My Family's Slave - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-story/524490/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> My family adopted my female cousin nearly 30 years ago from Guatemala. The country was in civil war at the time so bringing her to the U.S. was in her best interest.

Unfortunately my mother and aunt (sisters of her birth father) kept her so locked down that she is effectively a slave. My aunt hasn't worked in decades because my little sister has always signed every paycheck over to my aunt. After working for nearly 25 years my sister has no money, doesn't have a bank account, has no friends, has dated only once (and they shamed her when she did), no drivers license, isn't allowed to do anything on her own. She isn't allowed to walk to work. She isn't allowed to have opinions, or a private conversation, or until recently, a cellphone.

I finally bought her a cellphone the day after my mother died in 2014. I thought things would change after my mother died, but my aunt continued her control.

My sister seems happy and genuinely loves my aunt and now deceased mother. My family always claimed that her original immigration paperwork had an error which puts her at risk at deportation justifying her isolation. But I doubt the sincerity of this claim given that is conveniently forgotten when it comes time for her to go out and earn a paycheck.

Even though I always objected to her treatment, I feel complicit. But now, I don't think I could suggest a better way to live. All I can do is set aside enough money for her retirement. Any thoughts or comments are appreciated but at the very least I appreciate this opportunity to share her story.

<comment><USER3> Rhetorical questions (that you've probably already asked yourself many times):

Why are you letting this happen and what do you fear will happen if you do something about it?

<comment><USER4> Many people are hesitant to intervene in something that will likely destroy their own family. This should not be surprising at all. It happens all of the time in family abuse cases.

<comment><USER5> Family like this is worth destroying.

<comment><USER6> Worth thinking about: is it worth destroying a dysfunctional but happy family? Are our own standards for freedom worth enforcing on other people's life?

I'm also thinking about that last child in Arrested Development. A lot of families and people are dysfunctional. But are we functional enough to tell them what to do?

<comment><USER7> There is another aspect to this. Consider 911, you had 4 planes full of people and yet it is believed that only 2 - 3 people on a single plane did anything to stop the hijackers (ultimately saving many lives at the cost of their own).

Uncommon valor is prized and honored simply because it is so uncommon. It is easy to say how you would act in a situation from the comfort of your keyboard but when the shit hits the fan are you sure that you are part of the exceptional 5%? Or are you just another passenger trying to get home? Perhaps OP is just like most people, not wanting to rock the boat and trying to get on with his life. Having walked a few miles in his shoes are you certain you'd do any different? I'd like to think I would but I'd be dishonest to confidently claim it. "Some cats surf, Some cats make the waves"

<comment><USER8> At the time, the assumption was that the plane would be flown away, passengers held hostage for some demands, then released. The first planes had no reason to think that they were going to die when the hijackers struck. Passengers on the final plane heard by phone of the other attacks and so knew better what they were dealing with. And it was more than 2 or 3 of them that did anything once they did know that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Truly remarkable story.

One thing that struck me is that Lola did so much of the work of a traditional mother's role: raising the kids, cooking, cleaning, laundry, and even providing emotional support. The mother had to take on a traditional father's role in bringing home an income. And the actual father - well, he did neither role and seemed to just freeload, gamble, abuse, and finally disappear.

All of the work in a traditional mother's role, well it's usually uncompensated too. Sure it's a "labor of love" but it's also just a huge amount of work, for decades. An argument could be made that the entire capitalist system is built upon uncompensated labor. Just ask your mom.

<comment><USER10> I have seen career women kind of jokingly say "I need a wife." I was struck by the fact that Alex's mother, whom some people here are vilifying, managed to have a serious career like a man because she had Lola at home to do all the "women's work." This is mostly being overlooked in discussion and I didn't know how to bring it up myself. I appreciate you remarking upon it.

<comment><USER11> As a male, I'd personally prefer to live a life filled with traditional housewife work. Kids are fun, and I'd like raising them. I like cooking. Cleaning is pretty fun. More than that, though, employment sucks. If you keep me fed, clothed, and with an internet connection, I'd be happy as a clam, even spending eight hours a day doing nothing but housework. I sometimes wonder if there are others who feel this way, especially women who are mostly forced to work nowadays.

There's a strange sort of situation: In the past, women were forced to be housewives, which was awful. Nobody should be forced to be something they don't want to be. But now that women have the ability to do mostly whatever a man can do, neither men nor women really have the option of just "being a housewife." We kind of both have to work. I wonder if it would be better if, as a family unit, one person decides to do the housewife-type stuff, and the other decides to pursue a career? You could even switch off after a few years. That'd be a pretty ideal life for me, I think. But again, in most marriages, both people have to work.

<comment><USER12> >neither men nor women really have the option of just "being a housewife." We kind of both have to work....in most marriages, both people have to work.

Says who? Sure if you take out a fat mortgage and car loans that require two incomes to repay then, sure, you need two incomes. But you can also just choose to live in a smaller house and drive cheaper cars instead. The issue is the lifestyle inflation that comes with two incomes, it is avoidable.(1)

[http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/11/04/raising-kids- and-r...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/11/04/raising-kids-and-running- a-household-how-working-parents-share-the-load/)

>The median household income for families with two full-time working parents and at least one child under 18 at home is $102,400, compared with $84,000 for households where the father works full time and the mother works part time and $55,000 for households where the father works full time and the mother is not employed.

$55,000 a year provides a good life in 99% of the United States.

BTW, the share of two-parent households in which both parents work full time is only at 46%.

My way of handling two incomes is saving and investing the vast majority of the second income, not spending it. That leaves us in a much better financial position and also a lot of leeway for one or both of us to go without employment for an extended time. The ultimate goal being to retire early. Or at least semi-retire.

<comment><USER13> I think you are typing this sitting at your comfortable 1% Valley workplace.

Nowhere in the world does $55K a year before tax provide anywhere like 'good life'. It means endless misery and generational psychological poverty passed on to your children. Only reason of doing it is if your desire to exert psychological pressure on your wife is greater than even desire to consume. It simply doesn't sound healthy, and it is almost a crime against children, because they will grow dirt poor and view this crap as normal.

Background: i earned just $45K a year after tax one year in my life, 10 years ago. I had no children back then. I still spent $60K eating out some of my savings, having to cut on anything including some food, and it felt so crappy i don't advise anyone to repeat my experience.

Sure, $102K isn't too much either. But it puts you into a totally different league anyway. I can imagine how to survive on $102K with a kid in a cheap place, if your house is fully paid and you are an introvert, but not $55K.

<comment><USER14> Maybe you should stick your nose outside a bit more often? In Poland if you make ~$20k/year you are super rich, can easily afford to not just buy but build a new house. There's absolutely nothing miserable about it. Saying that "nowhere in the world" $55k provides a good life is just hilariously wrong.

Even in UK, I make ~$35k before tax and I'm living a _very_ comfortable life.

<comment><USER13> I live in Lithuania actually and spend about $140K a year. I don't scrap by, but no luxuries either, i fly coach and stay in 4* hotels. My kid goes to best private school, that's about the only luxury i can afford, and that's just because i am really determined to help her not live her life in same shit as myself.

<comment><USER15> Either you're missing a couple of 0's there, or I should retire to Lithuania right now.

<comment><USER13> 140K of course LOL

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great read! Many Asian countries have the concept of live-in housekeepers. I think the 'best' (scraping the bottom, here) arrangement is in Singapore, where the government, laws, and law-enforcement ensure that immigrant live-in housekeepers are treated fairly- kinda like au pairs, etc. in the US. I knew someone in India who brought their live-in maid's sister to the US in some capacity (and AFAIK, paid her wages- she returned happier and was able to put her kids, etc. in better schools).

I am pretty sure some of these arrangements, especially in poorer Asian countries like India, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc. are effectively, slavery.

In most cases in Asian countries, live-in housekeepers are paid wages and their families are provided with various amenities and help- kinda like a very small-scale version of the servants' lives in Downton Abbey. But, there are at least two very serious problems: 1. cultural norms allow the servants to be treated very poorly- as second-class citizens, 2. while obscure well-meaning laws exist to prevent trafficking in India, law enforcement doesn't care much if they are treated shittily (physical/mental abuse, nonpayment of wages, etc. often go unreported or are ignored by cops).

<comment><USER17> Humanity is both so strange and so static. We got 'rid' of slavery in most of the world no later than a century ago. It was bloody and difficult to do, but we managed it. Yet, there are still people living as just the same as slaves century or more ago, in a world of space ships and the internet. Yeah, tech has helped, we don't have smallpox anymore and the mass famines have stopped recently, but the deeper gestal psyche is the same. The old saying of history repeating itself if you do not listen to it comes to mind. But, what can we do, humans are still humans, basically the same for the last ~10k years. No matter how much we want to change, how much time and effort and writing and money and sweat and blood and death and war, we cannot. Its not that we are dystopian now, maybe, its that we have always been so.

<comment><USER18> When you go searching for meaning, chase all the leads, trying to separate wrong from right. What you find is that beyond all the pop culture tropes, the outrage and terror about the latest and greatest paedophile revelation, evil greedy capitalists banker stories, murderous terrorists and backstabbing trophy wives and all the other stories about 'true monsters'. You'll find that all the monsters are just humans. Just like you and me.

