August 28, 2015 • 62 mins
While it's comforting to imagine slavery as a barbaric practice in humanity's distant past, nothing could be further than the truth. Join Ben and Matt to learn more.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Slavery,
in fact, is doomed. In whatever way the war is
(00:23):
carried on. We owe it no goodwill. It's life has
been ogus, and its death will be as grateful to
the nation as was that of the Old Man of
the Sea to sind Bad. That comes to us from
the New York Times on March seventeenth, eighteen sixty two.
(00:46):
Welcome back to the show. Everyone. My name is Matt
and I'm Ben, and we are joined as always by
our superproducer, Noel Manumission Brown manu mission, Yeah, manumission or
manumittance being manumented, being freed from slavery, essentially emancipated in
some senses of the word. Uh. This week we have
(01:08):
been taking a look at slavery, not the historical part,
but our video that comes out today Three facts about
modern slavery, which we shot in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Yes we did, uh, you know President Lincoln. Will will
discuss him perhaps a little later in this episode, but
(01:29):
his his and his um the people that worked with him.
The Emancipation Proclamation. It is cited as ending slavery in
the United States. Of course, we know historically that you know,
slavery didn't just drop off immediately, right. Everything wasn't hunky dory.
When President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it was January one,
(01:51):
eighteen sixty three. This was the third year of Civil War.
This proclamation famously declared that all persons held as slaves
within the rebellious Confederate States are, and henceforward shall be free. Matt,
you you've made a great point that this was not
(02:11):
near as complete, north swift, and ending as it should
have been. So you and I and nol are recording
this in the United States. It's a country with a
horrific history of slavery, and the lingering effects of this
practice can still be seen across the culture today. And
this is not this is not a political point. This
(02:35):
is a fact. It's inarguable that the end of the
end of slavery um was not as concise nor as
abrupt as the Emancipation Proclamation aimed for it to be.
The slave trade in North America was still not as
large as the trade in South America, and if you
(02:58):
there's a there's a great program called Black in Latin
America which makes a case that Mexico and Peru imported
more African slaves than the United States. Yeah. It cites
that between fifteen o two and eighteen sixties six that
there were eleven point two million Africans UH imported into
(03:23):
those countries, like taken conducted. Yeah, and in the United
States there were only around four hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah,
and the rest were in Latin America the Caribbean as
early as the sixteenth and seventeen centuries. This was a
long running practice. And uh, the struggle for equality post
(03:48):
Emancipation Proclamation continued through Jim Crow laws and and uh
ballot test or voting tests, you know, where people were
people were allowed to vote on paper if they could
you know, decipher Mandarin and things like that. Uh, and
then the struggle for civil rights and equality, and then
(04:08):
it even gets up to voter rights laws and needing
ideas for certain things, laws about being imprisoned and you know,
if you're if you've been charged with a felony, certain
things you can't do a lot of times vote right
and what kind of and and that's a that's an
interesting question that you and I have kicked around off
(04:30):
the air before. What would change about the political climate
in the US if felons were allowed to vote? So
we talked about some of this stuff, and and now
we're talking about the future. So our look at modern
human trafficking and slavery, which are there's a nuance there,
(04:52):
there are different things. Uh. It brought us to this
question that we're asking today, what's the state of human
trafficking and slavery today? What's the future of slavery? And
to answer that we have to, uh, we have to
bust a couple of myths and walk through some statistics.
The first thing we should point to here is that,
(05:15):
as we said, slavery and human trafficking did not stop
by any means throughout the world at that time. It
had existed prior to the Advancipation Proclamation for thousands of years,
and it continues today until two thousand fifteen right now, right,
and it will probably continue as well. According to the
(05:37):
International Labor Organization, they did a report in two thousand
twelve and they found that three out of every thousand
people in the world are in some form of forced labor. Now,
there's an important point that we're going to make about
the statistics later, but for now, we're just going to
give you some of these findings. And one of those
(05:57):
statistics is that there are nearly twenty one million people
who are in this kind of forced labor, including one
point five million in North America. And as part of
one of these definitions, there are two categories of human
trafficking in the US, at least by definition, there's sex
trafficking and then there's labor trafficking UM and that is
(06:19):
as defined by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act from two thousand right. And this brings us to
another This brings us to something that should be explored
because the line between labor and trafficking or enslavement indentured
servitude is not as stark as people might think. There's
(06:42):
there's a big misconception that the majority of people who
are enslaved are enslaved for sexual purposes. However, it seems
that from the numbers we can find the majority of
people who are enslaved are enslaved in a forced labor situation.
And in the US, many of the victims of trafficking
(07:04):
end up working as you know, domestic workers, or even
in a restaurant industry, or you can hear about forced
labor in agricultural fields. According to our research, there was
a there are a lot more people enforced work in
restaurants than I would have ever imagined. Right, yeah, so
there's there There's different stuff there too, because what is
(07:28):
the line between actual forced labor? Is forced labor something
where you are paid but irregularly paid, or is it
something where you are under lockdown and forced to do
something by someone who uh possesses your vital documents or
someone who could get you deported. So there's uh, there's
(07:51):
a thing here about America's immigration policy. And you'll hear
a lot of NGOs say that America's approach to immigrate
ation uh kind of strengthens the system of human trafficking.
And of course I know that this can be a
very charged topic for people, not just in the US,
(08:12):
but also in Europe for instance. Uh, the current US
guessworker program has led to a host of problems for immigrants, right. Uh.
You might remember the human rights violations that were exposed
in uh New Orleans, which led to the creation of
the National Guest Workers alliance trying to, you know, find
(08:35):
some sort of strength and numbers. And there's a fantastic
book you can recalled Life Interrupted Trafficking into Forced Labor
in the United States by a professor named Denise Brennan,
and she says that contrary to claims that modern day
slavery is all around us, the politically thorny reality is
that exploited migrant labor is all around us. Most workers
(08:56):
are not in a situation of extreme abuse. They're not
technically trafficked, but they work in lousy conditions in a
kind of labor purgatory. There's no immigration relief for protection
for being almost trafficked. Uh. And this professor's view is that, um,
the current practice of immigration deportation, those those rules make
(09:18):
it impossible to fight trafficking. And this this is strange
because the largest number of human trafficking cases not necessarily slavery, right,
but taking someone forcibly to another place, right. The largest
number of those that are reported are sex trafficking. But
(09:41):
how to decide how to support these victims or someone's
labeled the victim is still a subject in debate right now.
Because you'll hear people talk about and this is this
is a dark topic, right, This is grizzly, grizzly unpleasant thing.
But you'll hear people talk about, uh, the practice of
(10:05):
survival sex like having having sexual congress with someone for
your own safety if you're homeless, or if you're trying
to survive in a foster uh, in a foster care situation.
So it's it's inarguable that currently in the US, there
(10:27):
there could be better programs and support for people as
survivors of human trafficking. And this is I know we're
being very specific to the US. So maybe let's make
it a little bit broader and let's look at the
world overall where in some cases, uh, slavery is more
(10:48):
or less tacitly condoned by the government. Right, Because that's
a big question, right when we look at when we
look at slavery across the world, we have to say, wait,
despite this constant work from NGOs and governments today, slavery
still continues and we have some we have some unpleasant
(11:08):
news in this in this regard. Yeah, one of the
more brutal things that you're going to hear the inside
this topic is that there are more slaves that exist
today on planet Earth than ever before. And there are
a couple of things that work into that statement, right right, yeah,
because that number comes from absolute numbers, right, so not
(11:29):
as a percentage of the population, but just raw human lives.
Because there are a lot of us humans walking around
right now. Um, and some of some of the people
walking around, uh I, I let's say, don't take issue
with things like putting someone in slavery, and that is
(11:51):
a horrible thing to think about. But there are human
beings walking around right now that don't. They don't mind
so much, I guess. Or there are people grow up
in a situation where because their parents were enslaved, they
are also enslaved. Modern day slavery differs from the traditional slavery.
Traditional slavery which is illegal in each of the hundred
(12:16):
and sixties seven countries listed in the Global Slavery Index.
Under traditional slavery, these people were considered property, not people,
but things. But modern slavery is more about the possession
or control of a person in a way that deprives
them of their rights. So there is there is a
slight difference, and that exists in each of the hundred
(12:39):
and sixty seven nations that are part of this index,
and only five countries, five countries alone count for olds
for about sixty one of people living in modern slavery. Yeah,
India has the highest number of people living in modern
slavery right now, estimated to be at fort million. And
(13:03):
one of the examples of that is are the killing workers.
And you listeners may have seen something on Vice or
recently Humans of New York did a small piece on
the killing workers and what they go through. It's a
systematic situation where let's say you're a worker from Bangladesh
and you want to help out your family and you
(13:25):
want to make some money. This person comes into town
and says, hey, we can give you a job. Uh
let's say in India, we can give you this job
and you're gonna make a certain amount of money. You'll
be able to send it back to your family. It'll
be great. We just need some money to get you
over here to do this. This kind of thing happens
in to buy and a couple other places like this
(13:46):
for different kind of work. And then you show up
for work, but then you find out, oh wait, they
just they took my passport. That's kind of weird. Now,
how am I going to get back to my family
when it's time to go. Oh, you'll you'll get that
back after you've paid off your debt. Right, So then
you know you're having to pay off your the original loan.
They're given tons of interest, and you're not making as
(14:08):
much money as you thought you were going to make
and you end up being stuck there. Yeah. Another another
way to look at would be some of the cultural expectations.
A lot of times you'll hear people who are slaveholders
use terms that try to avoid it. Like what we're
talking about with the kiln workers is debt bondage, Right,
(14:29):
you have to pay off your debt or bonded labor
or attached labor people who live on a property that
someone owns and therefore they're part of the property, the
same way the fields, the trees, and the buildings are
or um, you know, indentured servitude. Uh. Here's another nasty,
nasty fact. Uh. The the last country in the world
(14:51):
to abolish slavery was Mauritania in nineteen eighty one. Geez,
and this of course still continued at the time. There
there are other people in the region who are who
are still enslaved. Enslave status is passed down through the generations.
(15:13):
So if you're mother or your father was a slave,
then you too can be born a slave. This, this
abominable practice continues. And then it also brings us to
the question. I like that you mentioned guest workers, right,
(15:34):
people from Indonesia perhaps or the Philippines who were brought
to Middle Eastern countries under the pretense that they will
be given job opportunities that do not exist. Some of
these euphemistic words, euphemisms that are used with us are
just it's a nefarious right. It is, it is and
you know, as you said, these people may have their
(15:56):
passports taken by their their sponsor, their employer, and then
forced to live in horrific conditions, exposed to assault, exposed
to exposed to beatings, and centraal harassment is rampant more
than harassment. Well yeah, oh yeah, it's sorry, it's hard.
