this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2024
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[–] sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works -5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If you aren't accounting for the change in population and you're just comparing the estimated number of slaves, then you are definitely correct. However, I think its probably better to measure what percentage of the population is made up of slaves.

[–] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago

I agree, but that's also what I'm trying to say is that the natural scale of the population increase will still scale out to be a higher slavery total than back then, but that's total numbers, the percentages would be vastly different, like during the civil war era slaves were about 9.6% of the population of the US, but because of slavery not being tracked so closely now we couldn't get an accurate total for slavery in the modern era, and there would be nitpicking about what counts as slavery and what does not.

[–] papalonian@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Always loved this logic.

There's more people enslaved today than there ever has been in the history of the world

No no, let's not think about it that way -

The percentage of people that are slaves is roughly the same or decreasing 🥰🥰🥰

[–] sanpedropeddler@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 months ago

Obviously there are going to be more total enslaved people now, it scales with the population. The problem with looking at it that way is that it doesn't actually tell you if the situation is improving. All it tells you is that there are way more people now. That's why you look at a percentage. That will tell you how bad the problem was, how much better its gotten, and how much better it needs to get.

I'm not trying to argue that everything is ok because a smaller percentage of people are enslaved now. A percentage is simply the more useful method of measuring how common slavery is and comparing it to different times.