Aravo Celta

China, India, a number of African nations, both Koreas, it seems to be more or less a global issue of ever decreasing birthrates.

there used to be chattel slavery in the world so common that there were parts of cities just called the slave market. While there's certainly a lot of room for improvement, that isn't something that exists anymore.

Slavery used to be so common throughout world history that it was thought of as a natural fact of life. There were whole groups of people on every continent who were so commonly stolen away into human bondage that their peoples name became synonymous with the local lingua franca word for slavery. every populated continent. There were places where you just popped on over to the less settled and poorer region and stole people to sell. Not just the transatlantic slave trade, the muslim slave trade stretched all the way into India, down the coast of east Africa, into the Congo, north into the Balkans, the final sale of human beings in Saudi Arabia was in the era of color photographs.

and now?

we have to argue new definitions for slavery. The sin that undergirded the whole planet for thousands of years became so reviled that it has to be hidden and obfuscated. Sure, we utilize prison labor, and engage in labor trafficking of "guest workers" and there are certainly still people being bought and sold in some dark corner of the world.

But the human species managed to not only put a stop to a crime as old as settled farming, but to fundamentally change how we view this practice from being a benign inevitability to something that must be continually eradicated in every new form.

Things have been infinitely worse than they are now for nearly every group of people on the planet, and we have overcome so much worse than the present moment, with far fewer tools and with far lesser collective willpower.

there are no hard and fast rules for deciding how to work social situations or weigh moral quandries with more than a two or three variables.

The russian empire and then the soviet union butchered people into near extinction while we had fucking satellites and telephones. people were trying to exterminate communities of ukrainans and poles while wearing puma sneakers.

people will uncritically accept 18th century levels of colonial appologia from dudes young enough to be blowing vape clouds so long as that person gives some token lip service towards being anti american in some way.