It's hard for me to to even imagine the horrors
(16:20):
that people have to go through with this stuff. And
in oh, and just to go back with Mauritania. While
India has the highest population estimated to be in slavery
in terms of numbers, Mauritania has the largest percentage as
of two thousand and fourteen, four percent of mauritaneous population
(16:42):
can be considered enslaved. Wow fo this Uh, this is
not to say that other countries are perfect themselves. You know,
you can read the list of the countries with the
most slaves, which is just a terrible rundown that we
(17:02):
can do. I don't know if we want to laundry
list that. But there's another factor here, which is given
the larger number of slaves in absolute terms, as I
think we may have mentioned in the video to uh,
slaves are cheaper than ever before. Now, yeah, I think
(17:23):
you pointed to what what did we say in while
chattel slavery was the normal thing in the United States.
If you do the conversions of money back in those
days to what it would be now, a buying a
person averaged around forty thousand U s. Dollars and nowadays
(17:46):
with modern money, I think the average was around ninety
nine zero dollars, right. And the uh, if we look
at a pie graph of slave every victims are women
and girls, whereas are men and boys, and and as
(18:08):
Ben and I were saying earlier, a lot of these
things feel like they're being equated together. Um. But there
is there. They're a big difference in some of these
numbers because you know, if you throw it all together
in one big thing, the way some of these numbers are,
it's not taking into account the exact situation, right, and
every every situation with this is different. When we're talking
(18:30):
about bonded labor versus guest workers win bonded bonded labor,
there's there are differences there even, and they're disferent differences
through all of this, and there I think there's a
Washington Post article you can find that discusses the minutia
of some of the statistics out there. Right. Yeah, to
(18:51):
this may seem like a Colt question, but it is
a question that must be asked, which is, if a
if an NGO exists to fight slavery, right, where are
the numbers derived from? You always have to question your sources.
And then is it possible that there is exaggeration because
(19:13):
a lot of these numbers don't agree. And that's not
to say that there's you know, malevolence or deception on
the part of the NGOs. There's not a census. Yeah,
it's incredibly difficult to find a complete and accurate number
(19:33):
of how many people are enslaved because, as you can imagine,
as Matt you pointed out, it's difficult to have a sensus,
and even the idea seems, you know, horrible. I'm sorry,
it's strange. Yeah. Uh so we're going to talk some
more about the stuff they don't want you to know
(19:54):
regarding modern slavery. However, before we do, we're going to
pause for a word. Um, today's sponsor. Here's where it
(20:15):
gets crazy. I love it when you do that. You
mayn't feel weird when he said, I'm sorry, I think
we all do human rights. This is this is one
of the craziest things. Human rights often take a back
seat to international affairs. Oh yeah, that's right, especially if
you've got I don't I don't know, the Olympics coming
(20:35):
into your country, or FIFA or something like that. Yeah,
tell me a little more about this. Well, you just
imagine that you were being tasked with building huge structures
that are going to hold thousands and thousands of people,
and maybe they're only going to be used one summer
or one winter, who knows, but you have to build
(20:57):
them do it now? Yeah? The and how how do
you do that in a country that doesn't have rule
of law or labor regulations. Right. It came out recently.
You've probably read some of the some of the reports
regarding the use of slave labor in these enormous construction projects.
(21:20):
And also, you know, we're we're talking about countries that
have close relationships with other other countries that have really
strict anti slavery, anti human trafficking laws. That's strange, right,
Like India and the US are geopolitical partners, right. Uh,
(21:43):
And again, India has over fourteen million people enslaved today. Uh.
We could also mention I'm sure numerous examples spring to
mind as you're thinking about this, listeners, but for instance,
forced labor in North Korea. Right, if the if the
(22:04):
if the problem of slavery, If this um disgusting practice
is so inherently disgusting, so um such anathema to the
existence of a modern civilization, then the question becomes why
is it tolerated? How does it occur? There? There's some
(22:25):
excellent reports by the United Nations that you can read
for free online detailing the roles of corrupt government officials
and assisting human trafficking and smugglers. Right, and and human trafficking,
we should also say, is not necessary again, not necessarily slavery.
It's human trafficking. When a coyote takes uh takes a
(22:46):
group of people illegally over a border right between Mexico
and the US. Even if the even if the coyote
you know, is paid his or her fee and then
just does let the people go off, it's still trafficking.
It's still trafficking, and it's still you know, smuggling. But
(23:08):
the question then becomes, you know, the answer is something
very cold and geopolitical, which is that if it is
going to damage a status quo right for for China
or the US too, or even South Korea to invade
North Korea right and try to liberate people enforced labor camps,
(23:31):
then this geopolitical calculation occurs where people, people at the
heads of government, right, people who either are the power
or have the ear of power, say, well, you know,
there are different kinds of evil and which one is worse?
Which is which is a conversation I have never personally
(23:53):
been in, thank goodness, but it is a conversation that
people have. And one of the things that comes to
mind right here that maybe isn't the best thing is
is listening to let's say, certain politicians inside the US
who have recently called for a global government. This is
(24:17):
the kind of thing that they would say, this is
why we need a global governance. Who would say, Hey,
it doesn't matter what country you're in, this is important.
This can't happen now. That sounds really nice, right, Um,
But I know people right now are just getting a
ringing in their ears because I said global government, and
you know, and and the idea of that is very scary,
(24:38):
and to me it's scary. But at the same time,
it could mean if we had something like that, it
was true governments on that kind of scale, then maybe
you could stop it. That's interesting you said in that,
because I wonder if that kind of global governance would
be possible. We know that we've talked about this in
earlier podcasts where we talk about secret societies or people
(25:02):
trying to control the world. From what we can tell,
the truth of the matter is that there are numerous
groups who think they should be controlling the world, right,
and they are always constantly trying to yeah and add
odds with one another. Right. It's very much a highlander
king of the hill, who makes us right? Who watches,
the watchers, and the The question here is um, is
(25:26):
to what extent I would say, to what extent this
could actually work. We've talked before about Dunbar's number, the
concept that there is a hard wired limitation in every
human brain that limits how many people you can think
of as other human beings, which, in my mind, um,
(25:47):
in my mind, raises some difficult propositions when we talk
about an elected representative representing, you know, anyone over a
couple people, breds of thousands of people, right and is
is there is there some sort of possibility that a
global government would be able to address the the atrocity
(26:11):
that is modern slavery. To me, that's a question that
would be a great thing to ask, because we still
as a species, have not proven whether a one world
global government would work. And my spider sense tells me,
my spider sense tells me it would work very well
for a very small group of people, but for most
(26:36):
of humanity it's very much a question up in the air.
And I don't know, right well, I don't know, like
I don't know if it could even happen. We're talking
about billions of people. How on earth literally would this
would this occur, How would decisions be made? The United
(26:59):
Nations are he has such a difficult time, and the
world superpowers, right, and nuclear powers even often ignore the
U n when it doesn't say something that suits them.
The European Union is constantly trying to figure out how
to be a government of multiple countries. And now that
(27:21):
this question about who would control the world, you know,
financial institutions honestly probably have the best shot. Financial institutions
and coalition of nuclear powered governments. That sounds great, that
sounds yeah, I said, okay, So I can hear the
sarcasm it's emanating off you and I'm receiving. Okay. So,
(27:45):
because in absence of some group that would actually have
the power to say no, don't do that, right, we
have something like the US, which a lot of times
seems to or at least attempts to act as the
global police force that goes through and says, hey, we're
gonna we're gonna put sanctions on you because we don't
(28:05):
like this is what you're doing. Hey, we're gonna invade
you because we don't like this what you're doing. And
as we've learned through our experiences here and listeners, I'm
sure you have as well that perhaps those the reasons
for doing those things aren't necessarily above board. Right. Yeah,
there is again a calculation that that continues with this stuff,
(28:27):
right because I think we talked about it before, and
I know that it sounds a bit world weary. But
when I hear people saying we're going to go to war,
leaders of any country saying we're going to war because
of our values, then I'm kind of suspicious, right, because
(28:49):
if those values are so sacrosanct, if they are so powerful,
then why do human rights violations continue, you know, in
in every country? And of course it's because a system
can't be perfect. I'm just saying that I cannot think
of an example where in a global government could work.
(29:11):
Perhaps as technology evolves it would be some sort of
there would be some sort of way to do it.
But given the distrust, rightfully placed distrust in in something
like this, some overarching global empire, I I uh, I
don't know, man. It's a tough sell. We've got and
we've got local examples too, Listeners, longtime listeners. As you know,
(29:36):
Matt Nolan, I are based at how stuff works in Atlanta,
which means our cities primary airport is Heartsville Jackson International Airport.
We're recording this in twenty fifteen, towards the end of August,
and as of our recording time, this is the busiest
airport in the US. Right. It has also been a
(29:57):
hub of human trafficking for a for a distressingly long time,
and there's some excellent organizations here and abroad that are
working to prevent this, which is why if you go
to the airport you will see uh signs about human traffic,
and you saw some of these last time we were there. Right, Yeah,
(30:19):
I don't see. I don't see how you tackle that problem.
And it's perhaps just because I haven't lived inside of
trying to accomplish that goal for very long, but it
seems like such an herculean task to stop it when
you have so many human beings going through that massive
airport every moment, right, Yeah, the u Ineen you can
(30:45):
read some reports that are immensely depressing about the airport,
partnering with gb I, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the
state level version of the federal Bureau, because there was
a report that Atlanta had the biggest cash based underground
sex economy in the nation. Uh what Yeah, to the
(31:05):
tune of two hundred and ninety million a year. And
and the sad thing about a lot of these human
trafficking signs is that they are posted at eye level
so that a child can see the print and read
the eight hundred number. Well that's I mean, that's good, right,
that's the whole point, so that maybe a child could
hopefully Yeah, and this this question, you know, this is
(31:28):
one of those This is one of those things sometimes
you and I will get the question where someone will say, well,
who are they in this scenario? Right? What is the
cover up? And the cover up appears to be people
who are doing the actual tracking or trafficing the actual enslaving,
as well as corrupt officials who are helping them, right
(31:48):
because they're either making they're making money, or their countries
making money, or their prefecture whatever it is. They're tiny,
their region is making money, and their fiefdom right where
or the suzerain but the the other There's another aspect
here that I wanted to get your opinion on. So
you remember a few years back, uh fairly recently here
(32:10):
where there was a judge accepting kickbacks to sentence children
to um to the time in the juvenile Yeah, went
to jail, he did. Does that count as human trafficking?
