Joram2

Aren't you better at politics than writing software? Why did you resign from political writing? Any plans to return?

Are private cities a better variant on your preference for monarchy? Would you live in a Google City State? Do you think freedom of "exit" is better than freedom of "voice" or voting in the Hirschman sense?

Your one offensive comment is that some demographic groups are better suited for mastery and others for slavery. This seems absurd. All major ethnic groups were enslaved at some point in history and that wasn't based on IQ, it was based on military strength. Would you be willing to rescind that?

That is a lazy and insufficient deflection.

Many historians discuss why some American slavers chose to use imported African slaves over native Amerindian slaves, and that's generally not offensive. Thomas Sowell for example wrote extensively about that and generally didn't offend anyone.

This also isn't some simple misunderstanding. Your direct quote is:

"Not all humans are born the same, of course, and the innate character and intelligence of some is more suited to mastery than slavery. For others, it is more suited to slavery. And others still are badly suited to either. These characteristics can be expected to group differently in human populations of different origins. Thus, Spaniards and Englishmen in the Americas in the 17th and earlier centuries, whose sense of political correctness was negligible, found that Africans tended to make good slaves and Indians did not. This broad pattern of observation is most parsimoniously explained by genetic differences."

First, this is completely absurd. Throughout history rival tribes have killed and enslaved each other, and this was through military strength not through some general intelligence factor.

You are saying that genetic factors of low intelligence made Africans more suited to slavery. That's both wrong and completely unnecessarily offensive.

AFAIK, it was often harder to enslave a people in their native lands, so slavers often choose to import remote slaves. I don't think statements like that would offend anyone.

OK, I actually reread more of the larger article and it's not offensive.

On page 196 of "Race and Culture" by Thomas Sowell, "Enslaving people on their home grounds was more likely to lead to successful attempts at escape than where they were enslaved far from familiar surroundings. Thus, when the Dutch controlled Java, they preferred to import slaves from outside of Java."

I don't think it was a simple lack of ruthlessness, slavers have to stop slaves from escaping, and they want to minimize cost and effort to make the whole thing worthwhile. It's easier if you don't need to use chains and locked cells and the slaves just don't attempt to escape. If slaves are in completely unfamiliar land, and don't have supportive social networks, and don't see viable options of escape, and don't know where they would get their next meal if they did flee, they are less likely to attempt.

I was hoping you had more enthusiasm for Hirschman's concept of "exit" over "voice" and more enthusiasm or at least more input on the private city model as a reasonable, desirable, even "progressive" alternative to democracy.