It's easy to see from far away what is bad, people all over the western world can point at Hitler in their history books as an example of absolute evil. But then we'd be missing the complete picture, which is so much worse if you cling to a traditional view of good and evil. Normal school curriculum (at least where I'm from) does not teach about the horrific things Belgium did in the Congo up until the 1960s Or any of the other decimations/genocides caused directly or indirectly as a result of occupation by the various colonial powers. Or all the terrible things our ancestors did even further in the past when news spread so much slower or not at all.

There was a Byzantine king named Basil. Who, after defeating a Bulgarian army and capturing a number of their soldiers, blinded 99 out of every 100 captured soldiers and sent them back to Bulgaria to cripple their economy and to sabotage future war efforts. Man is a savage evil creature imo. I don't think we ever truly can change. The civilization I and many others enjoy in the western world is a fragile thing I think. And if we can't make it stick and spread, and I don't think I can, then when the troubles get too bad we'll be back to savagery soon enough, or not as the bomb is still hanging above our heads even if it doesn't feel like that any more.

<comment><USER19> There are good people and bad people. There are monsters and humans even if monsters may have human shape and form.

There is good and there is evil.

One evil act does not absolve another.

Goodness lives forever and evil does not die either

<comment><USER20> "If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Jordan Peterson talks about how one of the most important things you can do to become a well-formed person in terms of moral reasoning is to realize that you're a Nazi. You're a concentration camp guard. You'd do it, by choice. It takes a lot of discussion and examples and thought to get to the point where this is really understood, but it's true and it's important.

I'd say the main thing that convinced me is that I realized that there are people I'd like to see suffer. Not because it'd lead to some external outcome, but just because I want them to suffer. You can see this every day in politics too. People who want to hurt just for the joy of hurting. You can hear it in their voices when they knock people down at a protest and hurl dehumanizing snarl terms at them.

And this is present on every 'side'. The only possible difference is in how much each side embraces this impulse.

Once this is understood - that people aren't divided into good and evil groups, but rather that every person is both good and evil - a lot of questions and problems look quite different from the common "good people vs evil people" frame. A lot of policies and historical judgments start to look pretty dumb.

And, in fact, the idea that some people are evil is a foundation of evil acts. The false belief that someone is pure evil is what gives you the excuse to feel good about making them suffer.

It's ironic that wrong beliefs about the shape of evil in the world are themselves a foundation for evil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What an incredibly deep and well written story. I did not know or appreciate that the author Alex Tizon died a few hours before publication - and this piece was his Faustus, the one personal story he struggled for years to write.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-repor...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-reporters- story/524538/)

I rarely use the word masterpiece, but it feels appropriate here.

<comment><USER22> I wholeheartedly agree, I was deeply moved by this and loved his writing style so much and wanted to read something else by him. Shocking that he died so soon, seemed like such a good man.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Here in HK I sponsor the visa of a Domestic Helper from the Philippines. Her situation is obviously better that Lola but the cards are really stacked against them.

They are literally second-class citizens: their visa doesn't entitle them to any hope of becoming full-time residents, regardless of how many decades of their life they spent in the service of others. The whole Domestic Helper's contact is a sham: there is rampant abuse and very little interest in enforcing any of the few rights they have.

It is a form of institutionalised slavery. Hundred of thousands of helpers are taking care of people's kids and the elderly, they are indirectly essential to the success of the economy, yet get little recognition for it.

<comment><USER24> Weird question, but why do you still do it if you feel they are second-class citizens? What's the general local attitude towards domestic helpers.

I've been to HK and I was personally shocked at my local acquaintance's attitude towards them (negative). At a philosophical level, this is a form of slavery/racism/caste system. At a pragmatic level, nobody in HK wants to do their work, people in the Philippines need the income, and most situations are mutually beneficial. So why not?

<comment><USER23> You hinted at the reasons: the work they provide is useful and they need it to provide income to their families.

The system is skewed against them but it doesn't mean you have to take advantage of the lack of protective rights to abuse your power over their life.

The helper I sponsor is basically free to do what she wants. She comes a few hours a week doing basic household chores. She is paid decently and is able to take holidays back home a few times a year and work for other people to increase her income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For those who think it can't happen here, there was a recent case in Silicon Valley where a group of small business owners was keeping slaves. I actually ate at their restaurant and had no idea what was going on.

[http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/20/plight-of-saratoga- hum...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/11/20/plight-of-saratoga-human- trafficking-victims-revealed/)

<comment><USER26> Isn't spain a reasonable high wage country? I wonder what made these people accept such lives in the US.

<comment><USER10> from the article:

 _Desperate to make a living after the global economic collapse in 2008 hit Spain particularly hard, at least three victims accepted the jobs without meeting the restaurant and salon owners, Estanislao said. In some cases, the group paid for their tickets and told them they could work off the debt._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I visited Hong Kong a year ago. It is famous for its night markets, its abundant partying, and the massive financial powerhouses that make their home here. I did all the tourist things, I partied, I explored, it was great.

A couchsurfing host showed me around the city on a tram. She pointed out masses of ladies in plain clothing sitting around on the sidewalks and in streets. It was a Sunday. This was the "maids day", the one day a week when maids are required not to work.

There were thousands of them, all sitting in groups around the streets and buildings that were closed on the weekends. Groups of street vendors dotted the scene. They appeared when the maids did, a sort of "maid economy", where extremely cheap goods and snacks are sold to the maids on their time off. At night they sleep on the street, and are easily victimized.

The maids have no place to live. During the week they sleep on the floor in a closet, or on a cot in the kitchen of a typical Hong Kong home, and work all day and night, 6 days a week. The little money they make they send home to their family. They are mostly Filipino, mostly illegal immigrants, and as such, they have no rights. And because they have no status here, they also can't get a legal job, leaving them with no other choice to make a living.

There are an estimated 200,000 female domestic workers in Hong Kong (336,000 migrant domestic workers overall), and they are effectively slaves. As many as 56,000 migrant domestic workers here endure forced labor. [http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/news/hong-kong-forced- labor-...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/03/15/news/hong-kong-forced-labor-maids/) As you might imagine, a large number of these maids are victimized by their "host families".

The really scary thing? I would have had _absolutely no clue this was going on_ if my host hadn't pointed it out to me.

<comment><USER28> They aren't permitted to go back home and sleep on the weekends? Why not?

<comment><USER29> What is this home of which you speak?

<comment><USER28> The place that they sleep during the weekdays. Or do all the maids always sleep on the street?

<comment><USER30> It's not _their_ home, is the distinction GP was making

<comment><USER28> That's a distinction without a difference. They have a bed during the weekdays; why can't they sleep there on the weekends too? That was the question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Apparently the author, Alex Tizón died days after finishing the story and never knew it was chosen for the June cover.

He was 57.

<comment><USER32> _Alex Tizon built an exemplary career by listening to certain types of people—forgotten people, people on the margins, people who had never before been asked for their stories._ [...]

 _Alex did not know that we would be putting his piece on the cover of this issue;_ he died the day we made that decision, _before we had a chance to tell him._

How... serendipitous.

<comment><USER33> A serendipity is a _happy_ accident. I don't this really applies.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, couldn't come up with the right word, hence the ellipsis :\

<comment><USER34> poignant?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Horribly compelling story.

When Ulysses S Grants father-in-law died a few years before the civil war, he left them his slave. The Grants were dead broke, Ulysses had failed at farming and the slave was worth a lot of money, they could have worked him or sold him to make the their life instantly better. Instead Ulysses took him to the courthouse and made him a free man.

How hard is it to have empathy for others?

<comment><USER36> > How hard is it to have empathy for others?

That really depends on the person. Some people don't have empathy. As a sufferer of DPDR, a lot of times I don't even feel I have emotion.

<comment><USER37> I think that even people with extreme mental disorders can probably imagine that they themselves would not very much like to be slaves who are beaten and scolded on a whim.

<comment><USER38> and yet would continue to support an industry and enjoy the result of torture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> A well written story. I'd be interested in hearing from any Filipino commentators how common this practice still is/is perceived to be in the Philippines today. It's ranked 33/167 by Global Slavery Index[0] as compared to the US at #52.

[0][https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/philippines/](https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/philippines/)

<comment><USER40> for people who don't click the link: a larger number is better.

it's ranking by prevalence, so countries like North Korea (rank #1) worse than countries like the U.S. (#52) and Australia (also #52).

I couldn't find a country that was ranked #167 out of #167, though. I think #52 is as high as it goes.

<comment><USER41> It seems that a higher ranking is worse.

> The Index presents a ranking of 167 countries based on the proportion of the > population that is estimated to be in modern slavery. [0]

North Korea, with 4.37% in slavery, is ranked 1.

India, with 1.4% in slavery, is ranked 4.

Philippines, with 0.4% in slavery, is ranked 33.

China, with 0.25% in slavery, is ranked 40.

USA, with .02% in slavery, is ranked 52.

[0] [https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/](https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/)

EDIT: number -> ranking

<comment><USER42> How is a higher number worse if there is less slavery in countries with a higher number?

<comment><USER41> I should have phrased it as a higher ranking rather than a higher number. I assumed 'higher' was clear in the terms of ranks, rather than a larger number.

GP's claim makes it seem like they interpreted as I did.

> ...countries like North Korea (rank #1) are closer to 0...

NK is not close to 0 in relative or absolute slave counts, and I don't see the utility in pointing out that 1 is closer to 0 than 52.