It's the forced movement of a person for financial gain. WHOA.
(32:31):
I wouldn't have thought about it that way, but you know,
I want I wonder what this is, and I wonder too,
how how this problem could be addressed. Like, let's take
it in comparison. Let's take it to um disease. Right,
It's a well known fact that some diseases persist because
(32:51):
there's not a financial incentive in the enormous cost of
research it would take to make medicine that could cure it.
But there is an the Norman's financial let's say, incentive
to create some kind of drug or prescription that a
human can take to maybe not cure the thing, but
at least stop some of the worst effects alleviate the systems. Okay, sorry,
(33:16):
I'm getting out the soapbox. I don't know if I've
already talked about this, but moving away from an ownership
society to a service society is a, as I think,
a very dangerous thing, and it's already happening, you know,
like with there's so many things now that used to
buy an own out right, and now you just pay
(33:37):
for them. Are you afraid of the cloud? Man? The
cloud loves you. The cloud is Uh. The cloud is
a beautiful thing while it lasts, and I wish it
all the best. It's not my favorite thing to participate in.
Just really fast. I want to go back to that
example of the guy sending kids to jail, because it
makes me really think about the private prison system that
(34:00):
exists in the world. And I think we've discussed c
c A before and a couple of other organizations that
they they profit off of running prisons and having human
beings in prison, right, And then that goes to the
question of whether or not incarceration is itself a substitute
for slavery. What what we're talking about specifically is what's
(34:22):
known as the Kids for Cash scandal. This was in
two thousand eight in Pennsylvania. Two judges Mark Ciavarella and
Michael Conahan were uh accused and I believe ultimately convicted
of accepting money from a guy who builds private for
(34:43):
profit youth centers or juvie halls, basically youth centers, a
guy named Robert Miracle. Uh, oh my god, No, that's
not his name. Not spelled the same way in E
R I c Elli, but he was he was apparently
paying them to bring children to the center. Now we
should say, to be completely objective that at least here
(35:05):
in the States, the vast majority of prisons are not private.
Private prisons are a relatively small part of the percentage
of prison structures overall. However, Uh, private prisons are branching
out into immigration detainment centers. That just sounds really nice.
(35:28):
Immigration detention centers. You know, that's something then that I
think we've said it before, but I really want to
cover that in particular, what what a detention center is,
what it's like to be someone who gets stuck in
one of those things. And I've made some contacts, so
I think we can actually do a whole show on
that and maybe even have somebody on yeah, and listeners
(35:48):
read in and let us know if you would like
this to be a future episode of stuff they don't
want you to know. So we're we're looking at a
really big thing, a large phenomenon, and it's one that
often may seem I don't know, Matt, often may seem
(36:09):
abstract or or distant. You know, people can easily read
about things that happened in history and say, oh, that's
not me, right, I would never I would never do that.
And it's true. It's here's another point. It's it's true
that even during the age of chattel slavery in the US,
most people could not afford to buy another human being
(36:33):
anymore than most people could afford to buy something else
that was very expensive. Right. Yeah, I mean we said
almost think about spending on anything right now. And that's
the terrifying thing, because people might take out a loan
to get a car today. Right. So this, while this
(36:53):
stuff might seem abstract, might seem removed from our day
to day exist instance, it's not the distant past, and
it's not as far away as you think. The odds
are depending on what consumer products we pass each day,
that there has been in somewhere in the UH, somewhere
(37:14):
in the operational production chain, there has been the use
of forced labor or slave labor, especially in some agricultural
products like chocolate. Yeah, chocolate is oh my gosh, I
forget if it was a Vice Quick documentary that I
watched on that, but it just exposed that the children
that we're working getting the chocolate for you or even
(37:39):
let's say what device you're listening to this podcast on.
It's not necessarily slavery, but in a lot of other cases,
I mean, it really just depends on how you how
you decide to categorize things like people who work in
factories who build smartphones. You're talking specifically about fox Con, Yes,
fox Con who build the phones? Right? And then there
(38:02):
here's one that some you know, some people might not
think about. You've you've heard about chocolate, You've heard about electronics,
you've heard about clothing. It can also apply to illegal drugs, cocaine,
of course, marijuana, all can be part of this, all
can be part of these forced labor programs. And here's
(38:27):
something that was really tricky that I learned about a
while back. So, the US has labor laws that in
theory prevent the prevent the slave like exploitation of workers. Well,
in Congress, and I believe a number of years back,
there was a there was this frightening discovery that some
(38:49):
things that had them made in the USA label were
made in US held territories that didn't have the same
labor laws. So for legal purposes for the employees, they
were in the U s territory. But for the ultimate
(39:09):
destination for the customers, right, and for pricing purposes, they're
made in the USA. Yeah, that's a that's a distressing thing.
And we know, we know, of course that this is
such a big problem. It's kind of like how it's
kind of like cancer, Matt, because we often people who
(39:30):
are not doctors often use the phrase cancer as though
it is one thing, where in truth, while there is
a group term, uh, not group term is cancer. It
describes a range of widely varying things, right, And so
when we say slavery or modern slavery, what we're actually
(39:53):
doing is we're describing uh, a wide range of things
with one term, and so it's not completely it's not
completely fair. It's it's worth asking is there some kind
of silver bullet solution, and if so, what is it?
Because another country that has a very high rate in
(40:13):
terms of population enslaved would be Uzbekistan, and what what
will we do with Uzbekistan and Mauritania. Would there be
an idea that some group could come in and create
an infrastructure such that uh, people didn't use slaves, not
because they all of a sudden became magically better. People
(40:35):
were fundamentally changed, but because there was something more useful,
or they were incentivized towards something more useful. And that
brings us to another point. Matt, what's the future of slavery? Well,
it's it's mostly robots. Ah, yes, that's what I would say. Uh. Here,
(40:56):
here's a quick stat from Statista of places, and I'm
just gonna read this verbatim Statista, I hope you don't mind,
hight Here we go. Worldwide shipments of multi purpose industrial
robots are forecast to exceed two hundred and seven thousand
units in TWI. That's up from one hundred and fifty
(41:18):
nine thousand in two thousand twelve. Check this out. The
robot density is particularly high in countries that have strong
automotive industries. So we're looking at Japan, uh Us and
several other places. There are in Japan one thousand, five
(41:39):
hundred and sixty two industrial robots installed per ten thousand
automotive employees, so that that's kind of crazy. I mean,
you're getting your that's around a little over fift And
that's not to say that automotive workers are in any
way slaves, and that is not what I'm saying at all.
(42:00):
But but what I'm saying is the kind of jobs
that would require someone to do manual labor of some sort.
A lot of these jobs will hopefully eventually be done
by something that would not be considered a human. Now,
we're going to have a guest on the show later,
not this episode, in the future, uh, an old friend
(42:20):
of mine who spends a lot of time, uh theorizing
about what artificial intelligence is? What the what the uh
intersection between a robot or a circuit board and software
and a soul? Well, what is that? Is it possible
that we reach a point wherein robots or you know,
(42:44):
software programs are sentient to the point that it seems,
uh that it is a violation somehow of their own
rights to force them to do task for us. This
would be such an amazing problem to have, because it
would mean this crazy experiment called the human race somehow
(43:05):
didn't blow itself up in the interim or run out
of water or starved to death. And still it would
be a very strange thing. You know, earlier we did
and an episode or a series on the concept of
legal personhood, and this was this was an interesting episode
and people had surprisingly strong feelings about it. So what
(43:27):
so what was this idea, Well, there are a couple
of different things that we looked at. One of them
was animals and whether or not a a a a citation,
or a great ape could be considered to be a
person for legal purposes, which would mean, you know, they
have things like the right, uh, the right not to
be unfairly unjustly detained, which is, you know, if you're
(43:51):
if you're a person and you live in a country
that has rule of law, then the law typically has
something along the lines of if you haven't done any
thing wrong, we can't just put you in a room,
and we can't just keep you there. And if animals
gain some sort of legal personhood, which is which is
a topic that is enormously vital to some people and
(44:13):
seems silly to other people. But if animals attain some
sort of personhood, then a zoo becomes like animal jail,
which is a term I learned from you once. That's
the term that I will continue to use. So it's
it's interesting, and the criticism on both sides had some
valid points. One of the things that stayed with me
(44:35):
is we had someone right in and say, you know,
this is an interesting topic, but humanity should write its
own house first, and I I understand that. But also,
you know, when we talk about these large global issues,
the questions are almost always the same, which is why
(44:56):
does it continue? The answer is usually profit right? And
then that leads us to the second question, who profits right?
And that leads us to the third question, which is
how do we change this relationship between a terrible thing
and a growing series of bank accounts? Which is which
is a shame to say it? Um? And I think
(45:20):
for a time it's you know, it's quite possible that
people will find robots substituting, as you said, uh, the
traditional human interactions. Well, here's the other side of that coin.
For every robot that is installed, that is a human
being that is not working right. Yes, okay, so just
(45:41):
quick etymology because I love etymology. There's the word robot
is is pretty recent, right. This came from a check
playwright uh and also a journalist named Carol Kapock uh
C A p. E. K. He lived from eight eight
to ninety eight in n the He had a play
called are You Are, which translates to Rossum's Universal Robots.
(46:06):
And the word robot comes from this old Slavonic word robota,
which means servitude or forced labor. So for the purposes
of this conversation for this episode, it's fascinating because a
lot of people use the term robot and it has
evolved to mean something different, but originally it did mean
a slave. Wow. So perhaps uh, this word is attaining uh,
(46:33):
the something closer to the original root meaning of it.
And and we we can see in other places, right,
like you had a couple of examples you were pointing out,
I could also see the sex trade being transformed perhaps
a little bit. Um we're aware of this technology, or
(46:54):
perhaps you're not. But there's this technology and product called
the real Girl, which is something that it's a doll essentially,
or a real doll. I forget, I think it's real doll. Okay,
it's a it's a life size or at least almost
life size human being that is made out of other materials. Right,
(47:16):
it's a sex manning. It's it's a sex mannequin, yes, exactly. Okay,
Now I'm thinking about movies like AI or I don't know,
some kind of replicant sex worker where it's you combine
an artificial intelligence or some at least some kind of
artificial intelligence with that technology, and then perhaps we won't
(47:37):
have to have so many sex workers. But then again
it comes that conversation of what is what is the
nature of intelligence? At what point does it become immoral
or unethical to force a thinking entity, yeah, to do
stuff it wouldn't want to do? Completely agree, like the
(48:00):
like that recent story we have posted on Facebook about
scientists who are very close to growing a brain, an
actual human brain. Yeah, whoa, that's an ethics mind field
right there, right, You know, how do you break the
news to the brain? How do you teach it? What
are just a brain? What if you can? You know,
what if you can teach this thing and then study
(48:23):
the rate at which it becomes an entity? You know?
