[X] My Assistant

[pbangarth]

Hwha? That's been outlawed under Article 4 of the UN's declaration of Human Rights. That should be all the Brazilian legislature needs.

But, if as Brazilian_Shinobi alludes the legislature has people in it who profit from the scheme, not much is going to change.

Indentured servitude has a long and time-honoured history, and won't likely go away for a long time yet. And when the SIN-less are there for the picking....

[Doc Chase]

But, if as Brazilian_Shinobi alludes the legislature has people in it who profit from the scheme, not much is going to change.

Indentured servitude has a long and time-honoured history, and won't likely go away for a long time yet. And when the SIN-less are there for the picking....

Ha ha ha!

SINless aren't people!

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Hwha? That's been outlawed under Article 4 of the UN's declaration of Human Rights. That should be all the Brazilian legislature needs.

Unless we're talking 6th World, in which case it's all Amazonia and everyone's happy down there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Human Rights?!?! What is this? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) Unfortunately, Human Rights can only exist where there is law...

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

Ha ha ha!

SINless aren't people!

Which makes you wonder why Ghouls are... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/silly.gif)

[Doc Chase]

Human Rights?!?! What is this?

Human Rights

-noun
1. fundamental rights, esp. those believed to belong to an individual and in whose exercise a government may not interfere, as the rights to speak, associate, work, etc.

2. colliquial 'feel good' term to fool the people of the world into believing they matter

[Neraph]

[ Spoiler ]

I wouldn't go so far as to say all, but I'd say a lot. I can't say for sure, off the top of my head, which ones went to America and which went elsewhere, but I'm sure we can't blame slavery entirely on African Muslims.

The whole...thing. The Atlantic Slave Trade? It's mind-blowing. Lots of us watched Roots in high school, or something, and have spent our lives being told how horrible it was to any given African getting shipped across, sure. We know it sucked. We're told how miserable it was, and how cruel it was, and how Honest Abe flew down and saved the day, and all that.

What we don't hear about -- most of us -- is what it did to Africa. You can actually track the population shifts, the migration patterns, as the people of the world's second largest continent, over time, were pulled and concentrated on the coasts. It was like a weird vacuum, all along the edges of the continent, where slave traders were sucking everyone, then deporting them, and others stayed there (on the trade routes) to profit from it.

Technological advancements came (by way of gunpowder, mostly) from European powers, and was given to appropriately sympathetic African rulers as a means of legitimizing their rulership...traded, inevitably, for slaves. The rulers then used the gunpowder to stamp out dissent in their country, often by shipping away malcontents and rival groups, who they could trade for...more gunpowder weapons.

So the kings who were willing to "play ball" (and some of them had to convert to Christianity, too, which is why it's not fair to say all of them were Muslim) got more and more powerful, built larger kingdoms with technology their rivals didn't have...and, once they were big enough, started to drain the population of the inland areas through force of arms. The ones who wouldn't play ball got pacified, either by those who would or by the Europeans themselves. It's not fair -- to any group -- to try and pin the whole thing on colonialists or on Africans (Muslim or otherwise) or on the folks buying the slaves here in America or the Caribbean or whatever, because the simple truth is the system wouldn't have been in place without all three groups. You needed the supply and the demand to keep it going for as long as it was.

Still, it's creepy stuff, imagining that sort of population shift due to something like greed and slavery.

Creepier still when you read up on the numbers involved about how many folks are still being bought and sold, today.

To get us (mildly) back on topic in Shadowrun, though? The same thing should be going on there, in spades. Folks without SINs don't exist on paper, remember, so anyone brutal enough to want to can do just about anything they wish. The balkanization, SURGE, etc, that runs rampant throughout T6W means even more grudges, even more dehumanization of "others" going on, and even more likelihood of folks being willing to engage in slave trafficking. Toss in the wars and other chaos-causing events they're so fond of -- nothing provokes monstrous crime like destabilization -- and you've got a world ripe for this sort of thing.

Some of my most popular shadowrun games for my old/regular group were dealing with unscrupulous Triad folks rounding up slaves from the SINless (for Bunraku parlors, or just old fashioned low-tech sex slavery), and a few more dealt heavily with Tir refugees pouring into Seattle thanks to the chaos back home. Not every game is going to want to focus on stuff that gritty, mind...but the source material's there, for anyone that wants to let their PC's have the certain moral high ground for a few jobs, that's for sure!