<comment><USER42> Yes, I replied before you edited your post, I get your meaning now. Thanks for clarifying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I watched a few years ago a French movie about a Parisian family owning a quasi-slave, a young woman from (IIRC) Africa. The son of the family finally sent an anonymous mail to an organization which had it taken care of. The interesting character was the grandmother who was vehemently supporting her son (the father of the boy who sent an email) until she realized how the slave-girl was treated.

The movie was average but I am mentioning it here because contemporary slavery (or almost slavery) can happen next door, today. Even a an average movie (we call these in French "TV movies) can be eye opening.

<comment><USER44> What's the name of the film?

<comment><USER45> Possibly "L'esclavage moderne de Fatou"

<comment><USER43> Unfortunately not. I watched the movie some 5 to 10 years ago and I cannot remember neither the title nor the actors. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> This story highlights just how blurry and complex things can get.

Maybe to a lesser extent we are all slaves of the system because we have to work increasingly long hours for an ever decreasing wage.

I think that the most kind-hearted and generous people tend to slowly slip into slavery over time because the system tends to reward greedy, selfish people.

The sudden, massive collapse of the system will come when there won't be enough altruistic, productive people left to support all the greedy, non- productive ones which are currently winning the game of natural selection.

<comment><USER47> Nassim Nicholas Taleb - "The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary".

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> My parents were born and have lived in Pakistan for their entire childhood up to adulthood. They then moved to the United States, where I was born and have lived for my entire life.

On occasion, I visited my parent's home in Pakistan, although the trips became increasingly scarce as grandparents passed (now all four are gone).

The house has always had domestic workers present, a single family. The first few times a maid, who we called Maacy whose children went to a nearby school and whose husband would work nearby.

Her family was among the lower classes of the country, and her salary brought her and her children opportunities she could never otherwise have had. I remember talking with her in the small room that was her quarters; sometimes I would help her with her work.

On later visits, she had left and another family, whose father served as the household driver occupied the same space. One time, I saw the previous maid attending a gathering that was taking place. She recognized me immediately, sharing an embrace and leaving me on my way.

<comment><USER49> The situation you describe seems to involve inequality, but it's significantly different than what "Lola" is described to have endured. The decision to move to the U.S. was entirely the author's family's. Lola was promised that she would get paid enough to move back, but the family never kept that promise. When she begged for them to allow her to visit her dying parents, they refused. And then her 5-year visa ran out, and because the family did not deal with that lapse, Lola was now forced to live in slavery forever because trying to send her back would jeopardize the entire family's immigration status. Stupid Lola!

The author is a great writer, and obviously a distinguished journalist. If this article had been written by the real-life version of "Silicon Valley's" Peter Gregory (including the untimely death), I have a feeling sentiment toward the piece would be much different.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I had a terrible "Billy" moment a few years ago.

I was travelling and a friend said I could use her house, because it was empty. This was perfect for me, since I had a wife and kid.

It turns out there was a housekeeper. She did everything for us, made us feel very comfortable, cooked, served, helped with the kid, etc.

Then one day I found out she didn't have her own room, despite the place being a multi storey mansion. In fact, she slept on a mat in the kitchen. And not only that, there would be a phone call each morning to wake her up, from the master of the house. He didn't want her to get too comfy while the family was out.

It was all a bit shocking. I still haven't chatted to my friend about this, because what on earth do you say? And otherwise ordinary western educated person -in fact a feminist, globalist, left-leaning idealist- who has a slave? What if I've misunderstood something? Maybe my friend didn't approve of it? Maybe he did? I'd never be able to talk to my friend again.

I got the housekeeper a present when we left, as she'd been so good at taking care of us. But naturally I didn't enquire any further into her relationship with the family.

\</comment><comment>-

My main thought is there's a sort of Stockholm syndrome going on. Lola still had thoughts for her family back home, but she was so integrated in the new family it became part of her life, too. I guess it's a coping mechanism. Even slaves need meaning in their lives, and taking care of kids is meaning.

\</comment><comment>-

Ok, enough of moralizing. Actually I find it comforting that there is at least some sympathy for my predicament. At least one or two of you think it is possible that they would behave similarly. Or at least acknowledge the awkward situation.

I will talk to this friend in person next time I'm in that part of the world, which should be soon, about this incident, and get the full story of how their housekeeper lives.

<comment><USER51> So you're trying to tell us that your feeling of uncomfortness is the only thing stopping you from growing a spine and standing up for such an inhumane treatment, that apart from you nobody else can witness?

Have some decency and confront your so-called friend. How can people be rich and not have the decency to give the person feeding you and your family a freaking room.

And I really had to constrain myself from using expletives in this reply.

<comment><USER50> > Have some decency and confront your so-called friend.

Sounds like you haven't been in this situation.

You know, there's often a gap between how good we think we are, and how good we are. I feel terrible about it, and the subject comes up now and again of whether we should say something, and my wife and I feel bad.

It's easy to tell people what they should do, I do it all the time as well, even to myself.

<comment><USER52> There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem to be a third person. Mostly bosses. Boss doesn't give you a day off despite a month of notice. Boss dicks you around on hours or a promised promotion. The people I consider friends are folks I can talk to about morality. I've grown as a person based on the critical things some friends have told me.

Never anything in the same time zone of FRIEND MISTREATS LIVE IN HELP, MIGHT BE SLAVE, I DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO SAY. This whole thread is hysterical to me. This is a parody of real life, right?

I hate to edge in on godwin territory, but this has reminded me that our society has not grown at all in the last 100 years. We've accreted a card house morality that collapses for SO MANY people at the slightest breeze. Can't let a slave come between friends am I right?

<comment><USER53> > There is no question in my mind that I would confront anyone I knew engaging > in the situation you're describing. Among my circles, injustices always seem > to be a third person.

But there should be a question in your mind unless you've actually confronted something like this yourself (with all of it's associated complexity). Until then, your certainty is only a fantasy.

<comment><USER52> Sure, a fantasy. I doubt you can be convinced, but let me try.

I was always sure that if someone broke into my home, I would confront them - lethally - if necessary, despite any complexities. Dignity is important to me, and I'm willing to take risks to keep it. When I was a sweet summer child I used to think that was the default state of adulthood.

Well, recently someone did break into my home at 3am. Coincidentally I was sleeping on the couch right in front of the front door. My eyes opened to the sight of a strange man in dark clothes standing inside my home. I went from half asleep to awake and armed faster than I've done anything else from deep sleep. If they had shown me any signs of aggression I'd have shot them. Fortunately for both of us they panicked and fled.

You're right, the action itself wasn't a thing I deliberated on or decided in that moment. I told myself I'd do it, but the way I responded in that acute moment was instinctual and adrenaline fueled.

There are actually some weak parallels between a home invasion and finding out your friend might be a slave owner.

I can understand why some people would respond to a home invasion with submission. For some folks, that doesn't even touch their personal definition of dignity, the function is life > stuff and I can respect that completely.

Yet, when you see your friend possibly engaging in slavery, and mistreating them to boot.. it's like home invasion with the personal stakes all lowered. Your life isn't on the line, just potentially the life of the victim and your friendship. Not only that, but the time frame is extended from do-or-die adrenaline to days of deliberation if you want. I'd have to work real hard to come up with some complexities that shake my confidence on how I'd react here. Basically the maid would have to be skeletor or a war criminal. I really wish more people were backing me up on this. I'm pretty blown away.

But yeah my knees would probably buckle and i'd let them continue with their evil so things wouldn't get awkward. Lol nope.

<comment><USER54> For what it's worth, this entire thread is making me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Typically, I appreciate the nuanced, thoughtful, and introspective discussions we tend to have here.

In this case? Like, what the fuck is there even to discuss here? This is black and white. You free the slave and deal with "social inconveniences" or whatever. Jesus Christ.

<comment><USER55> To me, I'm wondering where the mistreatment is.

We have someone sleeping on a matt, and getting a daily wake up call to do their work.

Work which presumably they are being paid for---we don't know if they're not being paid for the work.

Now in the USA, sleeping on a matt in the kitchen is some kind of terrible situation that no one would live with but....

In my country, _I_ slept on a matt as a child. I wasn't poor. We had a house, food, private schooling, etc. but kids under the age of 7 slept on a matt. It was just the way things were done.

Even today, I have relatives who sleep on matt's despite being totally capable of buying western style beds.

Now as for not having a room of their own, I don't understand the attachment to a private room as opposed to simply a lockbox or a place to keep your things. Private rooms seem like a luxury that one can do without, not a _must have_.

Disclaimer:

Our families maids have private rooms, and beds (which ironically they endlessly complain are too hot compared to the breezy floor mats they're used to). They also have savings accounts, and pension funds because the family matriarch is a western trained banker and believes that in the absence of good governance, private individuals have to take better care of their employees livelihood.

<comment><USER26> So much this! I am appalled at this thread possibly full of non-asian people who think having a room and board househelp is slavery.

They are free to quit and renegotiate salaries. Their children are free to do whatever they want, infact we help in their education and give them gifts. If anything it tends to be a more empathic employer-employee relationship, albeit with shit salary.

There is real slavery however, bonded labour, forced child beggars. Seeing this not being mentioned at all, I don't think we have many asian people here, just westerners speculating.

