In favour of slavery?

Slavery, shackles,
Manille sur le Quai, by Remi Jouan

I satted on a recent discussion the following. “Anti-slavery is overrated. I look at some people and think that a few years of being put to servitude would do them, and maybe the economy also, a world of good.

Clearly there would have to be some safeguards to avoid abuse around it. It wouldn’t be the twenty-first century without the government go stickin’ its warty nose in at multiple levels and spoiling everything.”

Well some pinko reacted to this, and came back with the following:

In this scenario, who would you get to actually do the enslaving? You currently are afraid to even raise your voice around the people that you’d hope to enslave. Correct?

That’s right, someone who barely knows me and is clearly terrified themselves projecting all their fear onto me. As per usual.

The full reply

Here’s the reply, and I thought it worth saving here, as comments can easily be deleted. I’d like the work I did on this and the thought I put in not to be erased at the whim of one of the IQ-less offensariat.

“I thought I had just raised it, and unlike yourself I have a traceable ID and a valid photo pic. The people who should be doing the enslaving of these people are the ones currently enslaving me. Namely the state which takes my taxes as a hard-working man who cannot afford to be other than a hard-working man and gives that money to shirkers and border breakers, keeping them in hotels at my expense.

I see no sense for me to grab guns and shackles when I have already been paying for others to do that. Why keep a dog and bark yourself? Instead of paying for the praetorian guard of the elite, we thought we were financing our own police force, to look after the ones actually paying for it.

There should be a citizen-class protection force that we pay for instead of the current Praetorian guard. They should be looking out for our interests first, because the police we are currently paying for seem to have no time for us. They protect criminals as well as the upper class and help these two boards to squeeze the taxpayer like a cattle clamp.

Fair solution

The State should accept newcomers who are looking to come into a better situation that we have looking at their circumstances and what they can offer. Some will find willing sponsors in the private sector immediately, but there’s no market place for them to offer in or us to know whom we could hire from their number. If there are no obvious matches, the matter should be settled by putting these migrants into indenture, and not cushy hotels.

They should serve seven years like the good book says, obviously not in sex slavery or anything so demeaning, there should be inspections as part of the system, but in work that benefits society. Work like clearing plastic wastes and working on recycling plants to make useful things from waste which they sort. Or in looking after the elderly under supervision. Generally doing things we don’t have willing hands for but which are essential tasks.

They should receive clothing, housing food and healthcare but at a basic level. Their children should be educate at the same level as locals; this is a fair investment. They should receive 50 dollars a week for their own disposal subject to the good carrying out of their duties.

The outcome of the indenture

At the end of their seven years, the Agency should review their work. If the work is good and they have folk who will vouch for them, then they join society on the same basis as those who have paid taxes all their lives and who therefore also been slaves. Fair’s fair. It’s just that our slavery happened intermingled with our freedom, whereas they have it in one go. Afterwards no-one cantell them they have not paid their dues because they will have paid them that way. Or by military service as the French used to do, which could mean serving in an armed service to the point where they perform a medal-level act of valour or five years if shorter.

This will be particularly useful for those fleeing despots – they will acquire skills useful for the liberation of their countries. This latter military option should be for persons who have had extensive psychological evaluation and monitoring. It is not something we would want to offer to anyone who evinces philosophical or religious objections to a pluralistic, Western, democratic society.

Exceptional cases

If they are refugees of war or seekers of political asylum, then they should be at liberty to return if peace comes and they will receive the value of the work they did at minimum wage, to take with them, help them rebuild. Should they be simply economic migrants who change their mind, or those who found work at minimum wage or better, then they get no exit refunds.

If they endured persecution as intellectuals and applied for political asylum, or indeed anyone who has a needed skill, if they find sponsors or employers to give them a better deal for working on in their specialisation, then they may obviate the indenture system. The sponsor becomes co-responsible should they commit criminal acts during the seven years from arrival.

This form of slavery would be necessary to keep our kind of society strong and not succumb to such states as China where the masses are in genuine servitude in all but name, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

Now please go ahead and tell me that I am wrong, but don’t tell me I will not raise my voice for it.”



By all means discuss below. I think this place threads better than other places and I only boot for spam and personalised abuse of other readers, as well as outright racism and anti-Semitism.

Shouldn’t Poland be taking in more African refugees? Poland is a large EU country with a booming economy.