Could could a consciousness evolve without being inside a body?
You know what I mean? I think? I think yes,
I think so. It's like the old Descartes thing, right,
I think therefore I am yeah, because if if you
give a thinking brain sensors, which is essentially just what
(48:46):
we have in biological sensors, then why, yeah, how is
it any different? It's a good question, Matt. So what
if we what if we follow this even further into
the future, let's say that automation increasingly replaced his jobs
it would normally be done by humans. And let's go
ahead and imagine that despite the coming catastrophes, with resources
(49:12):
potable water, edible food, meter of ocean levels rising, right,
a quality of air, um, things like that. If let's
say that resources are diminished, but we're working assiduously to
save them. But we're coming back from a near disaster scenario.
(49:33):
And you're a human being growing up in a time
where there are are no jobs. Robots do them all.
So then how do you justify your existence in a society?
How do you how do you earn uh air to breathe, food,
to eat, water to drink, a place to live. Well,
(49:56):
you know, for me, as long as the robots don't
learn how to right stories and record podcasts and make videos,
then I'm feeling pretty good. Totally gonna happen. Though, yes,
it won't happen, yes way, Matt, Well yeah it will.
(50:17):
There's there's an interesting episode of forward thinking that our
our friends Jonathan and Joe and Lauren did about some
of the artificial uh and well maybe software is a
better word. At this point attempts to figure out how
to edit footage together and write how to aim at
a demographic I think it's quite possible within our lifetimes,
(50:41):
and perhaps yours is yours as well, Listeners, that there
could be an entirely artificially created film. It might hit
all it might be good, guys, it might hit all
the story points. It might use um computer generated images
for the actors as well as voices, right, and it
(51:04):
may also it may also there is an idea I
have for a sci fi story which I'm going to
feel just so ripped off if it ever becomes real,
and don't really somebody might hear it, and then, dude,
then do you think so? I think I know what
you're talking about. I think it's a good story. I
refuse to participate in a cover up on this, of
(51:24):
all shows. Okay, so please, listeners, I'm trusting you. Please
don't steal my idea. It's just cool. I'd like to
hear what you think about it. Imagine, Okay, can you
say in a world can you do in a world?
Imagine that we are in the future where in you
can take a device, right, and you can take one
(51:47):
movie you really love? What's a movie you really love?
Matt the Matrix. Okay, so you can take the Matrix
and then you can take another film that you really
love that's completely different. What's that? How about type Panic Titanic? Great?
So let's say that you live in the future where
you can turn on your device, your software and you say, uh, computer,
(52:10):
combine the Matrix and Titanic, and the computer will be
like computing, and then create a film that is a
seamless mesh of those two films, not just in terms
of the actors and the sequences, but in terms of
the themes, in terms of the philosophical quandaries, and it
will be coherent and unified. I think that it is
(52:31):
possible that's something like that could exist, and that's you know,
that's the dream big kind of story. It would be
a lot easier to write about it than it would
be to make the code, you know what I mean.
I'm just imagining Neo rocketing off of the Titanic at
the end while everybody's going down. You can fly now right,
I'm king of the world, and uh. And that you know,
(52:52):
there are there are other things that you could combine
with that you have better examples, And I apologize that
was great. So I'm just saying like it. It is
quite possible that the problem of human slavery fundamentally becomes
changed by technology, right by some of the same things
(53:13):
that are being built with slave labor may ultimately or
one day lead to the demise of this abhorrent practice.
That's cool imagery that's going on in my head right now.
I hope you listeners are also getting some of that well,
and I hope that we're I hope that we're showing
some of the state of it. And I you know,
I have massive respect um for you because you're the
(53:35):
one who You're the one who pointed out something that
I think a lot of people forget, which is, you know,
the fact that these these numbers may well be exaggerated,
uh or that they may not agree, whether that's through
mistakes and methodology or maybe bad data or maybe even
(53:57):
self interested actors. It's to realize that there is still
a great deal we do not know about modern slavery,
other than it exists, and other than the fact that
there are interested parties in in the world, in other
countries and maybe here in the US on some level
(54:17):
who are specifically supposed to be stopping this and explicitly
allowing it to occur, not just turning a blind eye,
but assisting in a slave trade. And I know that
this is a little bit soap box ish, but the
fact of the matter is that this is this is
(54:39):
a problem that has followed humanity like a shadow, you know,
for the entirety of human civilization. Have you heard Luis
Kay's bit about um, of course, but maybe have you
heard have you listeners? Have you or this? It sounds familiar.
(55:01):
He I'm not gonna do the bit because I am
not Luis C. Kay, and he has he's the only
person who can deliver it. But it is a He
makes a point about how this kind of human suffering
that exists in in the act of enslaving a human
being is what has built every giant, big thing that
(55:23):
exists on this planet. Every huge um uh you know,
big countries, every everything basically that we have right now
is because we threw he says, human suffering at it
until it became a thing. Ah, yes, I remember that.
It's a it's difficult point, but it's not entirely out
(55:43):
of the ballpark. I mean, Luis Kay is a pretty
insightful guy. I'm a fan of him. You are too
big fan. Yeah, and uh, I guess what we'll do is,
uh wrap up the show listeners. We would like to
hear from you. We'd like to hear your perspective on
the topics we addressed or anything from privatized prisons to enslavement,
(56:04):
human trafficking, uh, immigration, We like your perspective on that
as well. I know that some of those issues might
be device And do you hear that, yeah, sort of
thunder in the distance growing Sarah. It's like there's a
beat or something that can only mean one thing. Matt
(56:24):
at the time has come. It's a moment with no
no is that you? It is? I? Well, hello, it's
also any Just to let everybody know. So we may
have described this before, Ben and matter sort of sequestered
in this little box and I'm outside in the common area, so,
you know, just adds to the realism. You're hearing people
(56:45):
in the background going about their going about their daily routines.
Here the way to go convincing everyone that we're not
just yeah or yeah or not real human being, free
brains and separate jars. At least we got separate jars.
No offense, guys. I think the way you yeah, but
I need my own jars. You gotta have separate jars.
(57:05):
So uh so, no, you know, today was a pretty
heavy topic. Sometimes we have episodes that we can have
a little bit of fun with, like online manipulation, right,
but this one, this one was this one was a
little bit different, and I don't know if we if
we've done it justice, but I wanted to ask you
(57:27):
have you had any personal experience with with something like
human trafficking or seeing something because I'll be honest, I
know we're a family show, so I'm not gonna talk
too too much about this. Oh, Matt, you're right, Matt's
giving me a look and a slow nod. We're not
exactly a family show. We do talk about stuff like slavery.
(57:49):
But if you live in a city of any comp
of any size, then odds are that you have passed
by and seeing you know, prostitutes. For instance, there there
are prostitutes in Atlanta that that you can when you
drive by, you can see someone or you'll hear someone say,
there's look at these prostitutes. And when we know that
(58:13):
there is a likelihood that these people have been forced
into into this occupation, then you know there's this question,
like what can we do if anything? Right? Like, I
I don't know. No, I'm looking for your perspective because
I I feel like in order of reasonableness, it goes you,
(58:36):
Matt and me. Yeah right, hierarchy's a little twisted there.
I'm not saying that you're not the most reasonable, just
I don't like being second. I should definitely be last
in that list. But okay, wait, where was that again?
You were the first? Were the most reasonable? And okay,
all right, I'll take it. Sure you like the most diplomatic? Yeah, no,
I mean I've I've definitely never experienced anything firsthand. UM.
(58:59):
You know, seen documentaries and there was a fantastic season
of The Wire. It's sort of like a one that's
largely people don't like as much, but I think it's
probably my favorite one where it's all about the ports
and the two kings. He was season two and there's
you know, the whole thing where they're these shipping containers
with um. I think they're Eastern European UM women that
have been suffocated in there. And I mean that's certainly
(59:22):
it was based on some real news stories that came out. UM,
and that's pretty horrific. I don't really know what else
to say about it. The whole concept is pretty horrific.
And the fact that, like you say, there are more
people enslave today than ever, that's pretty it's pretty dreary statistic. Well,
then what could be done, what if anything could be
(59:44):
done to eliminate yes? Mentality? Its like what you guys
are talking about, Like, you know, it's like people are
raising these environments and they grow to see it as
being a norm, and then then they they maybe they
were abused in that way themselves, and so they choose
to abuse others in that way, you know. And it's
like if you can't totally just get rid of that mentality,
(01:00:05):
in that way of looking at people as just a
means to an end, then it's hard. And I don't
know how you get rid of a problem like that,
And and there's so many ways to do it now
with the internet and um organized crime, and it's just
it just seems like it's just got the potential to
be so prevalent, and I just don't know how. I
don't know. I mean, I hate to sound like i'm,
you know, at a loss, but I kind of am.
(01:00:26):
It's it's a. It's a really big, big problem. It's
very scary. Maybe maybe the in my opinion that and
I don't know how this would happen. The best way
to combat this thing would be to eliminate the economic
incentive if it is you know, people often do things,
sure because of culture, but if it is more profitable
(01:00:48):
to do something else, then that behavior will likely change.
Because we live in a world that currently worships, you know,
a money regime, which you know, may may look just
as silly and stupid thousands of years in the future.
I think it most certainly will. So listeners, Uh, we
(01:01:10):
would like to hear what you think. As as we
mentioned before, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.
We also do a live show on a little thing
called Periscope and yeah, yes, the best ways to just
keep tuned into Twitter. I think it sends out a link,
will send out a link when we start show, and
(01:01:31):
we try to give people a little bit of heads
up if we're gonna do it. Uh. And we also
have a website stuff that once you know where you
can find every podcast we've ever done. We would like
to hear from you, not necessarily about this episode all that,
although this is an important topic. Our best episodes, whether
(01:01:52):
video or audio, come from you, our listeners, so please
write in and let us know what you would like
to hear about in the future, what you think about
this topic, or if you just want to say hey Matt,
hey no, hey Ben uh, then we would also still
love to hear from you. Our email addresses conspiracy at
(01:02:14):
how stuff works dot com. From one on this topic
another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle at conspiracy stuff.