<comment><USER56> I think we don't have enough information to decide either way. The guy who visited his friend's house seems to think everything wasn't above-board there. Maybe he's wrong, but the responsible thing to do is follow up on it with the friend, promptly. It doesn't need to be an accusation, just an "I noticed something odd; can you tell me what's going on?" type thing. And if the explanation isn't satisfying, you get the authorities involved, immediately.

Regardless, just because something is culturally acceptable (like Lola's slavery back in the Philippines), it doesn't make it right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> This is the second time a text has brought tears to my eyes. The first was "Where the red fern grows". Read this, it's well written and worth the time.

<comment><USER58> Yeah I was listening at work and teared up near the end.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> When I was in elementary school in the 80s one of my friends has a "nanny" who slept on a cot in the laundry room in the basement. I didn't think much of it, a few of us had housekeepers and I just imagined a few other people had live- in help too, like on TV shows...

A year or two into our friendship, I was over at their house after school and around dinner time I asked if I could stay. The parents said, "Sure, no problem... just let your parents know..." They went to talk to the "nanny" \-- who didn't speak any English -- and let her know to set another plate.

There was some miscommunication, the "nanny" didn't expect the father to be home for dinner, so they didn't quite have enough food prepared for me too, since they were already one up. That's sort of what my friend translated after... anyway all I saw was two adults arguing and then the father, not liking the "nanny" talking back to him, slapped her face. Hard. Then stood over her with a clenched fist and yelled at her in a language I didn't understand.

My friend was mortified, he started apologizing to me that I had to see it... and the mother came to yell at the father... and ultimately I didn't get to stay for dinner... for weeks my friend just kept apologizing, saying he was sorry I saw what I saw and sorry his father wasn't kinder to their "nanny"...

At some point, 25+ years later, I saw the "nanny" walking with the mother in a grocery store. She still didn't speak English, but she smiled at me and knew who I was. My friend's mother and I caught up, and it hit me... this wasn't really a "nanny" and I probably didn't have a word for that relationship in my vocabulary.

She was part of the family, went to all the school functions and plays and soccer games... cooked for them... kept house... but wasn't related... and who knows if she was paid or not -- but I doubt it... Still she always doted on children. Seeing her all those years later, the facial expressions she made when seeing me were just like seeing a grandmother or aunt. Her face lit up, and she was just excited and proud to see me all grown up.

Anyway this story was really powerful and reminded me of that woman, and got me thinking we probably all know a Lola -- some degree of Lola anyway. Slavery probably isn't as uncommon as we'd like it to be.

<comment><USER60> > we probably all know a Lola

Not sure what your value of "we" is. I've never met anyone like Lola, and I've never heard a story like this from anyone I know. Then again, I didn't have a housekeeper or know anyone who did. People in my social class were glad to keep the electric bill paid and have a working car to drive.

<comment><USER44> A few people I socialised with at university had live-in housekeepers, and I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of them had a rough time.

Most of the students from Asia or the Middle East, whose parents were paying tens of thousands of pounds for their child to attend a British university, had staff at their parents' home.

One close friend was a British girl who'd grown up in Hong Kong, with a full- time au pair. She complained that the other HK and Chinese girls she shared a kitchen with didn't know anything about cooking or cleaning, since their au pairs had always done everything for them. In her case, her parents told her to "help" the au pair with chores, in the same way I helped my mum, so she'd learn. Presumably, her parents knew the arrangement in Hong Kong wouldn't last forever.

I've also met a couple of people working as au pair's here, both ~20 year old women mixing the work with studying, which is the usual sytem in Europe. It looks like a very poor deal, for example [1] £320/mth for what's not far off full time hours (37.5hr/wk would be full time in a government job).

[1] [https://www.aupair.com/en/job/lisburn-united- kingdom-765795....](https://www.aupair.com/en/job/lisburn-united- kingdom-765795.php)

<comment><USER61> That's pretty insane and a stifling arrangement for everyone involved I'd imagine.

Why does a college kid need a live-in housekeeper?

<comment><USER44> Back home.

Not at university in London.

Maybe I didn't make that clear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I found so much of this fascinating. Not just the circumstances of Lola being brought over here, but the children's recognition of what was happening. Learning family horrors (and trying to rectify them) such as this can be one of the hardest things to deal with when growing up.

</comment><comment><USER63> Here is a damning Twitter thread comparing the article to Lola's published obituary: [https://twitter.com/caulkthewagon/status/864656017480708102](https://twitter.com/caulkthewagon/status/864656017480708102)

It makes the author and his family a lot less sympathetic.

<comment><USER64> I didn't find the author very sympathetic. He obviously knew something was wrong but never did enough to fix it. I think the article was more of a confession than anything. I get the feeling that the author was wracked with guilt.

<comment><USER65> I'm sure he and his siblings were pretty sympathetic, which is why the tried to defend her from their parents and help her with her duties. This made their mother angry because they would take their Lola's side.

This is actually quite typical of kids (especially in asian cultures?). Being timid and following your parents orders wholeheartedly are so ingrained it's criminal. The children could only do so much as young teenagers; I question the eldest more because he was 20 and has noticed the slavery for a while yet didn't do much to help their Lola (or maybe he did, the author just failed to mention it).

Regardless, it seems like you're being unsympathetic to the author and his siblings. You don't know what they've been through: poverty, fear, abandonment, humiliation, anxiety, etc (speculations). It's a whole lot easier to judge someone's situation based on your current status and upbringing. Just because you think you would've been more resolute if you were in his place doesn't mean that you actually would have been. Remember, this is a family from Asia in the 60-70s.

Not an attack. Just a reminder to put things in perspective.

<comment><USER64> I am Mexican. I had domestic servants too. While their conditions were slightly better (they could visit their families every few months, they had a pittance of a salary), they still live in almost slavery. I too feel guilty for having participated in that and not done enough to stop it. I know what it's like to be perpetuating a class system and not do anything about it.

[https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/mexico- city-d...](https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/nov/10/mexico-city- domestic-workers-life-lesser-person)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Note - This is a modern tale, and the title is accurate. This isn't about unearthing stories from the 1800; this is by the son raised by the slave in question.

This was very much worth the read. It's touching and troubling and a human story.

</comment><comment><USER67> Someone commented on twitter that it's weird how much he empathizes and is complicit with his mom, especially after owning a slave. He also points out that he mentions she worked at Fairview Training Center, which doesn't exactly have a good history - [http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/erasing_...](http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/01/erasing_fairviews_horrors.html)

Usually I feel like pointing out these things is sort of not understanding the perspective, but also after reading Lola's obituary ([http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437...](http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437_pulidoobit20m.html)) it seems like Alex Tizon resolves himself of a lot of the responsibility for the cruel things his mother has done. Am I missing something here or does this seem to humanize her cruel actions a little bit too much...

<comment><USER68> Seattle Times published a followup yesterday:

Why the obituary for Eudocia Tomas Pulido didn't tell the story of her life in slavery, [http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/why- the-o...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/northwest/why-the-obituary- for-eudocia-tomas-pulido-didnt-tell-the-story-of-her-life-in-slavery/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Interesting that the author and his siblings had empathy for the servant. In most American Slavery stories the entire household, including young children, are portrayed as being evil and unforgiving towards the slaves. In these situations I wonder if there is any sort of innate feeling of compassion and decency and how that manifest itself in a culture where slavery and cruelty is the norm.

<comment><USER70> Yes, except as a full grown adult, the author never reported the situation to the authorities, took this 'secret' to the grave and even 'inherited' his slave from his parents. He said he paid her an allowance (which didn't sound like much) and also didn't make her work after she lived with them, but that's a token effort to right the injustice of decades of work without pay.

<comment><USER71> Are you an American? If so: America has never paid reparations to former slaves or their descendants. He may have only paid her a token sum, but it's better than the rest of us have done, so don't act holier than thou about it.

Also, he clearly didn't plan to take his secret to the grave, it's on the cover of the Atlantic.

<comment><USER70> So, obviously my citizenship or my country's history has no bearing on the merits of my criticism. It seems you want to have a completely different argument.

I think it's fair to criticize someone for being aware that a person is being enslaved and not doing anything meaningful about it for the same reason that it's fair to criticize onlookers who fail to call 911 on a crime in progress.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Lola happens to be the word for Grandma in the Philippines.

The description of this idea of a live in slave is alive and well in many parts of Asian and the Middle East.

Life in the Philippines is quite a struggle especially in the provinces. I know of a few people that live and work in Hong Kong doing the same job described in the article, but they are doing it for two families for very little pay.

<comment><USER73> I am wrong to think that this kind of thing is more acceptable in Asia than anywhere else?

<comment><USER74> It's more acceptable outside the west. Western cultures were the ones who decided slavery was a universal sin and had to be eradicated everywhere.

There are still whole races of people kept as slaves in sub-saharan Africa, for example. And I mean outright slavery, no ambiguity about it.

Abolitionism is a Eurocentric concept.

Another example from Asia. Two people were kept as slaves for 14 years in a tofu factory. This is in a developed country with a GDP per capita comparable to Spains. They were caught and fined 40k USD, no jail time.

[http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3105152](http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3105152)

<comment><USER75> _Western cultures were the ones who decided slavery was a universal sin and had to be eradicated everywhere._

Were they wrong?

<comment><USER74> No, they were not. Slavery _is_ a universal wrong.

<comment><USER76> Right or wrong is relative. Including slavery.

<comment><USER26> It's just about whether you believe in equality and freedom or not.