Last time I looked, Poland wasn’t the First Safe Country for any African country. Nor any Middle Eastern one. It is, however, First Safe Country for Ukraine, so in accordance with the relevant international treaty that is actually signed up to by our nations, namely the Dublin Accord, (as opposed to making new laws up as you go along, which is what some leaders in the EU, notably Merkel, have been doing) it accepts refugees from that country, and has done so far in excess of its duty, with about a million Ukrainians having benefited from an open door to Poland. And this in spite of Ukrainians having been responsible for some of the worst massacres against Poles in living memory. They are not exactly natural allies. In the main Ukrainians get on OK, and are popular, but there are those who need to keep their views to themselves as they would be quickly excoriated if they expressed Banderista tendencies in Poland.  As long as they treat the Poles as friends, it is reciprocated.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
We don’t need to import the desert – we’re the only EU country to have its own one! (Photo of Pustynia Błędowska by Manfred Rackelhuhn CC BY-SA 3.0)

As far as economic migrants are concerned there is no point in accepting these from Africa in a big lump but for sure there might be some who have skills we need, and indeed you do see Africans around, and I have been to a fine Nigerian doctor here in Warsaw, probably some of the people from Poland reading this post know who I mean, I will not embarrass him by naming him but there are several African doctors here and people like this man will always have an open door to Poland.

But they are also needed by their home countries, so accepting Africa’s best is not necessarily a brilliant moral high ground either.  Still, I do believe in freedom of movement for those who have talent and hard work. It is up to them, after that, what they do for their country of origin. On the one hand it seems unfair to drain the best brains from Nigeria, but on the other hand we can expect that among 200 million there will be some more with brains who would like to solve the considerable problems that country still has. Maybe a partnership between them and their countrymen and tribesmen resident in Europe and America will enable them to do more. I only hope the best for the Nigeria people as any African nation.

Now I should say clearly one more thing. Poland is not interested in allowing armies in. When Ukrainians come, we see couples, families, and singles of both sexes. When North Africans come we see men who ought to be fighting for their homes, not leaving women and children behind to fight us for our spaces, which they will go on to ruin because the sort of people who cannot make their own country right cannot make ours right either.

We’ve been told by al-Baghdadi and his baggy buddies that the refugee stream will contain trained jihadis but so far this threat doesn’t seem to have been taken seriously enough in Europe. I get “innocent till proven guilty” but when you consider that the people who have been barging into Europe have already broken multiple laws to get here and linked themselves up with gangs on insalubrious people, I think we would be justified in suspending that grand maxim of jurisprudence in the interests of the safety of those we already have in our part of the world who live peaceably and pay their taxes.

I will admit that it is a major headscratch to know how to distinguish jihadies from ordinary people, it is not like they walk around with “I’m a jihadi” written on their faces (they don’t do tattoos, that’s one thing I actually like about them), but the most serious agents are of course going to have like a “dispensation” to behave in a non-Islamic manner to avoid suspicion. Just because someone has a drink with you and enjoys a ham sandwich and is nowhere near the Masjid on a Friday night – it’s no guarantee, I’m afraid. On the other hand there are plenty in the Masjid who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and you can’t tell for sure who they are, either.

People used to say that Russians were like matryoshka dolls, with different levels that you peel off to get to the next one, but in my experience, Russians are “Israelites in whom there is no guile” in comparison with the sons of the desert. And Uighurs, I have heard it said, are like onions.

If people genuinely fleeing conflict need help in the First Safe Country for sure Poland will send aid commensurate with its economy and in accordance with what the law intends and not Mrs Merkel and her great solo performance of holiday help. Poland has footed its share of the bill for measures undertaken both in Turkey and in Greece. And Greece itself is only First Safe Country if you say that Turkey is unsafe. I think the jury may well be out on that one.

(First published on Quora by me and now rewritten given that the original answer, which was not as full as this one, received 1.6 thousand views and 72 upvotes.)

