1/A Zanzibari local told us that the Brits' main motivation helping to shut down the East African slave trade in late 19th century was mostly... the industrial revolution.
Less "free" human labor around helped sell more machines for automation?
Conversation
Replying to
2/This made me think of Luddites in a new way.
The original ones were basically prolonging the human rights violations by smashing novel machines.
1
3/Which in turn might be an interesting metaphor for modern luddites:
Taking a risk-first, dystopian opposition against innovation pessimists hurt the current working class. Not by forcing into slavery, but prolonging years of unfulfilling boring jobs people stay stuck in.
2
1
3
4/For example "AI is taking the jobs" is only a problem if those jobs are worthy of human creativity and potential in the first place.
Or, "crypto replaces institutions with math" is a problem only for some roles beyond people pushing spreadsheets around for two day settlement.
1
2
Replying to
That's very garbled. Expensive labour does drive automation and it's part of the discussion of why the industrial revolution began in the UK. But, there was never large-scale slavery of Africans in the UK (and serfdom ended in the Middle Ages).
2
1
Replying to
Yeah, there are many other dimensions for sure (including some local sultan's alliance with the crown against some mainland adversaries, etc).
I'm shamefully under-read on this era & region for sure -- and hadn't heard the industrial revolution argument against slavery.
1
Show replies