1149: Slavery | Skeptical Sunday

Summary

The Jordan Harbinger Show - Episode 1149: Slavery | Skeptical Sunday

Release Date: May 4, 2025

Hosts:

• Jordan Harbinger – Host of The Jordan Harbinger Show
• Nick Pell – Skeptical Sunday co-host, writer, and researcher

---

Introduction to Skeptical Sunday

At [01:37], Jordan Harbinger introduces "Skeptical Sunday," a segment dedicated to dissecting topics that may not receive as much attention during the week. Today’s focus is on slavery, both historical and contemporary forms, aiming to provide a balanced and comprehensive view beyond the commonly referenced American slavery narrative.

Jordan Harbinger:
"Slavery everywhere is obviously icky." [03:16]

Nick Pell:
"Slavery isn't a part of the past. Slavery is happening right now." [04:09]

---

Defining Slavery: Historical and Modern Perspectives

Nick Pell begins by broadening the definition of slavery beyond the American context, emphasizing that slavery has been a prevalent form of labor organization throughout human history.

Nick Pell:
"Slavery is the default means of organizing labor throughout human history." [04:09]

He distinguishes between two main types of slavery:

1. Chattel Slavery: Complete ownership of individuals, allowing masters to buy, sell, and exploit slaves without restrictions.

   Jordan Harbinger:
   "That's typically what people mean when they talk about slavery, especially from a Western perspective." [05:26]

2. Forced Labor: Modern iterations where individuals are compelled to work under threat, often without the ability to transfer their condition, such as in prisons or military conscription.

   Nick Pell:
   "Forced labor isn't chattel slavery, but it shares many coercive elements." [05:34]

---

Historical Slavery: From Ancient Rome to the American South

Ancient Civilizations:

• Roman Slavery: Primarily utilized for agriculture and mining, with slaves facing brutal conditions, especially in mercury and salt mines.

  Nick Pell:
  "Mining in the ancient world was a slow death sentence." [11:07]

• Greek Slavery: Similar to Rome, with a focus on agricultural labor and domestic servitude. The Spartans, for instance, relied on helots for their agricultural needs.

  Nick Pell:
  "The Spartans had helots who were treated like garbage and were in almost constant revolt." [17:18]

Transatlantic Slave Trade:

• Distinct from earlier forms, the transatlantic slave trade involved the large-scale kidnapping and transportation of Africans to the Americas, establishing racialized chattel slavery.

  Nick Pell:
  "African slavery is different because an entire race was enslaved based on their ethnicity." [20:28]

• American Slavery: Peaked in the late 18th century, with about 13-18% of the U.S. population enslaved before abolition.

  Nick Pell:
  "By the last census before abolition, there were about 4 million slaves in the U.S., making up roughly 13% of the population." [56:04]

---

Differences Between Slavery Systems

Indentured Servitude vs. Chattel Slavery:

• Indentures: Typically time-bound contracts (e.g., seven years for Irish indentured servants) without the perpetual ownership inherent in chattel slavery.

  Nick Pell:
  "Irish indentures were often treated worse on a day-to-day basis, yet they were for a limited term." [24:09]

• Chattel Slavery: Lifelong ownership, including the ability to separate families and perpetuate the slave status across generations.

  Jordan Harbinger:
  "Imagine having your kids sold away from you as a parent." [24:46]

Barbary Slave Trade vs. Transatlantic Slave Trade:

• Barbary Slave Trade: Enslaved primarily Europeans, with distinct motivations and scales compared to the transatlantic system.

  Nick Pell:
  "The Barbary slave trade had about 1.25 million slaves, compared to 10 times that number in the transatlantic trade." [55:00]

---

Modern Slavery: Forced Labor and Beyond

Prison Labor in the United States:

• Even after the abolition of chattel slavery, the 13th Amendment allows involuntary servitude as punishment for crime, leading to widespread prison labor.

  Nick Pell:
  "The 13th Amendment permits slavery as a punishment, resulting in over 800,000 Americans being engaged in forced labor within prisons." [43:48]

Military Conscription:

• Draft systems in countries like the U.S., Eritrea, and North Korea can resemble forced labor, especially when participation is coerced under threat.

  Nick Pell:
  "Eritrean military conscripts often find themselves serving beyond their contractual terms, effectively becoming modern slaves." [60:12]

Human Trafficking and Forced Begging:

• Across the globe, millions are subjected to forced labor, debt bondage, and human trafficking, trapping individuals in exploitative conditions.

  Nick Pell:
  "Countries like India have high numbers of modern slaves, many of whom are trapped in debt bondage or forced begging." [57:37]

Global Statistics:

• 40-50 Million people are estimated to be in modern slavery worldwide, with the highest concentrations in countries like India, China, North Korea, and Eritrea.

  Nick Pell:
  "According to the International Labor Organization, there are approximately 40 million slaves worldwide." [61:12]

---

Addressing Modern Slavery: Challenges and Solutions

Consumer Awareness and Action:

• Nick Pell urges listeners to support legitimate organizations working to eradicate slavery, emphasizing the importance of informed donations and systemic change.

