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Comment by garciasn | Hacker News Reader

> Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two-thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official, or a scholar.

This is not only offensive, but dehumanizing, reductive, and the co-opting of trauma in a hyperbolic way.

No one reading this is a fucking slave to their company. They may very well be in a third world country or a repressive regime; but, let’s be honest: those folks are not the intended audience here.

This is more of the, “quiet quitting trope,” rephrased in an objectively horrendous way.

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I would posit that many people working on a sponsored visa may feel differently.

edit: To be clear, when your relationship with work is good and your employer is largely benevolent, it can be fine.

When things go sideways and you're forced to do things that you disagree with (morally/ethically) or risk deportation, it is no longer OK.

Wage slavery is a very real thing now and in the past

Comparing a dissafected american programmer to a real slave is just not the right take

Roman Empire slavery is not the slavery of the Americas, your traumas are not everyone’s traumas

if your day isn’t at your discretion you are a slave in that older system, the popularity and normalization of that in our culture doesn’t change this. chattel slavery occurring in your country’s history doesn’t change this. there are many people at all socioeconomic brackets that have addressed it for themselves, based on the starkness of the observation.

> fucking slave to their company.

Are you? You are most likely not a slave to that specific company, but you are definitely slave to the system, you can’t leave your current job without securing another, or in few months you will be literally homeless, and if you have a family, they will leave you too aka your life is over. Even if you have your own business, you are slave to the investors or the ones pay your contracts. Go a little higher in this “food chain” and you are slave to banks, get debanked or sanctioned, and no matter what, most likely you will end up homeless. Hell, even having low credit score “real life good boy score” is enough to prevent from accessing many basic needs from buying/renting houses to new jobs or others.

You are truly free if you are not afraid to lose your basic human needs (shelter, food, security, etc.) if you stop working either voluntarily or lose your job.

None of this meets the definition of ‘slave’ and any claims to the contrary are disingenuous at best.

Is there really such a fine-line between slave or not?

What if the economy gets so bad you have to work 16 hours a day just to afford food? What if you can't afford to have kids? Pets? What if your apartment is 150 square feet?

After a certain point a free person under capitalism has less than certain historical slaves, and has a worse life.

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