slavery.

The fact that capitalism outcompeted chattel slavery is itself an indicator that it reduces the costs for the slave owner.

My dude, we fought a fucking war over it. That’s how chattel slavery ended in the US.

Except it isn’t worse, and that’s frankly a horrible thing to say. Like, if you’re making the same argument that a white supremacist makes, maybe it’s time to check whether you want to be saying that?

You do realize this reasoning was historically (and to a lesser extent currently) used to defend slavery? Be careful what rhetoric you use.

I gotta ask, have you tried talking to a doctor? Self medicating can seriously mess you up. Not that doctors are flawless, but just shoving random chemicals in you and hoping for the best is worse.

There’s also the nature of economic activity there. It’s often based around resource extraction, which tends to concentrate money and power in just a few hands. As you get more value added, it gets harder and harder to not at least treat your employees somewhat decently.

A kind of interesting case here is Liberia. In the early 19th century it was colonized by former enslaved people from the United States under the blessings of white people from the US. They turned right around and essentially enslaved the indigenous people. That created a small wealthy upper class with support from the US that was resented by the rest of the population. Eventually around 1980 the indigenous people toppled the ruling class, but unfortunately that led to 20 years of turmoil. It’s only recently that things have started to really show progress.