I hate that "Machines as a parable for chattel slavery" trope so much, I wish sci-fi writers would stop writing that shit.
[context - I mentally reject Star Trek: TNG's early attempts to use Data as a metaphor for chattel slavery. Because it's stupid, it doesn't make sense, it's forced/barely an analogy, it's heavy handed, I simply pretend it's not happening]
^^^ I feel soooo irritated every time chattel slavery analogies in sci-fi/fantasy discourse pops up because the discussion inevitably focuses on how racist the creator is for daring to write the analogy (frankly it often comes across as anger at writing slavery at all, which is...bad take) and NOT on the far bigger issue which is that it's almost always bad writing! It sucks! If I had maximum king powers, I would enact a ban on chattel slavery narrative metaphors in fiction because
In a world where the Atlantic slave trade canonically happened...mankind has invented a new class - clones/androids/robots/some kind of human lookalike that's legally not a human.
Our hero is the only one brave enough to ask "this is kind of like historical US chattel slavery, don't you think?" His loved ones balk and bristle at their treasonous talk - "In what way is an entity that was built rather than stolen or trafficked, that likely cannot procreate (and thus cannot mimick the unique chattel trait of generational ownership), and can only (or at least primarily) act via explicit commands -thus making their lack of/limited autonomy intrinsic to the entity - comparable to the Atlantic slave trade? Realistically society wouldn't just copy paste Jim Crow laws for this kind of thing, like cybersecurity and tech laws were already becoming distinct issues in the 21st century. Even if we agree they're both the same definition of personal property, our relationships should be different in a way that makes the comparison sort of shallow? I'm not even saying our relationship to robots or whatever is inherently more ethical or ethical at all, I'm saying it doesn't sound like you've thought about this past the most superficial level How could you compare clones/androids/robots/some-kind-of human-lookalike-that's-legally-not-a-human to slavery?! Slavery is evil! We learned about slavery in history class. It was very bad. Why would the government teach us slavery is bad if this is slavery? I treat Miss Mammytron like family!"
It's up to our hero to free the slaves or unite the oppressed or wake up the sheeple. To remind the audience that slavery? It's bad. Not sure if you were aware. Wasn't sure if we were all on the same page re: the ethics of owning humanoids with some amount of free will as personal property but yeah it's not great :/
I didn't say the story's title but it popped into your head, didn't it ;)
