Wasprider's Random Effort Posts

[Wasprider]

In this thread, I'll post random effort (or semi-effort posts) I've made elsewhere.

Slavery as an institution in Roman and pre-Roman times was very different for an educated or domestic slave. Unfortunately, I'll bet there were a lot of non-educated slaves who are not recorded in the history books. The life of a domestic slave in the US (and Brazil) was not horrible compared to field/labor slaves, borne out by the life expectancy numbers of places where there weren't as many plantations.

Surprisingly, slavery in the territories of the United States of America was among the least objectionable in the Western Hemisphere (which isn't saying much). And better than any on the Caribbean islands or in Brazil. And probably better than most sub-Saharan African slavery.

Haiti with it's sugar plantation and French colonial status killed slaves through hard labor and punishment faster than they could reproduce, resulting in a constant influx of slaves from West Africa. The average life expectancy of a slave was short. Big chunks of that were because slave women were so undernourished and over worked that infant mortality and death in childbirth was common. Even otherwise, the life expectancy of a male field slave wasn't much past thirty or forty, and for an imported field slave, they would often only live 7-9 more years. Somehow the slaves managed to overthrow the ruling whites only to fall back onto sugar plantations with forced labor themselves.

The Spanish Encomienda was a brutal thing that sort of fell short of slavery, but the effects on the native population was brutal. Disease outbreaks of things like smallpox hit a population with no immunity, poor nutrition, and under harsh labor. According to some estimates over 80% of the native population of Mexico died, how much is attributable to the various causes is unclear, but it devastated the native population. And in Nicaragua and Guatemala hundreds of thousands were taken into slavery. It was so bad, that the system was replaced in 1550 by Repartimiento to curb the worst excesses of Encomienda. The Spanish enslavement occurred well before Jamestown was ever established.

The Brazilian sugar plantations were among the worst places to be, though they were apparently better than Haiti, and Brazil apparently accepted the greatest number of West African slaves, 4.9 million according to Wikipedia. The average life expectancy of an African slave in Brazil was 23 years, which was 4 more years than the indigenous slaves.

I do not say this to excuse slavery in the USA. I think it was indefensible.

General readers, especially in the US, don't seem to know how bad slavery got. They don't know the whos, the whats, or the wheres, let alone the whys.

There is an interesting discussion about life expectancy (which I am using a proxy for how physically bad slavery was) on Quora, which should be able to point you to further sources. Generally speaking, the difference in life expectancy between whites and slaves in the US was much smaller than the difference in life expectancy between slaves and whites in the rest of the Western Hemisphere. Interestingly, the official importation of slaves into the United States was abolished in 1807 (effective January 1st, 1808). However, the population of slaves in the United States grew 4 fold between 1810 and 1860, which means that in strict physical terms, slavery in the US was less brutal than Haitian slavery who had to import to maintain (and grow) the number of slaves.

So think about that the next time you stir some sugar into your coffee (or tea).

I have not done the research on sub-Saharan slavery, or slavery in Muslim countries (which were among the last to abolish traditional slavery). For some depressing information, look at how many countries slavery was still legal after 1950 (if they abolished it after 1950, it was legal before then).

 

[Wasprider]

What do I find ugly about newer cars, specifically?

Side Seams - Those disgusting creases on the sides of the body. Designers go way overboard and make them weird and kinked and they fuck up the lines of the car. So many newer cars are so tall and slab-sided, the seams almost seem to say “We wish our window line was down here”.

Disproportionate - Newer cars are way too fucking tall. The belt line is too high. It makes them look like inflated metal balloons. This is largely because of regulations governing pedestrian safety. It’s all because it’s now mandatory to have large air gaps under the hood so that when you hit someone, the hood deforms instead of their head going bonk on the engine. Modern crossovers generally look like big steel guppies and are repulsive, with few exceptions.

Angry Faces - Newer cars have an excess of frowny headlights and grim-looking grilles, like they’re about to eat the car in front of them. Headlights have been reduced to predatory streaks and almost every new car on the road looks like a big fat cheetah, ready to pounce and devour.

What do you think about these pieces of shit, and why would you want one on your driveway when you could get a decent-looking used car instead?

Well, you've nailed the basic reason. The regulation requires high beltlines and raised hoods. Those side-seams really are where they want the windows, but those aren't coming back until a break through in protective design. The idea is to have you covered in metal and airbags up to your shoulder.

When they think they can get away with it, they'll require restraints on the head as well. (Frankly, in terms of reducing injury and increased passenger safety, head and neck restraints would do more than most of the proposals and possibly even most airbags (if racing and shoulder harnesses were used properly, airbags help most when they aren't).)

Blocking off all of that has made the faces big, because they have to be.

The headlights are just a byproduct of LEDs going mainstream. This means that squinty eyed cars with really big faces where you can't really see the driver are the norm.

Hopefully, in a decade or two or three, some designers will figure out a way to make things look interesting again. But to go from malaise era HP back to going over 300 BHP regularly took American car companies almost 20 years.

That said, they are safer and more fuel efficient than most of the other cars that looked better.