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Slavery,
in fact, is doomed. In whatever way the war is
(00:23):
carried on. We owe it no goodwill. It's life has
been ogus, and its death will be as grateful to
the nation as was that of the Old Man of
the Sea to sind Bad. That comes to us from
the New York Times on March seventeenth, eighteen sixty two.
(00:46):
Welcome back to the show. Everyone. My name is Matt
and I'm Ben, and we are joined as always by
our superproducer, Noel Manumission Brown manu mission, Yeah, manumission or
manumittance being manumented, being freed from slavery, essentially emancipated in
some senses of the word. Uh. This week we have
(01:08):
been taking a look at slavery, not the historical part,
but our video that comes out today Three facts about
modern slavery, which we shot in front of the Lincoln Memorial.
Yes we did, uh, you know President Lincoln. Will will
discuss him perhaps a little later in this episode, but
(01:29):
his his and his um the people that worked with him.
The Emancipation Proclamation. It is cited as ending slavery in
the United States. Of course, we know historically that you know,
slavery didn't just drop off immediately, right. Everything wasn't hunky dory.
When President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it was January one,
(01:51):
eighteen sixty three. This was the third year of Civil War.
This proclamation famously declared that all persons held as slaves
within the rebellious Confederate States are, and henceforward shall be free. Matt,
you you've made a great point that this was not
(02:11):
near as complete, north swift, and ending as it should
have been. So you and I and nol are recording
this in the United States. It's a country with a
horrific history of slavery, and the lingering effects of this
practice can still be seen across the culture today. And
this is not this is not a political point. This
(02:35):
is a fact. It's inarguable that the end of the
end of slavery um was not as concise nor as
abrupt as the Emancipation Proclamation aimed for it to be.
The slave trade in North America was still not as
large as the trade in South America, and if you
(02:58):
there's a there's a great program called Black in Latin
America which makes a case that Mexico and Peru imported
more African slaves than the United States. Yeah. It cites
that between fifteen o two and eighteen sixties six that
there were eleven point two million Africans UH imported into
(03:23):
those countries, like taken conducted. Yeah, and in the United
States there were only around four hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah,
and the rest were in Latin America the Caribbean as
early as the sixteenth and seventeen centuries. This was a
long running practice. And uh, the struggle for equality post
(03:48):
Emancipation Proclamation continued through Jim Crow laws and and uh
ballot test or voting tests, you know, where people were
people were allowed to vote on paper if they could
you know, decipher Mandarin and things like that. Uh, and
then the struggle for civil rights and equality, and then
(04:08):
it even gets up to voter rights laws and needing
ideas for certain things, laws about being imprisoned and you know,
if you're if you've been charged with a felony, certain
things you can't do a lot of times vote right
and what kind of and and that's a that's an
interesting question that you and I have kicked around off
(04:30):
the air before. What would change about the political climate
in the US if felons were allowed to vote? So
we talked about some of this stuff, and and now
we're talking about the future. So our look at modern
human trafficking and slavery, which are there's a nuance there,
(04:52):
there are different things. Uh. It brought us to this
question that we're asking today, what's the state of human
trafficking and slavery today? What's the future of slavery? And
to answer that we have to, uh, we have to
bust a couple of myths and walk through some statistics.
The first thing we should point to here is that,
(05:15):
as we said, slavery and human trafficking did not stop
by any means throughout the world at that time. It
had existed prior to the Advancipation Proclamation for thousands of years,
and it continues today until two thousand fifteen right now, right,
and it will probably continue as well. According to the
(05:37):
International Labor Organization, they did a report in two thousand
twelve and they found that three out of every thousand
people in the world are in some form of forced labor. Now,
there's an important point that we're going to make about
the statistics later, but for now, we're just going to
give you some of these findings. And one of those
(05:57):
statistics is that there are nearly twenty one million people
who are in this kind of forced labor, including one
point five million in North America. And as part of
one of these definitions, there are two categories of human
trafficking in the US, at least by definition, there's sex
trafficking and then there's labor trafficking UM and that is
(06:19):
as defined by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection
Act from two thousand right. And this brings us to
another This brings us to something that should be explored
because the line between labor and trafficking or enslavement indentured
servitude is not as stark as people might think. There's
(06:42):
there's a big misconception that the majority of people who
are enslaved are enslaved for sexual purposes. However, it seems
that from the numbers we can find the majority of
people who are enslaved are enslaved in a forced labor situation.
And in the US, many of the victims of trafficking
(07:04):
end up working as you know, domestic workers, or even
in a restaurant industry, or you can hear about forced
labor in agricultural fields. According to our research, there was
a there are a lot more people enforced work in
restaurants than I would have ever imagined. Right, yeah, so
there's there There's different stuff there too, because what is
(07:28):
the line between actual forced labor? Is forced labor something
where you are paid but irregularly paid, or is it
something where you are under lockdown and forced to do
something by someone who uh possesses your vital documents or
someone who could get you deported. So there's uh, there's
(07:51):
a thing here about America's immigration policy. And you'll hear
a lot of NGOs say that America's approach to immigrate
ation uh kind of strengthens the system of human trafficking.
And of course I know that this can be a
very charged topic for people, not just in the US,
(08:12):
but also in Europe for instance. Uh, the current US
guessworker program has led to a host of problems for immigrants, right. Uh.
You might remember the human rights violations that were exposed
in uh New Orleans, which led to the creation of
the National Guest Workers alliance trying to, you know, find
(08:35):
some sort of strength and numbers. And there's a fantastic
book you can recalled Life Interrupted Trafficking into Forced Labor
in the United States by a professor named Denise Brennan,
and she says that contrary to claims that modern day
slavery is all around us, the politically thorny reality is
that exploited migrant labor is all around us. Most workers
(08:56):
are not in a situation of extreme abuse. They're not
technically trafficked, but they work in lousy conditions in a
kind of labor purgatory. There's no immigration relief for protection
for being almost trafficked. Uh. And this professor's view is that, um,
the current practice of immigration deportation, those those rules make
(09:18):
it impossible to fight trafficking. And this this is strange
because the largest number of human trafficking cases not necessarily slavery, right,
but taking someone forcibly to another place, right. The largest
number of those that are reported are sex trafficking. But
(09:41):
how to decide how to support these victims or someone's
labeled the victim is still a subject in debate right now.
Because you'll hear people talk about and this is this
is a dark topic, right, This is grizzly, grizzly unpleasant thing.
But you'll hear people talk about, uh, the practice of
(10:05):
survival sex like having having sexual congress with someone for
your own safety if you're homeless, or if you're trying
to survive in a foster uh, in a foster care situation.
So it's it's inarguable that currently in the US, there
(10:27):
there could be better programs and support for people as
survivors of human trafficking. And this is I know we're
being very specific to the US. So maybe let's make
it a little bit broader and let's look at the
world overall where in some cases, uh, slavery is more
(10:48):
or less tacitly condoned by the government. Right, Because that's
a big question, right when we look at when we
look at slavery across the world, we have to say, wait,
despite this constant work from NGOs and governments today, slavery
still continues and we have some we have some unpleasant
(11:08):
news in this in this regard. Yeah, one of the
more brutal things that you're going to hear the inside
this topic is that there are more slaves that exist
today on planet Earth than ever before. And there are
a couple of things that work into that statement, right right, yeah,
because that number comes from absolute numbers, right, so not
(11:29):
as a percentage of the population, but just raw human lives.
Because there are a lot of us humans walking around
right now. Um, and some of some of the people
walking around, uh I, I let's say, don't take issue
with things like putting someone in slavery, and that is
(11:51):
a horrible thing to think about. But there are human
beings walking around right now that don't. They don't mind
so much, I guess. Or there are people grow up
in a situation where because their parents were enslaved, they
are also enslaved. Modern day slavery differs from the traditional slavery.
Traditional slavery which is illegal in each of the hundred
(12:16):
and sixties seven countries listed in the Global Slavery Index.
Under traditional slavery, these people were considered property, not people,
but things. But modern slavery is more about the possession
or control of a person in a way that deprives
them of their rights. So there is there is a
slight difference, and that exists in each of the hundred
(12:39):
and sixty seven nations that are part of this index,
and only five countries, five countries alone count for olds
for about sixty one of people living in modern slavery. Yeah,
India has the highest number of people living in modern
slavery right now, estimated to be at fort million. And
(13:03):
one of the examples of that is are the killing workers.
And you listeners may have seen something on Vice or
recently Humans of New York did a small piece on
the killing workers and what they go through. It's a
systematic situation where let's say you're a worker from Bangladesh
and you want to help out your family and you
(13:25):
want to make some money. This person comes into town
and says, hey, we can give you a job. Uh
let's say in India, we can give you this job
and you're gonna make a certain amount of money. You'll
be able to send it back to your family. It'll
be great. We just need some money to get you
over here to do this. This kind of thing happens
in to buy and a couple other places like this
(13:46):
for different kind of work. And then you show up
for work, but then you find out, oh wait, they
just they took my passport. That's kind of weird. Now,
how am I going to get back to my family
when it's time to go. Oh, you'll you'll get that
back after you've paid off your debt. Right, So then
you know you're having to pay off your the original loan.
They're given tons of interest, and you're not making as
(14:08):
much money as you thought you were going to make
and you end up being stuck there. Yeah. Another another
way to look at would be some of the cultural expectations.
A lot of times you'll hear people who are slaveholders
use terms that try to avoid it. Like what we're
talking about with the kiln workers is debt bondage, Right,
(14:29):
you have to pay off your debt or bonded labor
or attached labor people who live on a property that
someone owns and therefore they're part of the property, the
same way the fields, the trees, and the buildings are
or um, you know, indentured servitude. Uh. Here's another nasty,
nasty fact. Uh. The the last country in the world
(14:51):
to abolish slavery was Mauritania in nineteen eighty one. Geez,
and this of course still continued at the time. There
there are other people in the region who are who
are still enslaved. Enslave status is passed down through the generations.
(15:13):
So if you're mother or your father was a slave,
then you too can be born a slave. This, this
abominable practice continues. And then it also brings us to
the question. I like that you mentioned guest workers, right,
(15:34):
people from Indonesia perhaps or the Philippines who were brought
to Middle Eastern countries under the pretense that they will
be given job opportunities that do not exist. Some of
these euphemistic words, euphemisms that are used with us are
just it's a nefarious right. It is, it is and
you know, as you said, these people may have their
(15:56):
passports taken by their their sponsor, their employer, and then
forced to live in horrific conditions, exposed to assault, exposed
to exposed to beatings, and centraal harassment is rampant more
than harassment. Well yeah, oh yeah, it's sorry, it's hard.