For my credit I said that I read something that claimed, not that I believe.

Also, I'd like to see how Dubai is for Shadowrun. It's fairly Shadowrun in RL today - sounds perfect for the base of operations for SR-ing in the near-ish future.

[sabs]

Isn't Dubai part of the New Caliphate in the Shadowrun universe?
Super extremist Islamic nutjobs, killing meta-humans and mages as spawns of satan?

[Doc Chase]

I thought the Caliphate got shut down after the delayed one-two-three of Aden, Ibn Isa's death and subsequent resurrection, and his outing as a master shedim.

[sabs]

I am not.. up on my Middle East Shadowrun time line stuff.

So I honestly don't know.

[Dumori]

In the 6th world SINless are all set to be slaves/sweatshop workers. They have no legal status or rights it's illegal for them to exist in a sense.

[sabs]

I always figured that Human Trafficking was rampant in Shadowrun.

Gangers who control a Barrens neighborhood.
Yaks/Mafia/Triads running sinless sweatshops
Corporations offering SiNS to low-cost workers, all they have to do is transfer to the new Siberia Arcology. They get there, and sure, they have SiNs.. but no rights, no where to go, noone to turn to. They're effectively slave labor.

[Mooncrow]

I always figured that Human Trafficking was rampant in Shadowrun.

Gangers who control a Barrens neighborhood.
Yaks/Mafia/Triads running sinless sweatshops
Corporations offering SiNS to low-cost workers, all they have to do is transfer to the new Siberia Arcology. They get there, and sure, they have SiNs.. but no rights, no where to go, noone to turn to. They're effectively slave labor.

Yeah, it's actually mentioned in quite a few places. Vice talks about it a lot, especially.

[CanadianWolverin...]

When I read the words "wage slave", I think of indentured servitude, so even if you are a character with a SIN, still can't seem to escape it. IRL, people still willingly get credit cards and loans/mortgages that apparently bring wallstreet to its knees and empty entire communities when the bank starts slinging paper and telling the cops what to do, so makes me think one is just being more polite about the debt situation than is experienced in the shadows, perhaps even the threat being that if you don't pay up on this extortion *cough* interest rate hikes then they will reduce you to the level of the SINless lifestyle and all the hardships that entails with its less polite methods of indentured servitude.

So, I find myself after reading this thread of picturing say, Humanis Policlub members owning slaves, probably meta-human. Gang/Criminal syndicate leaders and their lieutenants probably make their members indebted to them as well, the nicest ones allowing it to be a sort of apprenticeship. Heck, there are probably SINless relatives that send their children to go "work" for their SINned relatives just so they have at least something soy-based to eat and live under a roof in a neighbourhood with slightly less overt crime.

Whoa, maybe that is how many SINless shadowrunners learn their specialized trade, unless they were lucky enough to have runners as parents who are capable of teaching them, they would instead send their children to be a servant/slave of some local expert, other than the ones who are self taught survivalists. Would explain why a runner would value their freedom so much, seeing everyone else around them, even those with SINs, essentially being slaves to the Haves. Find myself thinking of the movie A Knight's Tale for Street Samurias...

[hobgoblin]

On the bright side, in some places you can trade a sack of grain or a couple chickens for an AK in real life, so in game it should be just as easy (and that's not even counting just the tried and true "picking up this blood-spattered one that my former opponent doesn't need any more and graciously gave me as a gift!") method...so everyone knows what specialization to take in Automatics. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cyber.gif)

I am reminded of the story on Somali pirates where one lady have invested in one of the crews by way of providing them with a RPG. A weapon she had gotten as part of a divorce settlement.

[hobgoblin]

When I read the words "wage slave", I think of indentured servitude, so even if you are a character with a SIN, still can't seem to escape it. IRL, people still willingly get credit cards and loans/mortgages that apparently bring wallstreet to its knees and empty entire communities when the bank starts slinging paper and telling the cops what to do, so makes me think one is just being more polite about the debt situation than is experienced in the shadows, perhaps even the threat being that if you don't pay up on this extortion *cough* interest rate hikes then they will reduce you to the level of the SINless lifestyle and all the hardships that entails with its less polite methods of indentured servitude.

This amplified by the corps not paying their workers in nuyen or similar national currency, but in corp scrip.