<comment><USER76> Yes, not all human care or believe in that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Wonderful and deeply moving narrative.

Unfortunately through modern capitalism & the global supply chain we are all complicit in slavery.

The lowest cost of labor is zero or near zero. The challenge for miners/garment makers/manufacturers/industrial farms/etc. is to circumvent local laws & regulatory bodies while expanding their profit margins. Once past the local regulatory hurdle, the global supply chain adds successive layers of obfuscation and legitimacy until finished goods reach our homes. At that point, we can't tell anymore the amount of slave labor (or environmental externalities for that matter) that went into the product, so most people buy with little regard.

The solution is to strengthen regulatory bodies at all steps of the process worldwide with punitive damages to violators making the cost of circumventing labor laws greater than the benefit from exploiting poor/at-risk populations. This is an ongoing challenge for all governments worldwide - the difference is only of scale. Whether it is the plight of poultry workers in the midwest, slave fishermen in asia, trafficked women in Europe or indentured workers the world over, exploitation is an intertwined economic and moral problem.

As for Lola, I found it heartwarming that the author accompanied her home twice.

</comment><comment><USER78> From Steve Sailer:

> Affluent Immigrants Culturally-Enriching Modern USA with Their Diverse > Customs, Such as Slave-Owning

[http://www.unz.com/isteve/immigrants-culturally-enriching- mo...](http://www.unz.com/isteve/immigrants-culturally-enriching-modern-usa- with-diverse-customs-such-as-slave-owning/)

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm late on commenting on this. Saw the story passed around here and on social media and figured it'd be worth waiting until the evening to read...

I actually ended up reading Tizon's piece after seeing this Tweet from someone I follow, which pointed out sanitized obituary, which Tizon played a part in informing:

[https://twitter.com/WendyBrandes/status/864655516227784704](https://twitter.com/WendyBrandes/status/864655516227784704)

[http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437...](http://o.seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2016807437_pulidoobit20m.html)

I greatly appreciate Tizon's life work and his decision to write about Lola, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit to feeling a great sense of disillusionment, in some ways greater than I've felt about any recent purported journalism scandals, or even the classic infamous ones [0].

It's a complex story and well-told, one in which I simultaneously feel great hatred for Tizon's mother while also seeing Tizon's conflicted perspective. I know how I'd _want_ to act if I were in Tizon's shoes, but (assuming a reasonably reliable narrator) I empathize with how he was constrained to take what seems like obvious moral action. Journalists, even Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters, are just human, I suppose. But to know that someone could have the moral impetus to do such important investigative reporting on behalf of the victimized in our world, yet could not himself call out the modern-day slavery present in his life...that is deeply unsettling.

[0] [https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/the_fabulist_who_changed_jou...](https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/the_fabulist_who_changed_journalism.php)

<comment><USER29> Well, like you said, he's only human. And in order to write about his own family's story in a compelling and provocative way, one has to have some journalistic thesis to offer, not just to give a matter-of-fact descriptive account. That requires reaching some conclusions and finding some closure on one's own first.

Don't underestimate the psychological escape velocity required to overcome the pull of that which has been presented to you as normal--and which you believed in some measure to be normal--for much of your life, notwithstanding occasional misgivings and questions. That pull can persist well into middle age, and long after you've realised the problem _intellectually_. And of course, there are practical questions to consider, such as how such a revelation might tank one's career or credibility as a journalist. That might seem unprincipled, but remember that any moral position is diluted by one's own ongoing deliberations.

Finally, writing about people who are still alive and who may be impacted by your story is an often overlooked source of sensitivity. Imagine how this story might have impacted Alex Tizon's own mother if published while she were still alive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> The story is very well written, but the perspective of the slavemaster's son was jarring for me to read.

</comment><comment><USER80> Editor's note: a reporter's final story

[https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-repor...](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/a-reporters- story/524538/)

Wow

</comment><comment><USER81> I grew up in Subic Bay Naval base. Every military family had a local filipino house keeper, and I remember one of ours vividly.

I had to text my mom and find out if we paid her--I couldn't imagine my family owning a slave.

<comment><USER12> So, What did your mom say?

<comment><USER81> > So, What did your mom say?

"Paid house keeper plus all supplies and food. Helped her family also."

While I have no proof, I'm inclined to believe her. It's hard to imagine my parents owning a slave AND the US Military allowing it's personnel to keep slaves AND word of that not making it back to the US Mainland.

<comment><USER82> Knowing how base authorities handle off-base housing, I'd say the chances of this are next to zero. I doubt there's a military officer who isn't fully aware that the US's war with the most casualties was the one to end slavery.

<comment><USER83> I hope you're right, but it's also worth looking into the history of the Philippine-American war, which like many smaller wars seems to have been largely forgotten by history. I wasn't even aware of it until I came upon a gruesome picture of US soldiers posing in front of a pile of thousands of skulls in one of my history books.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_Wa...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine%E2%80%93American_War)

<comment><USER84> Completely forgotten, and one of the most brutal and disgusting genocidal military campaigns in (fairly) modern time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> vanesa- Couldn't hold my tears at the end.

</comment><comment> GuB-42 One thing that I find somewhat surprising will all stories involving slavery is how masters are consistently portrayed as assholes in a way that goes further than what would be a "normal" master/slave relationship.

Even if you think as a slave not as a human being but as, say, a working dog, or even a nice tool, it is not proper treatment. Most dog owners genuinely love their dogs and don't punish them more than what is strictly necessary. Most people naturally respect and grow attached to their "partners", whether there are humans, animals or even inanimate objects.

So why do slaves, who are are capable of empathy, speech, and everything that make us human get treated worse than a mechanic's favorite wrench?

<comment><USER85> Slaves often serve as a reference point for social standing in society. If you can push the bar lower, you can effectively raise your own position. I also imagine the standard appeal of bullying others and holding power over others played a role.

Just to be clear I think this behavior is abhorrent, this is just my attempt to understand the mindset.

<comment><USER86> That's the attitude that maintained Jim Crow in the south (and still maintains anti-black racism today). "We may be poor white trash, but at least we aren't _black_ ". (Black isn't the word that would be used, though)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Steve Sailer in the comments suggesting the best idea for reparations in this case blew my mind.

<comment><USER88> the bit he mentioned about this guy's autobiography was really something else

</comment></comment><comment><USER89> My mother is from Jamaica and I have a similar story. I was in Jamaica last summer visiting my grandmother. We were sitting on he porch and she was telling me how disappointed she was in her sister, who she raised as a daughter, as she "gave" the daughter of the women who helped raise my mother to her sister. I remember being struck by that language. I began wondering what the real nature of the relationship between my grandmother and the woman I affectionately knew as "aunt erma." I wonder how common these kind of arrangements are around the world.

</comment><comment><USER90> >The night ended when she declared that I would never understand her relationship with Lola. Never. Her voice was so guttural and pained that thinking of it even now, so many years later, feels like a punch to the stomach. It's a terrible thing to hate your own mother, and that night I did. The look in her eyes made clear that she felt the same way about me.

The mother makes me wonder if losing your humanity means becoming an animal.

<comment><USER83> For a lot of people with experience of abuse, animal relationships are arguably superior to human ones because animals are more emotionally reliable.

Another way to look at this is to consider humans as eusocial animals and speculate on whether someone is more concerned with their identity/position within a given or monolithic social body or their position as a discrete conscious individual. Over time the dichotomy between these positions might result in acute psychic stresses.

There's a conjectural argument that schizoid tendencies are an evolutionary remnant of social organization, most famously explore din Jaynes' _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind_ , which is worth reading even if you reject his thesis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER91> An honest question: Is the "animal howl/cry" something normal to write? To me as a non-native speaker it sounds tinted in a bad way.

On something else: "I tapped the cheap plastic box and regretted not buying a real urn, made of porcelain or rosewood." Even in the very end, she's still not one of them for him. I'm glad though, he was brave enough to write this article anyways.

<comment><USER92> > _An honest question: Is the "animal howl/cry" something normal to write? To > me as a non-native speaker it sounds tinted in a bad way._

I'd say so, I think it refers to a sort of primal response to pain, a reaction you'd have if you were deeply wounded.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> It's amazing how people who see themselves as virtuous people are complicit in netting out such abuse in someone they all rely on a lot.

I'll posit that this happens a lot.

it's very easy to "miss" \- because of the power of social proof. You see so many people mistreat someone and thus it's easy to fall into the same behaviour.

Check your own relationships - I think you'd be surprised at what you'd find.

</comment><comment><USER94> Wow that was a remarkable piece of writing

<comment><USER95> Absolutely, my immediate reaction was just wow. Past the amazing story, the way he tells it really makes it seem so real. I never imagined modern slavery to be so casual to the slave master, and I certainly never thought about how it would effect the slave master's children.

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> This is heartbreaking but it is well written. I'm born and raised in the Philippines and still here. There are still a lot of people here who hire maids or domestic helpers with very low pay and no benefits such as healthcare. My family used to have domestic helpers as well.

Slave is not the term but the employer is usually referred to as the "master" ("amo" in Filipino).

The practice is seeded deeply into the culture and society. It will probably need generations before this thinking is changed. Some see it is a way to "help" those from the countryside with little to no education to be employed.

It's easy to spot - go to an upscale mall and spot a young couple with kids. There's a good chance they will have a young nanny that's underpaid, overworked and may be badly treated.