It's hard for me to to even imagine the horrors
(16:20):
that people have to go through with this stuff. And
in oh, and just to go back with Mauritania. While
India has the highest population estimated to be in slavery
in terms of numbers, Mauritania has the largest percentage as
of two thousand and fourteen, four percent of mauritaneous population
(16:42):
can be considered enslaved. Wow fo this Uh, this is
not to say that other countries are perfect themselves. You know,
you can read the list of the countries with the
most slaves, which is just a terrible rundown that we
(17:02):
can do. I don't know if we want to laundry
list that. But there's another factor here, which is given
the larger number of slaves in absolute terms, as I
think we may have mentioned in the video to uh,
slaves are cheaper than ever before. Now, yeah, I think
(17:23):
you pointed to what what did we say in while
chattel slavery was the normal thing in the United States.
If you do the conversions of money back in those
days to what it would be now, a buying a
person averaged around forty thousand U s. Dollars and nowadays
(17:46):
with modern money, I think the average was around ninety
nine zero dollars, right. And the uh, if we look
at a pie graph of slave every victims are women
and girls, whereas are men and boys, and and as
(18:08):
Ben and I were saying earlier, a lot of these
things feel like they're being equated together. Um. But there
is there. They're a big difference in some of these
numbers because you know, if you throw it all together
in one big thing, the way some of these numbers are,
it's not taking into account the exact situation, right, and
every every situation with this is different. When we're talking
(18:30):
about bonded labor versus guest workers win bonded bonded labor,
there's there are differences there even, and they're disferent differences
through all of this, and there I think there's a
Washington Post article you can find that discusses the minutia
of some of the statistics out there. Right. Yeah, to
(18:51):
this may seem like a Colt question, but it is
a question that must be asked, which is, if a
if an NGO exists to fight slavery, right, where are
the numbers derived from? You always have to question your sources.
And then is it possible that there is exaggeration because
(19:13):
a lot of these numbers don't agree. And that's not
to say that there's you know, malevolence or deception on
the part of the NGOs. There's not a census. Yeah,
it's incredibly difficult to find a complete and accurate number
(19:33):
of how many people are enslaved because, as you can imagine,
as Matt you pointed out, it's difficult to have a sensus,
and even the idea seems, you know, horrible. I'm sorry,
it's strange. Yeah. Uh so we're going to talk some
more about the stuff they don't want you to know
(19:54):
regarding modern slavery. However, before we do, we're going to
pause for a word. Um, today's sponsor. Here's where it
(20:15):
gets crazy. I love it when you do that. You
mayn't feel weird when he said, I'm sorry, I think
we all do human rights. This is this is one
of the craziest things. Human rights often take a back
seat to international affairs. Oh yeah, that's right, especially if
you've got I don't I don't know, the Olympics coming
(20:35):
into your country, or FIFA or something like that. Yeah,
tell me a little more about this. Well, you just
imagine that you were being tasked with building huge structures
that are going to hold thousands and thousands of people,
and maybe they're only going to be used one summer
or one winter, who knows, but you have to build
(20:57):
them do it now? Yeah? The and how how do
you do that in a country that doesn't have rule
of law or labor regulations. Right. It came out recently.
You've probably read some of the some of the reports
regarding the use of slave labor in these enormous construction projects.
(21:20):
And also, you know, we're we're talking about countries that
have close relationships with other other countries that have really
strict anti slavery, anti human trafficking laws. That's strange, right,
Like India and the US are geopolitical partners, right. Uh,
(21:43):
And again, India has over fourteen million people enslaved today. Uh.
We could also mention I'm sure numerous examples spring to
mind as you're thinking about this, listeners, but for instance,
forced labor in North Korea. Right, if the if the
(22:04):
if the problem of slavery, If this um disgusting practice
is so inherently disgusting, so um such anathema to the
existence of a modern civilization, then the question becomes why
is it tolerated? How does it occur? There? There's some
(22:25):
excellent reports by the United Nations that you can read
for free online detailing the roles of corrupt government officials
and assisting human trafficking and smugglers. Right, and and human trafficking,
we should also say, is not necessary again, not necessarily slavery.
It's human trafficking. When a coyote takes uh takes a
(22:46):
group of people illegally over a border right between Mexico
and the US. Even if the even if the coyote
you know, is paid his or her fee and then
just does let the people go off, it's still trafficking.
It's still trafficking, and it's still you know, smuggling. But
(23:08):
the question then becomes, you know, the answer is something
very cold and geopolitical, which is that if it is
going to damage a status quo right for for China
or the US too, or even South Korea to invade
North Korea right and try to liberate people enforced labor camps,
(23:31):
then this geopolitical calculation occurs where people, people at the
heads of government, right, people who either are the power
or have the ear of power, say, well, you know,
there are different kinds of evil and which one is worse?
Which is which is a conversation I have never personally
(23:53):
been in, thank goodness, but it is a conversation that
people have. And one of the things that comes to
mind right here that maybe isn't the best thing is
is listening to let's say, certain politicians inside the US
who have recently called for a global government. This is
(24:17):
the kind of thing that they would say, this is
why we need a global governance. Who would say, Hey,
it doesn't matter what country you're in, this is important.
This can't happen now. That sounds really nice, right, Um,
But I know people right now are just getting a
ringing in their ears because I said global government, and
you know, and and the idea of that is very scary,
(24:38):
and to me it's scary. But at the same time,
it could mean if we had something like that, it
was true governments on that kind of scale, then maybe
you could stop it. That's interesting you said in that,
because I wonder if that kind of global governance would
be possible. We know that we've talked about this in
earlier podcasts where we talk about secret societies or people
(25:02):
trying to control the world. From what we can tell,
the truth of the matter is that there are numerous
groups who think they should be controlling the world, right,
and they are always constantly trying to yeah and add
odds with one another. Right. It's very much a highlander
king of the hill, who makes us right? Who watches,
the watchers, and the The question here is um, is
(25:26):
to what extent I would say, to what extent this
could actually work. We've talked before about Dunbar's number, the
concept that there is a hard wired limitation in every
human brain that limits how many people you can think
of as other human beings, which, in my mind, um,
(25:47):
in my mind, raises some difficult propositions when we talk
about an elected representative representing, you know, anyone over a
couple people, breds of thousands of people, right and is
is there is there some sort of possibility that a
global government would be able to address the the atrocity
(26:11):
that is modern slavery. To me, that's a question that
would be a great thing to ask, because we still
as a species, have not proven whether a one world
global government would work. And my spider sense tells me,
my spider sense tells me it would work very well
for a very small group of people, but for most
(26:36):
of humanity it's very much a question up in the air.
And I don't know, right well, I don't know, like
I don't know if it could even happen. We're talking
about billions of people. How on earth literally would this
would this occur, How would decisions be made? The United
(26:59):
Nations are he has such a difficult time, and the
world superpowers, right, and nuclear powers even often ignore the
U n when it doesn't say something that suits them.
The European Union is constantly trying to figure out how
to be a government of multiple countries. And now that
(27:21):
this question about who would control the world, you know,
financial institutions honestly probably have the best shot. Financial institutions
and coalition of nuclear powered governments. That sounds great, that
sounds yeah, I said, okay, So I can hear the
sarcasm it's emanating off you and I'm receiving. Okay. So,
(27:45):
because in absence of some group that would actually have
the power to say no, don't do that, right, we
have something like the US, which a lot of times
seems to or at least attempts to act as the
global police force that goes through and says, hey, we're
gonna we're gonna put sanctions on you because we don't
(28:05):
like this is what you're doing. Hey, we're gonna invade
you because we don't like this what you're doing. And
as we've learned through our experiences here and listeners, I'm
sure you have as well that perhaps those the reasons
for doing those things aren't necessarily above board. Right. Yeah,
there is again a calculation that that continues with this stuff,
(28:27):
right because I think we talked about it before, and
I know that it sounds a bit world weary. But
when I hear people saying we're going to go to war,
leaders of any country saying we're going to war because
of our values, then I'm kind of suspicious, right, because
(28:49):
if those values are so sacrosanct, if they are so powerful,
then why do human rights violations continue, you know, in
in every country? And of course it's because a system
can't be perfect. I'm just saying that I cannot think
of an example where in a global government could work.
(29:11):
Perhaps as technology evolves it would be some sort of
there would be some sort of way to do it.
But given the distrust, rightfully placed distrust in in something
like this, some overarching global empire, I I uh, I
don't know, man. It's a tough sell. We've got and
we've got local examples too, Listeners, longtime listeners. As you know,
(29:36):
Matt Nolan, I are based at how stuff works in Atlanta,
which means our cities primary airport is Heartsville Jackson International Airport.
We're recording this in twenty fifteen, towards the end of August,
and as of our recording time, this is the busiest
airport in the US. Right. It has also been a
(29:57):
hub of human trafficking for a for a distressingly long time,
and there's some excellent organizations here and abroad that are
working to prevent this, which is why if you go
to the airport you will see uh signs about human traffic,
and you saw some of these last time we were there. Right, Yeah,
(30:19):
I don't see. I don't see how you tackle that problem.
And it's perhaps just because I haven't lived inside of
trying to accomplish that goal for very long, but it
seems like such an herculean task to stop it when
you have so many human beings going through that massive
airport every moment, right, Yeah, the u Ineen you can
(30:45):
read some reports that are immensely depressing about the airport,
partnering with gb I, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, the
state level version of the federal Bureau, because there was
a report that Atlanta had the biggest cash based underground
sex economy in the nation. Uh what Yeah, to the
(31:05):
tune of two hundred and ninety million a year. And
and the sad thing about a lot of these human
trafficking signs is that they are posted at eye level
so that a child can see the print and read
the eight hundred number. Well that's I mean, that's good, right,
that's the whole point, so that maybe a child could
hopefully Yeah, and this this question, you know, this is
(31:28):
one of those This is one of those things sometimes
you and I will get the question where someone will say, well,
who are they in this scenario? Right? What is the
cover up? And the cover up appears to be people
who are doing the actual tracking or trafficing the actual enslaving,
as well as corrupt officials who are helping them, right
(31:48):
because they're either making they're making money, or their countries
making money, or their prefecture whatever it is. They're tiny,
their region is making money, and their fiefdom right where
or the suzerain but the the other There's another aspect
here that I wanted to get your opinion on. So
you remember a few years back, uh fairly recently here
(32:10):
where there was a judge accepting kickbacks to sentence children
to um to the time in the juvenile Yeah, went
to jail, he did. Does that count as human trafficking?