Twenty Lots of Twenty Rules for the 2020s – 1. Behaviour at Buffet style events

First produced by me as an answer to a Quora question, this became relatively popular over there, so I thought I would bring it home here and share it with you. It is a few unwritten rules (now written) for how you can avoid comment or offence of general faux pas in these eating situations known as buffets, and they include rules that apply in varying contexts, including conference or party buffets where people know each other or who are supposed to be getting to know each other, as well as restaurants having buffets like the “Swedish table” at breakfast where you are not expected to be using the food as an adjunct to another social purpose. Some are in public places, others inside comanies or even people’s houses. Some of these buffets are culinary occasions intended to enable the tasting of different types of food and some are mere convenience, with containers piled with cheaply made and poor-quality food. Some of these rules don’t apply therefore to every occasion, whereas some probably would. Unless you know that a rule wouldn’t apply, assume it would.

  1. If there’s a queue, don’t jump it.
  2. Once you have charged your plate with a reasonable amount of food, move away from the area in order not to cause congestion.
  3. If there are platters for vegans, or food allergy people, only take from them if you are in that group, unless it is close to the end and you’re sure they won’t need them. It’s a dirty trick by greedy pigs to analyse what some other people can’t eat in the company and come to that last, but go first to the only stuff those people can eat. Don’t be like that.

    Don’t just hog all the best things
  4. Don’t hog all the best things because you were lucky enough to be near the front of the queue.
  5. Don’t pile your plate high.
  6. Don’t take more than you can eat. I know you cannot send the food from this buffet to the starving children, but that is not a reason to be wasteful.
  7. Take the cutlery and handle it appropriately. If you are not sure you can handle the food in mod air without dropping it on the floor, take it to one of those tables (in mixer situations). Then ask the people who are already round that table if you can join them.
  8. Don’t handle the food with your fingers, and if you have taken something, don’t put it back. Don’t maul the collective food even with the tongs. If you have to cut cheese, know how to cut it in a civilised way, with a “nez” and not straight on like some kind of philistine. If you are no good at cutting bread, don’t do it. If you do want to cut bread, handle the loaf via the cloth. try and show a certain culture in a discrete way, because people may be observing you even without especially meaning to.
  9. Likewise don’t sneeze, cough, fart, spit, or leave your dirty plates and cups around the food. Leave the dirty plates, glasses and cutlery in the place provided or give them to the waiter. Especially don’t leave glasses in places where someone could accidentally break them and cut themselves.
  10. If the idea of the buffet is a social event then bear that in mind and use it as a means to the end of getting to know people and don’t live for food like some modern Epicurian.
  11. If you have a buffet arrangement as part of a job interview then bear in mind you are still on parade during this time and someone is likely watching your savoir-vivre and true character which tends to come out when the trough opens before certain people’s snouts.
  12. Use the cloakroom especially if it is a standing buffet. Don’t have people tripping over your briefcase, and don’t knock someone’s plate or glass out of their hand with your stupid backpack. Don’t come inappropriately dressed if there was a dress code stated on the invitation, and don’t wear outdoor clothing to an indoor event.
  13. If you are the host, or an employee of the hosting company or organisation, you must stand back and give the best of it to the guests.
  14. Don’t juggle with too many containers or items of cutlery, and don’t take risks with other people’s carpets.
  15. If it’s a restaurant don’t take the food out unless it was all paid for by the event organisers and would just go to waste, in which case you should indeed take some to go but always check with the manager. If it’s an in house do make sure any decent left overs are saved for those colleagues who couldn’t attend the event.
  16. Don’t gatecrash if you are not supposed to be there or try to weedle other unexpected guests in at the last minute. Likewise if you are expected but know you cannot attend, try to give the organisers some notice, the more the better.
  17. Be polite to the wait staff and the cloakroom attendant, including being aware of and adhering to the tip culture of the place you are.
  18. Don’t hog one person if it is a networking buffet, cramping their style, but circulate. Work the room, and develop some elegant ways of rounding off conversations. If you tell someone you have to go home and they see you chatting away to someone else ten minutes later, you can well imagine what conclusion they will come to and what they will think. Better is to say “I promised such and such to catch up with him this evening, please excuse me”.
  19. Don’t forget you business cards for social buffets and don’t forget the follow-up in mail or phone afterwards. Don’t worry if you don’t meet everyone. I usually leave when I have ten cards even if I could get more. Good follow up on ten cards is better than thirty cards with poor follow up.
    and finally…
  20. Have some regard for your health. If you are on a diet, the abundance of quality free food is not reason enough to abandon it. I like to walk home afterwards, weather and safety permitting.

