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A comment on Microsoft CEO defends US military contract that employees say crosses a line. Parent comment

Re:Microsoft CEO defends US military contract that employees... by sturgill on Monday February 25, 2019 @11:51PM (#19252055)
With an important caveat: it’s almost completely eradicated _for now_. Civilizations come and go. Perpetual human progress is only possible if that’s what the strongest group of people want and are willing to fight for it. “Live free or die” wasn’t a cute mantra; it was a rallying cry and a warning.

In the US, slavery was eradicated literally by the sword.

The real genius of the Founding Fathers of the US was their distrust of human nature (and consequent aversion to centralized power).

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Re:Microsoft CEO defends US military contract that employees... by creato on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @12:12AM (#19252129)
> With an important caveat: it’s almost completely eradicated _for now_.

That's not even close to true. There are ~30 million slaves worldwide today [1]. I can't find a concise worldwide total for around the time most people imagine is the peak of slavery, at least in the US (1860?), but that was "only" less than 4 million [2].

Whatever point was being made about slavery as an example in this conversation IMO points exactly the opposite way the GP intended: that slavery is a "natural" state for humans to end up in, and it requires continuous effort to prevent it. Just like war.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century#St...

2. https://www.thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/timeline/1860.html

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Re:Microsoft CEO defends US military contract that employees... by dnautics on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @02:48AM (#19252678)
Are you normalizing to the total human population?

So currently 30 million slaves out of a 7 billion population is under a half a percent, compared to 4 million slaves in the us out of a US population of 30 million is almost 7 percent.

I'd say that's an improvement

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Re:Microsoft CEO defends US military contract that employees... by creato on Tuesday February 26, 2019 @03:17AM (#19252782)
It seems that ~60 million people are affected by war [1], "only" ~2x as many. So I think that the original point I was making stands: neither slavery nor war are things that humans "grew out of". They both need significant, active effort by people to avoid/contain/resist.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/jun/18/5...

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