It's the forced movement of a person for financial gain. WHOA.
(32:31):
I wouldn't have thought about it that way, but you know,
I want I wonder what this is, and I wonder too,
how how this problem could be addressed. Like, let's take
it in comparison. Let's take it to um disease. Right,
It's a well known fact that some diseases persist because
(32:51):
there's not a financial incentive in the enormous cost of
research it would take to make medicine that could cure it.
But there is an the Norman's financial let's say, incentive
to create some kind of drug or prescription that a
human can take to maybe not cure the thing, but
at least stop some of the worst effects alleviate the systems. Okay, sorry,
(33:16):
I'm getting out the soapbox. I don't know if I've
already talked about this, but moving away from an ownership
society to a service society is a, as I think,
a very dangerous thing, and it's already happening, you know,
like with there's so many things now that used to
buy an own out right, and now you just pay
(33:37):
for them. Are you afraid of the cloud? Man? The
cloud loves you. The cloud is Uh. The cloud is
a beautiful thing while it lasts, and I wish it
all the best. It's not my favorite thing to participate in.
Just really fast. I want to go back to that
example of the guy sending kids to jail, because it
makes me really think about the private prison system that
(34:00):
exists in the world. And I think we've discussed c
c A before and a couple of other organizations that
they they profit off of running prisons and having human
beings in prison, right, And then that goes to the
question of whether or not incarceration is itself a substitute
for slavery. What what we're talking about specifically is what's
(34:22):
known as the Kids for Cash scandal. This was in
two thousand eight in Pennsylvania. Two judges Mark Ciavarella and
Michael Conahan were uh accused and I believe ultimately convicted
of accepting money from a guy who builds private for
(34:43):
profit youth centers or juvie halls, basically youth centers, a
guy named Robert Miracle. Uh, oh my god, No, that's
not his name. Not spelled the same way in E
R I c Elli, but he was he was apparently
paying them to bring children to the center. Now we
should say, to be completely objective that at least here
(35:05):
in the States, the vast majority of prisons are not private.
Private prisons are a relatively small part of the percentage
of prison structures overall. However, Uh, private prisons are branching
out into immigration detainment centers. That just sounds really nice.
(35:28):
Immigration detention centers. You know, that's something then that I
think we've said it before, but I really want to
cover that in particular, what what a detention center is,
what it's like to be someone who gets stuck in
one of those things. And I've made some contacts, so
I think we can actually do a whole show on
that and maybe even have somebody on yeah, and listeners
(35:48):
read in and let us know if you would like
this to be a future episode of stuff they don't
want you to know. So we're we're looking at a
really big thing, a large phenomenon, and it's one that
often may seem I don't know, Matt, often may seem
(36:09):
abstract or or distant. You know, people can easily read
about things that happened in history and say, oh, that's
not me, right, I would never I would never do that.
And it's true. It's here's another point. It's it's true
that even during the age of chattel slavery in the US,
most people could not afford to buy another human being
(36:33):
anymore than most people could afford to buy something else
that was very expensive. Right. Yeah, I mean we said
almost think about spending on anything right now. And that's
the terrifying thing, because people might take out a loan
to get a car today. Right. So this, while this
(36:53):
stuff might seem abstract, might seem removed from our day
to day exist instance, it's not the distant past, and
it's not as far away as you think. The odds
are depending on what consumer products we pass each day,
that there has been in somewhere in the UH, somewhere
(37:14):
in the operational production chain, there has been the use
of forced labor or slave labor, especially in some agricultural
products like chocolate. Yeah, chocolate is oh my gosh, I
forget if it was a Vice Quick documentary that I
watched on that, but it just exposed that the children
that we're working getting the chocolate for you or even
(37:39):
let's say what device you're listening to this podcast on.
It's not necessarily slavery, but in a lot of other cases,
I mean, it really just depends on how you how
you decide to categorize things like people who work in
factories who build smartphones. You're talking specifically about fox Con, Yes,
fox Con who build the phones? Right? And then there
(38:02):
here's one that some you know, some people might not
think about. You've you've heard about chocolate, You've heard about electronics,
you've heard about clothing. It can also apply to illegal drugs, cocaine,
of course, marijuana, all can be part of this, all
can be part of these forced labor programs. And here's
(38:27):
something that was really tricky that I learned about a
while back. So, the US has labor laws that in
theory prevent the prevent the slave like exploitation of workers. Well,
in Congress, and I believe a number of years back,
there was a there was this frightening discovery that some
(38:49):
things that had them made in the USA label were
made in US held territories that didn't have the same
labor laws. So for legal purposes for the employees, they
were in the U s territory. But for the ultimate
(39:09):
destination for the customers, right, and for pricing purposes, they're
made in the USA. Yeah, that's a that's a distressing thing.
And we know, we know, of course that this is
such a big problem. It's kind of like how it's
kind of like cancer, Matt, because we often people who
(39:30):
are not doctors often use the phrase cancer as though
it is one thing, where in truth, while there is
a group term, uh, not group term is cancer. It
describes a range of widely varying things, right, And so
when we say slavery or modern slavery, what we're actually
(39:53):
doing is we're describing uh, a wide range of things
with one term, and so it's not completely it's not
completely fair. It's it's worth asking is there some kind
of silver bullet solution, and if so, what is it?
Because another country that has a very high rate in
(40:13):
terms of population enslaved would be Uzbekistan, and what what
will we do with Uzbekistan and Mauritania. Would there be
an idea that some group could come in and create
an infrastructure such that uh, people didn't use slaves, not
because they all of a sudden became magically better. People
(40:35):
were fundamentally changed, but because there was something more useful,
or they were incentivized towards something more useful. And that
brings us to another point. Matt, what's the future of slavery? Well,
it's it's mostly robots. Ah, yes, that's what I would say. Uh. Here,
(40:56):
here's a quick stat from Statista of places, and I'm
just gonna read this verbatim Statista, I hope you don't mind,
hight Here we go. Worldwide shipments of multi purpose industrial
robots are forecast to exceed two hundred and seven thousand
units in TWI. That's up from one hundred and fifty
(41:18):
nine thousand in two thousand twelve. Check this out. The
robot density is particularly high in countries that have strong
automotive industries. So we're looking at Japan, uh Us and
several other places. There are in Japan one thousand, five
(41:39):
hundred and sixty two industrial robots installed per ten thousand
automotive employees, so that that's kind of crazy. I mean,
you're getting your that's around a little over fift And
that's not to say that automotive workers are in any
way slaves, and that is not what I'm saying at all.
(42:00):
But but what I'm saying is the kind of jobs
that would require someone to do manual labor of some sort.
A lot of these jobs will hopefully eventually be done
by something that would not be considered a human. Now,
we're going to have a guest on the show later,
not this episode, in the future, uh, an old friend
(42:20):
of mine who spends a lot of time, uh theorizing
about what artificial intelligence is? What the what the uh
intersection between a robot or a circuit board and software
and a soul? Well, what is that? Is it possible
that we reach a point wherein robots or you know,
(42:44):
software programs are sentient to the point that it seems,
uh that it is a violation somehow of their own
rights to force them to do task for us. This
would be such an amazing problem to have, because it
would mean this crazy experiment called the human race somehow
(43:05):
didn't blow itself up in the interim or run out
of water or starved to death. And still it would
be a very strange thing. You know, earlier we did
and an episode or a series on the concept of
legal personhood, and this was this was an interesting episode
and people had surprisingly strong feelings about it. So what
(43:27):
so what was this idea, Well, there are a couple
of different things that we looked at. One of them
was animals and whether or not a a a a citation,
or a great ape could be considered to be a
person for legal purposes, which would mean, you know, they
have things like the right, uh, the right not to
be unfairly unjustly detained, which is, you know, if you're
(43:51):
if you're a person and you live in a country
that has rule of law, then the law typically has
something along the lines of if you haven't done any
thing wrong, we can't just put you in a room,
and we can't just keep you there. And if animals
gain some sort of legal personhood, which is which is
a topic that is enormously vital to some people and
(44:13):
seems silly to other people. But if animals attain some
sort of personhood, then a zoo becomes like animal jail,
which is a term I learned from you once. That's
the term that I will continue to use. So it's
it's interesting, and the criticism on both sides had some
valid points. One of the things that stayed with me
(44:35):
is we had someone right in and say, you know,
this is an interesting topic, but humanity should write its
own house first, and I I understand that. But also,
you know, when we talk about these large global issues,
the questions are almost always the same, which is why
(44:56):
does it continue? The answer is usually profit right? And
then that leads us to the second question, who profits right?
And that leads us to the third question, which is
how do we change this relationship between a terrible thing
and a growing series of bank accounts? Which is which
is a shame to say it? Um? And I think
(45:20):
for a time it's you know, it's quite possible that
people will find robots substituting, as you said, uh, the
traditional human interactions. Well, here's the other side of that coin.
For every robot that is installed, that is a human
being that is not working right. Yes, okay, so just
(45:41):
quick etymology because I love etymology. There's the word robot
is is pretty recent, right. This came from a check
playwright uh and also a journalist named Carol Kapock uh
C A p. E. K. He lived from eight eight
to ninety eight in n the He had a play
called are You Are, which translates to Rossum's Universal Robots.
(46:06):
And the word robot comes from this old Slavonic word robota,
which means servitude or forced labor. So for the purposes
of this conversation for this episode, it's fascinating because a
lot of people use the term robot and it has
evolved to mean something different, but originally it did mean
a slave. Wow. So perhaps uh, this word is attaining uh,
(46:33):
the something closer to the original root meaning of it.
And and we we can see in other places, right,
like you had a couple of examples you were pointing out,
I could also see the sex trade being transformed perhaps
a little bit. Um we're aware of this technology, or
(46:54):
perhaps you're not. But there's this technology and product called
the real Girl, which is something that it's a doll essentially,
or a real doll. I forget, I think it's real doll. Okay,
it's a it's a life size or at least almost
life size human being that is made out of other materials. Right,
(47:16):
it's a sex manning. It's it's a sex mannequin, yes, exactly. Okay,
Now I'm thinking about movies like AI or I don't know,
some kind of replicant sex worker where it's you combine
an artificial intelligence or some at least some kind of
artificial intelligence with that technology, and then perhaps we won't
(47:37):
have to have so many sex workers. But then again
it comes that conversation of what is what is the
nature of intelligence? At what point does it become immoral
or unethical to force a thinking entity, yeah, to do
stuff it wouldn't want to do? Completely agree, like the
(48:00):
like that recent story we have posted on Facebook about
scientists who are very close to growing a brain, an
actual human brain. Yeah, whoa, that's an ethics mind field
right there, right, You know, how do you break the
news to the brain? How do you teach it? What
are just a brain? What if you can? You know,
what if you can teach this thing and then study
(48:23):
the rate at which it becomes an entity? You know?