Some Q&A about Aquatics (Quora #4)

A couple of Saturdays ago I started a series which was intended to reproduce my inputs on Quora over here on this blog, as a repurposing and collating of them as well as a way of making sure I don’t lose my own content. Once again I recently had a warning from Quora just for letting another Englishman know thatt in saying no Englishman likes Donald Trump he took rather too much on himself as there are those of us who do. This was enough to have a second warning from Quora and so now I need to accelerate the copying over of my own work from that site in case I lose all those hours of work and creativity. Where there is moderation, there is limited trust.

At first I did one article per post, but there are quite a lot of briefer answers and it makes little sense to copy these over in that format, so now I have in mind to produce more answers in a single post, based around onne theme, and I have been preparing lists that analyse these articles into common themes. Last time in #3 we took a few articles I had written about Betta splendens, the Siamese fighting fish. These answers gave rise to more questions for me to answer (Quora has A2A, or Ask to Answer where people get invited to answer, either because the person asking knows them or they are suggested by the software. Alternatively you can jump in and give an answer on whatever appears on your screen. If you have opted to receive emails, you get a feed from Quora or items that may interest you) and these questions started to be about fishkeeping or aquatics in more general terms, and even (to be looked at later on) about ichthyology. Inevitably I also started to receive questions about sport fishing and I have zero time for that. I am ready to talk about fishery as part of the food industry, but not about angling, fly fishing or any of these sadistic pseudosports.

Please remember that my answers vary a lot from facetious to informative usually depending on my mood, the time available and what I think about the question. Be prepared for a rather broad range of approaches to questions. Quora goes from highly intellectual Q&A to the dumbest things a human being can write or read. I try to vary my own tone to match the quality of the question.

If you want to discuss or ask anything else around these themes, please get a discussion going in the comments. It’s what the comment facility is there for. I hope it is not onerous to log on and make some kind of utterance.

My own Heros severus.

As mentioned in the title, the theme for today is aquatics, and these answers were given by me all in 2015-2016.

1. Can you overfeed fish? How do you avoid doing so?

You can always add more food but it is harder to take it out. Give enough for everything to be eaten in a few minutes and feed morning and evening. You can leave raw carrot pieces or washed lettuce leaves – not much – or the skins of fresh cucumbers in there for them to eat more gradually.

Feeding too much will cause a nitrate hike, it has a demand on oxygen and will generally poison the fish as well as cause bacterial blooms and too much growth of algae.

Continue reading “Some Q&A about Aquatics (Quora #4)”

Some Q&A about Betta splendens or Siamese fighting fishes (Quora #3)

A couple of Saturdays ago I started a series which was intended to reproduce my inputs on Quora over here on this blog, as a repurposing and collating of them as well as a way of making sure I don’t lose my own content.

As explained last time to group answers around themes and I have a little sheet where I am preparing them for these Group posts, based on the format I’ll be doing today.

Please remember that my answers vary a lot from facetious to informative usually depending on my mood, the time available and what I think about the question. Be prepared for a rather broad range of approaches to questions.

Male Crowntail Betta by Wikipedia User Anandrajkumar

If you want to discuss or ask anything else around these themes, please get a discussion going in the comments. It’s what the comment facility is there for. I hope it is not onerous to log on and make some kind of utterance.

As mentioned in the title, the theme for today is Betta splendens, and these answers were given by me all in late 2015 or the first half of 2016.  It seems very random that I emerged as an expert on this species in Quora as I haven’t had an awful lot of them myself but I do know a thing or two about them.

1. What’s a good way to keep the temperature constant in a small fish bowl for a Betta?

Personally I would not keep him in a bowl at all. Just because an aquarium fish is hardy and will accept unnatural temperatures without dying and can breath air so that it is not affected by poor oxygenation it does not mean that the quality of life of a fish will be pleasant in a bowl.

A person needs to deserve to be looking after animals, you know, and the basis of that deserving is giving the animal a pleasant life. I would give a Betta a heater/stat and filter, gravel and plants and decent lighting and regular water changes and good food just like any other aquarium fish.

The specifics for Betta males is you can’t keep two of them together and you should avoid keeping them with fish that are likely to nip their lovely flowing fins. But you can keep them with small catfishes like Corydoras or Ancistrus no problem. I think it is nicer for them to have that kind of tank mate than be stuck on their own.

Continue reading “Some Q&A about Betta splendens or Siamese fighting fishes (Quora #3)”