</comment><comment><USER97> I usually never read something this long. But this is well worth it. A very touching story as well.

</comment><comment><USER29> It's been a while since I read something that truly brought tears to my eyes.

What a moving, eye-opening and well-written piece of literature! Everyone owes it to themselves to read this story.

</comment><comment><USER98> My God, what an amazing article.

</comment><comment><USER99> Lola was indeed a victim, but she was as much a victim of a culture and religion that raised her to be subservient and compliant and uncomplaining as she was one of human hand.

[http://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/notes-and-essays/lola- pu...](http://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/notes-and-essays/lola-pulido-alex- tinzon-reaction-a1890-20170518-lfrm)

</comment><comment><USER100> Beautiful story. That's all I can say.

</comment><comment><USER101> I must say theatlantic.com's Adblock is reallly annoying...

</comment><comment><USER102> Magnificent story

</comment><comment><USER103> Most of the guys I went to engineering school with were Indians (Brahmins), and they'd frequently mention how the jobs here paid more, but they still wanted to go back to India because they'd have to treat their servants "differently" here. I just assumed it was a payroll issue. Perhaps I assumed wrongly.

<comment><USER104> Did you usually ask your Indian clasmates' caste? Or did they volunteer that information themselves?

<comment><USER105> If you're familiar with Indian culture you can kind of tell the caste from the surname.

<comment><USER106> Don't know how contemporary this advice is, but this seems to be the guidance: [http://www.hindubooks.org/scriptures/manusmriti/ch2/ch2_31_4...](http://www.hindubooks.org/scriptures/manusmriti/ch2/ch2_31_40.html)

<comment><USER104> In many parts of India, in most cases, Mr Foo Bar's kid will be called Baz Foo. So as people start calling their kids more modern names not derived from Sanskrit, the text you linked starts getting outdated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER107> such a sad story.

</comment><comment><USER108> I assume the writer of the article will be imprisoned... /s

</comment><comment><USER109> (Hate doing this, but as it's not a typo but a common mistake that may spread)

The noun is _advice_. Advise is a verb.

(AFAIK this isn't a British/American difference.)

<comment><USER110> We detached this comment from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14355449](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14355449) and marked it off-topic.

<comment><USER109> This is bizarre. Informative, factual posts that are not rude or insulting are "off topic" now?

It wasn't a grammar Nazi post or about a typo, advice/advise is a common and easily corrected error that _should_ be corrected, and I did so as politely as possible. Most people would appreciate it (I know I would).

All you've done by removing a _single post_ (with multiple upvotes) from the thread is increase the chances that other people will copy/make the same mistake.

Edit: in fact it's even more baffling than I first thought, you didn't even remove it, you simply moved it to a position where some people, if they get that far, will not understand what it's about.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER111> not appropriate for HN

</comment><comment><USER112> Lola was a servant, but not a slave. She was much closer to being a volunteer than to a slave.

<comment><USER56> Servants get paid and have the freedom to choose their own destiny. Lola had neither of those things.

<comment><USER29> If I had to read the grandparent's comment charitably, there is a formal distinction in that Lola's relationship to the family was not legally institutionalised. If they tried to stop her from leaving the house by force, they would be committing a crime.

Whether it amounted to _de facto_ slavery is a different question, as I pointed out in another comment on this article.

<comment><USER56> I fail to see how the distinction matters. If you are treated like a slave, act like a slave, required to do a slave's work, and aren't compensated and are coerced into giving up your freedom, then you are a slave. The legalities or formal relationship is irrelevant. The de facto nature of her slavery is all that matters.

<comment><USER29> I don't disagree with you in the slightest, personally. I was just trying to provide some interpretation of the possible guiding sentiment behind ancestor comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm curious how this story fits into today's US politics. For those that are unaware, the Atlantic is a politically left USA website, so typically there is some connection to modern politics in the life-story pieces.

<comment><USER113> The Atlantic is a 160 year old magazine that leans a lot more to the center than to the left.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Trade Bitcoin for Contemporary Art - <AUTHOR> https://cointemporary.com/

<comment><USER2> So you can buy next-to-impossible-to-valuate works of art with a next-to- impossible-to-valuate currency.

It makes sense, when you think about it.

<comment><USER3> I can raise you one: www.artmoney.org

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is the first site I know that actually uses BTC as an unit of account – prices are fixed in BTC.</comment>


Microsoft Defender Comes to the Mac - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/21/microsoft-defender-comes-to-the-mac/ <comment><USER2> Mac users cringe worldwide as they anticipate overzealous IT departments mandating that they install this on their computers. Serious, though: why does this exist? What does it protect Macs from? There are only a handful of things that actually target macOS, and XProtect flags most of them pretty quickly…

<comment><USER3> My ${dayjob}'s IT department installs security software from Symantec onto the Macs in our organisation. If they swap that out for the new Microsoft tool in the article that might be a net benefit.

<comment><USER4> Same, and Symantec is hot garbage that eats CPU and battery for no real benefit.

<comment><USER5> Oh yes, our IT has mandated it installed on our (oldish) build server. That went about as well as you can imagine, with all the file access.

<comment><USER6> Having enacted similar policies before i can say with some certainty your IT department don't actually care. They're most likely trying to fill out a checkbox on some compliance/tender document from a decade ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If Microsoft can make the Mac version perform as well as the Windows version, this is good news for Apple users. Apple's current attempt at antiviral software seems to be "prevent infection by making it tough to run malware" combined with a very simple signature based system.

This approach works for people who k ow not to click strange links, but as long as people give their life savings away to scammers pretending to be the IRS or Microsoft, people will just open random software from the Internet as long as someone is telling them how to open the relevant executables. Linux is much the same way (are there even antivirus products for Linux other than ClamAV?) despite half the Internet running on mostly-unprotected Linux servers.

However, due to the lack of signatures available on macOS viruses, I do wonder how effective MS Defender will be. There's various interpreters and shells available by default which make it easy to write an obfuscated virus script for OSX (python, Ruby, bash, and so on) which is not as relevant ik the Windows world.

To the people who complain about "bloatware" being forced onto their machine: you're just as likely to get infected by a virus as the other techie people in your company running Windows or Linux. How can you blame your boss for wanting to prevent getting hacked? Apple's own AV is just not up to the task.

<comment><USER8> You seem to assume that AV is a effective cure for people installing random software on the internet, but I have never seen proof that this is the case. Worse, there are many instances of poorly written AVs negatively impacting the security and performance of the system it's supposed to protect.

<comment><USER7> It's true AV software won't fix behaviour. However, plenty of software gets exploited. There was a news item a few years back when pirated versions of Xcode inserted malware into some iOS apps; several big software projects have had their servers hacked, serving malware through official download links.

AV won't fix users wanting to launch pirated games or software from sketchy sources for example. However, it can fix malware placed on a system after an exploit.

I have more faith into Microsoft and their Defender suite than any commercial AV vendor or Apple itself. Right now, people are using Sophos or McAfee or Bitdefender on corporate Apple devices; none of those have a good reputation with me. I'd strongly prefer Microsoft's AV solution over any existing macOS security suite.

As for performance, any AV will cause some performance drops if you enable live scanning or during periodic scans. Having a macbook scan overnight does not cause an issue, having live scanning running during compilation will slaughter performance. The performance impact is up to how the AV is configured.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> We've used Windows Defender for Linux systems for quite some time (simply by allowing access to the remote filesystems) and we have been positively surprised that threats for Unix/Linux-only systems are caught just as fast, even though there is no official support outside of Windows thus far.

However at the time almost all of the malware definitions are from other anti- virus companies and Microsoft happens to ship them via Windows Update. But this could have been changed by now.

If Microsoft is serious about the 'user-centric' approach, which it seems more and more the case as opposed to just a cheap PR stunt, it might me a good move to opensource the whole Defender base and include some Linux users while their at it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Any super smart threat people reading this?

Does anti-virus matter anymore?

I haven't installed one for years, on Windows, Mac or Linx (decades?), it's unclear if that is a mistake or not.

<comment><USER11> No Anti-Virus on a Windows machine!? Are you a maniac!?

<comment><USER12> It's not the 90's anymore, getting a virus is pretty hard. Hell, it wasn't really all that easy in the first place, unless you pirated or installed shady software from shady ads on shady websites.

<comment><USER13> Not really. Still happening every day with home users and corporate america. Botnets still have tens of millions of PC's and CryptoLocker is as common as ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> My ICT people made me install sophos on OSX. Even when disabled, the hooks it had into the VM and VFS layers intruided into my life and made other applications I depend on hang. Once I de-installed it, this behaviour stopped.

The moral of the story is that an after-market security solution not designed by the core architects is very likely to be buggy. They don't understand things. They make bad assumptions.

Windows Defender was designed by people who know windows. It works well on Windows because it respects the core architecture. If this defender is written in native OSX code, and obeys all the documented and un-documented OSX things, and if Apple staff commit to forwarding bug reports to Microsoft, it might work, one day, five or more years in the future.

Until then, I suspect like Sophos, its going to crash my Mac.

I feel like one of those curmudgeon memes with a "prove me wrong" sign on my desk at school.

<comment><USER7> Based on what I've read about the native "protection" macOS provides, there's no real alternative way to scan files on-access other than to place hooks.