So, I find myself after reading this thread of picturing say, Humanis Policlub members owning slaves, probably meta-human. Gang/Criminal syndicate leaders and their lieutenants probably make their members indebted to them as well, the nicest ones allowing it to be a sort of apprenticeship. Heck, there are probably SINless relatives that send their children to go "work" for their SINned relatives just so they have at least something soy-based to eat and live under a roof in a neighbourhood with slightly less overt crime.

Whoa, maybe that is how many SINless shadowrunners learn their specialized trade, unless they were lucky enough to have runners as parents who are capable of teaching them, they would instead send their children to be a servant/slave of some local expert, other than the ones who are self taught survivalists. Would explain why a runner would value their freedom so much, seeing everyone else around them, even those with SINs, essentially being slaves to the Haves. Find myself thinking of the movie A Knight's Tale for Street Samurias...

This brings to mind a theory about the place of the gun in US culture beyond the obvious constitutional one. When people came to the American colonies, they found themselves with a freedom not found in europe. That of abundant game, and no lord of the land. This meant that any man with a gun could fend for himself and answer to no one. This rugged individualism then continues on from the frontiersman, to the cowboy, and in cyberpunk may be echoed in the runner riding a hog or crotch rocket; free of any responsibility for anything other then his own survival.

This then reflected in things like coffin hotels (a element that seems to have been toned down somewhat in SR4). A place perfect for a runner living out of a backpack, or gym bag, to spend the night between jobs.

[CanRay]

Ah, Corporate Script:

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
St. Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store

[KageZero]

Some thoughts as I play catchup:

"Bunraku" parlors - Yeah, I think slavery still exists in SR.

Dubai was detailed in Corp Enclaves, p. 114 as a shining gem in the hell of the Middle East. (It's Shadowed side, though, is as dark as any other. With indentured servants, fundamentalists, criminals and activists.)

[TommyTwoToes]

Human Rights?!?! What is this? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif) Unfortunately, Human Rights can only exist where there is law...

And they only apply to Humans, you trog skum.

[Brazilian_Shinob...]

And they only apply to Humans, you trog skum.

I find it funny, ok, not funny, but amusing that while the world is as dark as a black cat with its eyes closed inside a pitch-black room filled with coal there are some people and institutions that try to make a better life for everyone. In Running Wild is mentioned that the UN tried to pass a "Sentient Rights Act" but was shot down by one of the countries with veto powers of the UNSC during a 'closed doors meeting'. By the way, I wonder, which countries are permanente members of the SC now? Also, do corps participate in the UN or they have their own separate little club (the Corporate Council)?

[LurkerOutThere]

The corps do not participate in the UN except through their national proxies.

I don't know if you've looked around but the world has always been a suprisingly bleak place and there have just as eternally been those that would stand up and try and change things. Often they don't fare very well but they've usually been there.

[CanRay]

Very few people that start revolutions for good reasons survive long enough to see them through.

Hell, those that aren't doing it for good reasons don't survive them either...

And I know who to firmly blame for the bleakness of the world, those people with bleak souls that seek to make the world in their image, Bureaucrats.

[Mooncrow]

I do have to add that I can think of at least one modern exception. You can mock his software all day long, but what he's doing now is incredible.

It's like the answer to every college bull session of "what would happen if the rich tried to really make a difference, instead of posing for pictures at charity balls".

The answer: well, it remains to be seen, I suppose, but from appearances it's - a hell of a lot.



Edit: I mean, I may be a cynical bastard, but it's hard to ignore something on that scale.

[CanRay]

Got the 6WA on order now, so I'll have to wait and see what I find. 'Course, I was never good at history, so it'll probably not be a lot.

I'm still trying to figure out how Quebec is still stable as a country, however... Maybe 6WA answers that?

[Sengir]

Interestingly I saw some information that actually claimed that all the slaves that America bought we bought from Islamic groups in Africa.

Let's just say that claims like "followers of $religion were the culprits behind slavery" are classics of political and religious agitation, by 2070 you'll probably find Humanis AR-pamphlets decrying the role of elves in slave trade and how they will do it again unless you vote Brackhaven (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[suoq]

It's like the answer to every college bull session of "what would happen if the rich tried to really make a difference, instead of posing for pictures at charity balls".

The silly part is, we are the rich. We can afford a computer, an internet connection, and have the free time to participate in an online forum about a role playing game.

Now many of us may volunteer, donate, contribute, etc. I'm not saying we don't. But I would be really surprised if the people less well off didn't think we ought to be doing more, just as we look at people better off and think they ought to be doing more.