Could could a consciousness evolve without being inside a body?
You know what I mean? I think? I think yes,
I think so. It's like the old Descartes thing, right,
I think therefore I am yeah, because if if you
give a thinking brain sensors, which is essentially just what
(48:46):
we have in biological sensors, then why, yeah, how is
it any different? It's a good question, Matt. So what
if we what if we follow this even further into
the future, let's say that automation increasingly replaced his jobs
it would normally be done by humans. And let's go
ahead and imagine that despite the coming catastrophes, with resources
(49:12):
potable water, edible food, meter of ocean levels rising, right,
a quality of air, um, things like that. If let's
say that resources are diminished, but we're working assiduously to
save them. But we're coming back from a near disaster scenario.
(49:33):
And you're a human being growing up in a time
where there are are no jobs. Robots do them all.
So then how do you justify your existence in a society?
How do you how do you earn uh air to breathe, food,
to eat, water to drink, a place to live. Well,
(49:56):
you know, for me, as long as the robots don't
learn how to right stories and record podcasts and make videos,
then I'm feeling pretty good. Totally gonna happen. Though, yes,
it won't happen, yes way, Matt, Well yeah it will.
(50:17):
There's there's an interesting episode of forward thinking that our
our friends Jonathan and Joe and Lauren did about some
of the artificial uh and well maybe software is a
better word. At this point attempts to figure out how
to edit footage together and write how to aim at
a demographic I think it's quite possible within our lifetimes,
(50:41):
and perhaps yours is yours as well, Listeners, that there
could be an entirely artificially created film. It might hit
all it might be good, guys, it might hit all
the story points. It might use um computer generated images
for the actors as well as voices, right, and it
(51:04):
may also it may also there is an idea I
have for a sci fi story which I'm going to
feel just so ripped off if it ever becomes real,
and don't really somebody might hear it, and then, dude,
then do you think so? I think I know what
you're talking about. I think it's a good story. I
refuse to participate in a cover up on this, of
(51:24):
all shows. Okay, so please, listeners, I'm trusting you. Please
don't steal my idea. It's just cool. I'd like to
hear what you think about it. Imagine, Okay, can you
say in a world can you do in a world?
Imagine that we are in the future where in you
can take a device, right, and you can take one
(51:47):
movie you really love? What's a movie you really love?
Matt the Matrix. Okay, so you can take the Matrix
and then you can take another film that you really
love that's completely different. What's that? How about type Panic Titanic? Great?
So let's say that you live in the future where
you can turn on your device, your software and you say, uh, computer,
(52:10):
combine the Matrix and Titanic, and the computer will be
like computing, and then create a film that is a
seamless mesh of those two films, not just in terms
of the actors and the sequences, but in terms of
the themes, in terms of the philosophical quandaries, and it
will be coherent and unified. I think that it is
(52:31):
possible that's something like that could exist, and that's you know,
that's the dream big kind of story. It would be
a lot easier to write about it than it would
be to make the code, you know what I mean.
I'm just imagining Neo rocketing off of the Titanic at
the end while everybody's going down. You can fly now right,
I'm king of the world, and uh. And that you know,
(52:52):
there are there are other things that you could combine
with that you have better examples, And I apologize that
was great. So I'm just saying like it. It is
quite possible that the problem of human slavery fundamentally becomes
changed by technology, right by some of the same things
(53:13):
that are being built with slave labor may ultimately or
one day lead to the demise of this abhorrent practice.
That's cool imagery that's going on in my head right now.
I hope you listeners are also getting some of that well,
and I hope that we're I hope that we're showing
some of the state of it. And I you know,
I have massive respect um for you because you're the
(53:35):
one who You're the one who pointed out something that
I think a lot of people forget, which is, you know,
the fact that these these numbers may well be exaggerated,
uh or that they may not agree, whether that's through
mistakes and methodology or maybe bad data or maybe even
(53:57):
self interested actors. It's to realize that there is still
a great deal we do not know about modern slavery,
other than it exists, and other than the fact that
there are interested parties in in the world, in other
countries and maybe here in the US on some level
(54:17):
who are specifically supposed to be stopping this and explicitly
allowing it to occur, not just turning a blind eye,
but assisting in a slave trade. And I know that
this is a little bit soap box ish, but the
fact of the matter is that this is this is
(54:39):
a problem that has followed humanity like a shadow, you know,
for the entirety of human civilization. Have you heard Luis
Kay's bit about um, of course, but maybe have you
heard have you listeners? Have you or this? It sounds familiar.
(55:01):
He I'm not gonna do the bit because I am
not Luis C. Kay, and he has he's the only
person who can deliver it. But it is a He
makes a point about how this kind of human suffering
that exists in in the act of enslaving a human
being is what has built every giant, big thing that
(55:23):
exists on this planet. Every huge um uh you know,
big countries, every everything basically that we have right now
is because we threw he says, human suffering at it
until it became a thing. Ah, yes, I remember that.
It's a it's difficult point, but it's not entirely out
(55:43):
of the ballpark. I mean, Luis Kay is a pretty
insightful guy. I'm a fan of him. You are too
big fan. Yeah, and uh, I guess what we'll do is,
uh wrap up the show listeners. We would like to
hear from you. We'd like to hear your perspective on
the topics we addressed or anything from privatized prisons to enslavement,
(56:04):
human trafficking, uh, immigration, We like your perspective on that
as well. I know that some of those issues might
be device And do you hear that, yeah, sort of
thunder in the distance growing Sarah. It's like there's a
beat or something that can only mean one thing. Matt
(56:24):
at the time has come. It's a moment with no
no is that you? It is? I? Well, hello, it's
also any Just to let everybody know. So we may
have described this before, Ben and matter sort of sequestered
in this little box and I'm outside in the common area, so,
you know, just adds to the realism. You're hearing people
(56:45):
in the background going about their going about their daily routines.
Here the way to go convincing everyone that we're not
just yeah or yeah or not real human being, free
brains and separate jars. At least we got separate jars.
No offense, guys. I think the way you yeah, but
I need my own jars. You gotta have separate jars.
(57:05):
So uh so, no, you know, today was a pretty
heavy topic. Sometimes we have episodes that we can have
a little bit of fun with, like online manipulation, right,
but this one, this one was this one was a
little bit different, and I don't know if we if
we've done it justice, but I wanted to ask you
(57:27):
have you had any personal experience with with something like
human trafficking or seeing something because I'll be honest, I
know we're a family show, so I'm not gonna talk
too too much about this. Oh, Matt, you're right, Matt's
giving me a look and a slow nod. We're not
exactly a family show. We do talk about stuff like slavery.
(57:49):
But if you live in a city of any comp
of any size, then odds are that you have passed
by and seeing you know, prostitutes. For instance, there there
are prostitutes in Atlanta that that you can when you
drive by, you can see someone or you'll hear someone say,
there's look at these prostitutes. And when we know that
(58:13):
there is a likelihood that these people have been forced
into into this occupation, then you know there's this question,
like what can we do if anything? Right? Like, I
I don't know. No, I'm looking for your perspective because
I I feel like in order of reasonableness, it goes you,
(58:36):
Matt and me. Yeah right, hierarchy's a little twisted there.
I'm not saying that you're not the most reasonable, just
I don't like being second. I should definitely be last
in that list. But okay, wait, where was that again?
You were the first? Were the most reasonable? And okay,
all right, I'll take it. Sure you like the most diplomatic? Yeah, no,
I mean I've I've definitely never experienced anything firsthand. UM.
(58:59):
You know, seen documentaries and there was a fantastic season
of The Wire. It's sort of like a one that's
largely people don't like as much, but I think it's
probably my favorite one where it's all about the ports
and the two kings. He was season two and there's
you know, the whole thing where they're these shipping containers
with um. I think they're Eastern European UM women that
have been suffocated in there. And I mean that's certainly
(59:22):
it was based on some real news stories that came out. UM,
and that's pretty horrific. I don't really know what else
to say about it. The whole concept is pretty horrific.
And the fact that, like you say, there are more
people enslave today than ever, that's pretty it's pretty dreary statistic. Well,
then what could be done, what if anything could be
(59:44):
done to eliminate yes? Mentality? Its like what you guys
are talking about, Like, you know, it's like people are
raising these environments and they grow to see it as
being a norm, and then then they they maybe they
were abused in that way themselves, and so they choose
to abuse others in that way, you know. And it's
like if you can't totally just get rid of that mentality,
(01:00:05):
in that way of looking at people as just a
means to an end, then it's hard. And I don't
know how you get rid of a problem like that,
And and there's so many ways to do it now
with the internet and um organized crime, and it's just
it just seems like it's just got the potential to
be so prevalent, and I just don't know how. I
don't know. I mean, I hate to sound like i'm,
you know, at a loss, but I kind of am.
(01:00:26):
It's it's a. It's a really big, big problem. It's
very scary. Maybe maybe the in my opinion that and
I don't know how this would happen. The best way
to combat this thing would be to eliminate the economic
incentive if it is you know, people often do things,
sure because of culture, but if it is more profitable
(01:00:48):
to do something else, then that behavior will likely change.
Because we live in a world that currently worships, you know,
a money regime, which you know, may may look just
as silly and stupid thousands of years in the future.
I think it most certainly will. So listeners, Uh, we
(01:01:10):
would like to hear what you think. As as we
mentioned before, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter.
We also do a live show on a little thing
called Periscope and yeah, yes, the best ways to just
keep tuned into Twitter. I think it sends out a link,
will send out a link when we start show, and
(01:01:31):
we try to give people a little bit of heads
up if we're gonna do it. Uh. And we also
have a website stuff that once you know where you
can find every podcast we've ever done. We would like
to hear from you, not necessarily about this episode all that,
although this is an important topic. Our best episodes, whether
(01:01:52):
video or audio, come from you, our listeners, so please
write in and let us know what you would like
to hear about in the future, what you think about
this topic, or if you just want to say hey Matt,
hey no, hey Ben uh, then we would also still
love to hear from you. Our email addresses conspiracy at
(01:02:14):
how stuff works dot com. From one on this topic
another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
You can also get in touch on Twitter at the
handle at conspiracy stuff.
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