However, if you look at the performance on Windows, Windows Defender is one of the best scanners out there. While some sort of added bottleneck is inevitable (especially during workloads like compiling software or downloading thousands of small files (NPM/Composer/etc)), I wouldn't be surprised if regular users wouldn't notice such an extensive slowdown in their daily work.

Perhaps to some extent the Windows and Mac version share a portion of their code, but at kernel level the Windows Defender system is simply incompatible with macOS. A redesign of the performance-limiting features is a necessity in this case, so I strongly doubt the "people who know Windows" were the ones that designed the kernel interface layer.

Basically, expect small freezes during compilation, but not crashes.

<comment><USER14> I think you kind-of made my point: Windows Defender demanded Windows experts. OSX Defender demands OSX experts. Now, remind me again, are they employed at Redmond, or Cupertino?

I expect small freezes. I expect pretty big ones too. Your optimism is exactly what my ICT guy said about Sophos.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Glad someone is finally doing something about there not being enough bloatware on the average Mac!

</comment><comment><USER16> How about just hardening macOS installation? [https://blog.bejarano.io/hardening- macos.html](https://blog.bejarano.io/hardening-macos.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> My gut tells me that XProtect, SIP, and only allowing software signed by Apple like is the default should be enough for most users to not worry.

"Don't just type in your password" is something everyone using windows or Mac or Linux should be taught.

Don't think I'd bother with this, but interested to see it play out. Maybe it'll have positive detection effects that feed back into XProtect

</comment><comment><USER18> This makes a lot of sense after putting 365 on the Mac App Store and perhaps builds on this: [https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Security-Privacy- and-...](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Security-Privacy-and- Compliance/New-labeling-capabilities-in-Office-apps-helps-you- protect/ba-p/325771)

</comment><comment><USER19> * Will silently install Windows 10 in meantime

</comment><comment><USER20> Bet it contains telemetry!

<comment><USER21> How does a forum mostly made of software engineers hate opt-out telemetry so much? How do you know how well your software is doing in the wild without knowing about 1) Crashes with stack traces 2) which features actually get clicked on. How do you make decisions without this information?

Example - Mozilla is going to remove support for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 [1]. A good change, we can all agree. But what if half their user base was relying on this feature? Can they still remove it? Should they commission a user survey asking everyday users about TLS? Fortunately, they have telemetry that tells them that only 1.2% of all connections are made with these versions of TLS. Cool, this change can go ahead.

If you were in charge at Mozilla and you don't want to collect opt-out telemetry, please tell me how you would have made the TLS decision.

Literally what are you scared of that telemetry will send? If you're so concerned about it, why don't you just opt out?

[1] - [https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/10/15/removing-old- ve...](https://blog.mozilla.org/security/2018/10/15/removing-old-versions-of- tls/)

<comment><USER2> > Literally what are you scared of that telemetry will send?

This is dangerously close to a "nothing to hide" argument. The issue with telemetry is that it's difficult to do it right, and often it ends up just siphoning data that ends up being abused or mishandled. Having this be opt-in raises questions of consent.

<comment><USER21> I'll be explicit then. Let's take the example of Microsoft VS Code. You have "nothing to hide" from a text editor, as long as it's not uploading the content of any of your files. VS Code is open source, it's trivial to check if it does.

If you think there is something that it might upload that you might not like, please let us know. Here's the extension - [https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-extension- telemetry](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-extension-telemetry). You can check for usages here - [https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode)

There is plenty of personal information that I never want shared with anyone, like my location history, who I speak to and so on. But what shortcuts I use, what features I use in an application, _after_ it's been anonymized? I have "nothing to hide" there.

<comment><USER22> Why are you choosing an open source example when the parent thread is about a closed source program?

<comment><USER21> Because _every_ HN thread [1][2] about VS Code brings up the telemetry. Despite the fact that it's opt-out and it's open source. At this point, it's just irrational.

[1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19427773](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19427773)

[2] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19109815) (this one is great, because it's a task raised on dotnet cli, but posted on the thread about VS Code release notes)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Maybe it will at least stop normal people from installing mackeeper or similarily FUD-spreading bogus anti-virus software. It's a real pain to try and uninstall completely.

</comment><comment><USER24> I am going to try it. I like Office 365 on the macOS (and the web versions of Office apps for Linux) and unless I hear any negative reports I will try it out on my MacBook.

</comment><comment><USER25> This will be a great attack vector to get into corporate networks. Thanks! /Bob the evil hacker</comment>


New York Becomes Only State to Offer Free Four-Year College - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/news/education/new-york-becomes-first-state-offer-free-four-year-college-n744561 <comment><USER2> Detail lost in the headline: Room & Board are not included.

What I foresee as a result: schools hiking Room & Board charges because "people can afford it." This step would've been far more effective if the state covered everything and price-locked it as a result; now schools will see the balance not paid by students on tuition as room for Room & Board charges to grow.

<comment><USER3> at least for room and board you aren't required to actually atay at the university, most people I knew lived off-campus

<comment><USER2> That can easily change. Tons of universities require students to live _n_ years on campus.

<comment><USER4> Are there any public universities that require this?

<comment><USER5> I went to a public university that required students to live on campus until their junior year.

<comment><USER4> Where?

<comment><USER6> Louisiana.

[http://www.uno.edu/housing/residency- requirement.aspx](http://www.uno.edu/housing/residency-requirement.aspx)

Other schools in system have a similar policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The net result of highly affordable college will not be better employment opportunities for those who cannot afford college today. The net result will be increased competition for a limited number of quality jobs.

The value of a degree largely lies in its exclusivity. The increase in people going to grad school, particularly Master's programs, is a response to the increasing number of people with bachelor's degrees in the workforce.

This is not to say affordable college is a bad thing by any means.

<comment><USER8> The net result of highly affordable college will be, at the very least, a better educated populace. In theory, this will make a workforce that is better at doing more valuable jobs.

<comment><USER9> Like driving for Uber and not screwing up my double-caramel-infused iced soy mocha.

(I still wonder as to what kind of rube can get that wrong. I clearly said 'SOY MOCHA.')

We have plenty of qualified people. What we don't have are jobs where their qualifications are valued. See: the job market for hard sciences.

<comment><USER10> > See: the job market for hard sciences.

I've often fantasized about the possibility of a deluge of rich philanthropists just up and deciding to establish institutes modeled after IAS, Boyce Thompson or HHMI Janelia en masse to soak up the excess scholars produced by universities (Boyce Thompson might be a bit of a black sheep in that list, but I include it anyways since it's technically independent to some degree). Unfortunately, I don't see that occurring within my lifetime.

An expansion of gov't labs would have a similar effect, but that's a real stretch in these times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> People should do their homework, Louisiana has had a program to provide free tuition to its citizen's since 1998. To be fair, its been hit hard in the last few years, but it still around.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_F._Taylor#Taylor_Oppor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_F._Taylor#Taylor_Opportunity_Program_for_Students)

<comment><USER12> But for that you have to grow up in Louisiana, which most people don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is neat, but I wish education wasn't expensive to begin with.

Or better yet, just simply make education free via making the cost be capped at 5% of your yearly (before-tax) wage for Y years, or a total of $XXX,XXX, whichever comes first.

This is simple to implement and effectively shields those who have "useless degrees" as well. Everyone wins.

<comment><USER14> So middle class people should pay more taxes to subsidize the wealthy? Remember, college grads make several times more over their lifetime than high school grads.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps you misunderstand. Those attending the school would be the ones to pay. The policy I proposed wouldn't require anyone to pay any additional taxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I doubt very much that they have the funds to pay for it. We're probably looking at a Puerto Rico style bailout, only this time much bigger.</comment>


Show HN: Fully incognito subscriptions – No fake names, no throwaway emails - <AUTHOR> https://www.beeinformed.app <comment><USER2> Typo at the bottom of the page ("auidience"):

> Mobile app for your auidience is available for Android and iPhone.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Is my non-computer hack what YC is looking for? - <AUTHOR>

This is my proudest hack throughout my life, but is it what YC are looking for:<p>"In 2007 I realised my parents were struggling financially despite what I previously thought were solid incomes and jobs. The increasing cost of living and a stagnant income meant that net pay simply wasn't going the distance. I wrote to my father's and mother's employers asking if he could become self-employed consultants in order to write off high commuting costs and work related expenses against income. Despite the extraordinary nature of the request they both agreed, they thought it "made sense and anyway single clients consultants aren't that unheard of!"<p>Not only did I bring about a more comfortable lifestyle to my family they are still to this day self employed and both have more then one client as of today. " <comment><USER2> I think that's definitely good enough. You see an important metric in gauging _good_ answers is also how succinctly you've been able to express yourself. It is not merely good enough to have done something cool. Especially for YC.

 _...of groups good enough to make it to interviews, more than half blow the application._

Indeed not surprising. Rephrase what you're trying to say so it brings out why this was so brilliant a hack in the least number of words possible. Rewrite it again.

 _We're looking for people who like to beat the system. So if the answer to this question is good enough, it will make me go back and take a second look at an application that otherwise seemed unpromising._

It is definitely one of the most important questions in the application. Think of other things you have done that might seem trivial to you but might be really brilliant. Talk to your friends. They might help.

In any case, best wishes for your YC Application.

* Excerpts from <http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> I've always taken non-technical hack to refer to the simplest, most direct and quickest reasonable solution to a problem. But, it also implies you have, at least, some insight into the the opportunity cost of doing something the 'right' way.

For example:

Mike spends 37 minutes & $18 preparing his daily meals (Mike only eats at home). 7 minutes and $3 for breakfast, 12 minutes and $6 for lunch and 18 minutes and $9 for dinner. He boils water for dinner 2x per week. By spacing those meals equidistant, putting the boiled goods in a metal strainer and lowering the strainer into the water (which saves him from having to pour out boiling water) and re-using the water to hard boil eggs, Mike can save 5 minutes and $1.50 per day.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like it, it shows initiative and creativity, although it sounds a bit awkward if you sent the emails without asking your parents.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Some grammar/spelling errors in there as it's a rough .txt doc at the moment so apologies.</comment>


Pwnie Award Nominations for 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://pwnies.com/nominations-2019/ <comment><USER2> > Dragonfly is the invention of a guy named Dan Harkins. Dan Harkins took it > upon himself to retrofit elliptic curves onto first-generation > multiplicative-group PAKEs like SRP. We're losing you here but bear with me: > there were PAKE protocols that used the same simple math as Diffie Hellman, > and Dan Harkins tried to design one that used ECC. Anyways, when Harkins > tried to get his new PAKE included in TLS, Trevor Perrin broke it in a > mailing list post. The story goes on and involves the NSA and a bunch of > intrigue and is worth looking into. Oh how we laughed.

> And then WPA3 was released and, oh look, there's Harkins' Dragonfly > protocol, right there in our wireless handshakes.

> It's pretty clear to us that the WiFi standards groups triggered some > ancient mummy curse, because the WiFi standards by themselves are a master > class in everything that can go wrong with a crypto protocol. And, as > Vanhoef and Ronen show, WPA3 is by itself a lesson in everything that can go > wrong with a single handshake: invalid curve attacks! Protocol downgrade > attacks! Timing attacks! They'll teach this one in schools, unless the WiFi > people come up with WPA4 or something, which will surely be even worse.

This can't be real.

Are the WiFi standards groups really as incompetent as this page makes them out to be? These are the standards that everybody uses, right?

<comment><USER3> They have a kind of impossible task: to create an encryption standard that will resist attacks carried by supercomputers but will work on as cheap a piece of hardware as possible... and let's make it backwards compatible too.

At some point they have to compromise, and security suffers.

<comment><USER4> Isn't "create an encryption standard that will resist attacks by supercomputers but will work on as cheap a piece of hardware as possible" the aim of pretty much every encryption standard ever?

I don't deny it's a big challenge - but it's hardly a unique one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a pretty good snapshot of what happened in the fields of vulnerability research and exploit development over the last year, and is actually more useful than the page announcing the winners (which goes up late next week) since the non-winning nominations are also super interesting.

<comment><USER5> Very interesting stuff

FYI the calendar link in July 28 should probably be a href="/nominations" instead of "nominations". Clicking it from outside the home page brings you to a 404.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

<comment><USER6> You've got some parseltongue in there as well, from a bad "It's" fix - "Itss SSL VPN "

<comment><AUTHOR> That may have been deliberate. I'll check.

<comment><USER6> I see how it is. Very well. In

[https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/24/how-not- to.html](https://latacora.micro.blog/2019/07/24/how-not-to.html)

"all but disavows it's existence"

should be "itss exisstence"

<comment><AUTHOR> LVH wrote that, and he's definitely not a Slytherin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Super Micro - The big hack

I would be very surprised if that didn't win in the "most over-hyped" category. None of the other nominees even come close to the amount of FUD that Bloomberg story raised.

</comment><comment><USER8> The vulnerability descriptions in the awards page are some of the best security writing I have ever read.

</comment><comment><USER9> "Johnny, You're Fired" is fun but it has no impact and doesn't really do anything interesting cryptographically so it should not win.

The unpleasant truth is that you're faking something that users weren't even looking at. The _only_ way either S/MIME or PGP email could have made any dent whatsoever outside of a narrow crypto nerd fanbase is if the default behaviour for every message that doesn't verify was it is discarded unread. And that was never realistically going to happen.

</comment><comment><USER10> Why are so many of the links self-links?

</comment><comment> ga-vu How can Thangrycat can be nominated for the most overhyped and underhyped bug at the same time. These awards are a joke.

<comment><AUTHOR> Because nominations are open and anyone can nominate. Some people thought it was underhyped, others that it was overhyped. It's the judging that's closed. I doubt very much that it will win in both categories.</comment></comment>


Steve Jobs' daughter recalls a complicated man - <AUTHOR> https://www.watoday.com.au/technology/not-the-apple-of-his-eye-steve-jobs-daughter-recalls-a-complicated-man-20180903-p501gj.html <comment><USER2> A "complicated" man? Many people are complicated, few are such shit fathers as Jobs apparently was. He was not just negligent, he was actively being a dick to his own daughter.</comment>


Why are pages intentionally left blank? - <AUTHOR>

Why? :-/<p>PS: I mean in serious books, reports, white papers etc. <comment><USER2> One reason is so that pages can be inserted in later editions without requiring the renumbering and relabelling of the later parts of the book or report. Thus page references continue to be valid across editions.

I've seen this work. Sometimes.

Also:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Why+are+pages+intentionally+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Why+are+pages+intentionally+left+blank%3F)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionally_blank_page>

Google is quite good at finding out things like this for you.

</comment><comment><USER3> Well I don't know for sure but here are couple of reasons I can think of.

1\. to make a new chapter/section always start on a facing page.

2\. I used to work for a banking software firm and they provided very large paper manuals (several thousand pages) to their clients for the various systems. They would always leave blank pages scattered through the manual so they could ship paper corrections to the manuals without reprinting the whole thing. This allowed the page references in the later pages of the manual to remain correct. (This was 20 odd years ago, I'm sure their manuals are PDF now.)

</comment><comment><USER4> The best set of answers I have seen.

[http://www.quora.com/Why-do-books-sometimes-have-pages- marke...](http://www.quora.com/Why-do-books-sometimes-have-pages-marked-This- page-intentionally-left-blank)

</comment><comment><USER5> what is paper?</comment>


Spymaster behind the capture of Adolf Eichmann dies aged 92 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/23/israeli-spymaster-behind-capture-eichmann-dies <comment><USER2> Is there any good read/documentary on Eichmann capture operation?</comment>


Mosquitos as Weapons - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/while-brazil-was-eradicating-zika-mosquitoes-america-made-them-into-weapons <comment><USER2> When I was a kid in the 80s, I couldn't understand why non-aligned countries didn't love the US. Freedom, liberty, all that claptrap.

Adult is one long string of disillusionments.

<comment><USER3> The left hand disagrees with the right hand... How much has polio eradication been set back by the CIA's decision to use polio vaccination as a front for hunting Osama bin Laden?

<comment><USER4> But they got him, which is nice. And I don't think that had anything to do with this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is a still a potential solution:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique)

[http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus- sterile-...](http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/07/health/zika-virus-sterile- mosquito/)

<comment><USER6> My favorite radiolab episode called 'kill em all' gives a very fun explanation of this technique. The episode is 2 years old, so Zika wasn't a problem yet, but it easily explains the sterilization science: [http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em- all/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's sad that humans choose other humans as their worst enemies. Mosquitoes are a much worse foe. We should be allying against mosquitoes, not allying with mosquitoes against each other!

This is explored in greater detail in this wonderful essay, Foes Without Faces: [https://blog.jaibot.com/foes-without- faces/](https://blog.jaibot.com/foes-without-faces/)

<comment><USER8> But humans happen to be direct competitors for the exact same territory and resources as us!

Wily bastards too, you can't trust 'em...</comment></comment>


Lazy Loading Angular Libraries - <AUTHOR> https://robferguson.org/blog/2019/09/12/lazy-loading-angular-libraries/ <comment><USER2> One thing that's kind of impressed me about Angular is its ability to have fairly stable API in spite of all the recent advancements to the ECMAScript specification. Dynamic import came about and it fit right in with their paradigms. There's other things I'm not a huge fan of, but once you learn to "think in Angular" \--and it all clicks-- it's not that bad.</comment>


Airbnb Has Banned House Parties Indefinitely - <AUTHOR> https://www.cntraveler.com/story/airbnb-has-banned-house-parties-indefinitely <comment><USER2> It doesn't make any sense to apply a single health policy worldwide. Local circumstances affect the balance of risk, and it should be up to individual decision making to assess those risks.

<comment> just-juan-post Sorry friend but you didn't think correctly, downvotes for you!

I'm sure that all of these pro-lockdown pro-authoritarian folks wouldn't mind if we banned alcohol in the name of safety, would they? I mean that's what this is all about - the safety of others and alcohol has by far and away created more pain than the virus ever will.

Will your downvoters take up the anti-alcohol crusade in the name of safety? Or are they simply afraid of the virus?

Their actions will be our answers.

<comment><USER2> Oh no, my number of imaginary internet points went down!!!!1

There are a indeed a lot of things we could ban in the name of safety. Cars, travel of all sorts, power tools, candles, sports, anything more competitive than checkers. We wouldn't be left with much, I reckon.</comment></comment></comment>


It's Hard to Use Apple Arcade Without Wondering How Developers Will Be Paid - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/43k4ww/its-hard-to-use-apple-arcade-without-wondering-how-developers-will-be-paid <comment><USER2> They'll get a percentage of the total overall users based on time of usage. Really how else would they incentivize this?</comment>