  Nick Pell:
  "If you want to do something about slavery, please do not buy a child or give money to illegitimate organizations perpetuating the cycle." [70:22]

Systemic Barriers:

• The persistence of slavery is attributed to cultural norms, lack of rule of law, economic incentives (e.g., profitability of forced labor), and vulnerability of populations in unstable regions.

  Nick Pell:
  "Oil has played a significant role in preventing a resurgence of slavery, as mechanization reduces the need for human labor." [68:42]

Advocacy and Legislation:

• Strengthening international laws, supporting anti-trafficking initiatives, and promoting human rights education are critical steps towards eliminating modern slavery.

  Nick Pell:
  "Anti-Slavery International and similar organizations are essential in the fight against modern slavery." [70:22]

---

Conclusion: A Grim Reality Still Persisting

Nick Pell concludes with a somber reflection on humanity's struggle against slavery, highlighting that despite technological advancements, the ingrained social and economic structures continue to allow forced labor and exploitation.

Nick Pell:
"We're living in one of the few times in history where slavery isn't the norm for everyone, but it's still an obscene reality with millions of people suffering." [66:25]

Jordan Harbinger:
"The numbers are staggering, and it's a stark reminder that slavery hasn't been eradicated but instead transformed into more insidious forms." [62:03]

---

Notable Quotes

• Nick Pell:
  "Slavery is not just a relic of the past; it's a present-day reality affecting millions." [04:09]

• Jordan Harbinger:
  "Imagine every single person in California being enslaved. That's the scale of the problem." [62:15]

• Nick Pell:
  "Most slave owners today view enslaved individuals as investments rather than human beings, which is morally repugnant." [26:29]

---

Final Thoughts

This episode of Skeptical Sunday delves deep into the multifaceted nature of slavery, tracing its historical roots and exposing its modern manifestations. By challenging common misconceptions and shedding light on less-discussed aspects, Jordan Harbinger and Nick Pell provide listeners with a comprehensive understanding of slavery's enduring legacy and the urgent need for global action to combat its contemporary forms.

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For Further Information:

• Visit jordanharbinger.com/deals for show notes, sources, and ways to support the podcast.

Support the Show:

• Consider supporting through available channels on the website to help bring more critical discussions to life.

Connect with the Hosts:

• Follow Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram for updates and insights.

Transcript

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Nick Pell]

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[Nick Pell]

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[Nick Pell]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Welcome to Skeptical Sunday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. Today I'm here with Skeptical Sunday co host, writer and researcher Nick Pell. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker, and during the week we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers and performers. On Sundays though, it's Skeptical Sunday where a rotating guest co host and I.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Break down a topic you may have.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Never thought about and debunk common misconceptions about that topic, such as why expiration.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Dates on food and medicine are nonsense.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Acupuncture, astrology, chemtrails, GMOs, toothpaste, diet pills, energy drinks and more and if you're new to the show or you want to tell your friends about the show.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And I love it when you do.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That, I suggest our episode starter packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on persuasion, negotiations, psychology, disinformation, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com start or search for us in your Spotify app to get started. It's impossible to talk about American history without talking about slavery. The transatlantic slave trade is one of the most brutal episodes in American history. And the resulting American Civil War is one of the bloodiest wars in human history. Unfortunately, however, American slavery is just one episode in a long and very disgusting story that runs from the dawn of time until today. So we wanted to take some time and give a more balanced, longer term.

[Jordan Harbinger]

View of slavery than just one centered on slavery in America. Though that's definitely part of the story.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Now, I'll warn you in advance, this one is kind of icky. Slavery everywhere is obviously icky.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Slavery in America has ramifications, even up to current day.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So I'm asking everyone to please give.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Us the benefit of the doubt here before you decide that we are, I don't know, horrible Nazis or whatever. Just for talking about this. I know I just stepped right all over.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Benefit of the doubt, folks. Here to help me unchain the topic is writer and researcher Nick Pell. All right, so I'm deliberately setting the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bar real low so that the rest of the episode doesn't sound as bad and we'll see if that strategy actually works out.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Now, Nick, I came to you with.

[Jordan Harbinger]

This topic because I know you'd have some unique perspectives.

[Nick Pell]

Right. It's time that somebody was fair to the slavers of history.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Oh, God. Absolutely not what I meant.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, I know, me neither. But it was just too easy. You're right, by the way. This topic definitely needs a more balanced, level headed, and I think more to the point, historically accurate review of things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You want to make sure we're being fair to history. Slavers too, like you said. Got it. Okay.

[Nick Pell]

One of the things I really think we should discuss right off the bat is that slavery isn't a part of the past. Slavery is happening right now. And when somebody says slavery, you immediately think of the American south, the transatlantic slave trade, big plantations in Virginia and South Carolina, that kind of thing. But America didn't invent slavery. And in historical terms, antebellum slavery, the pre Civil War period of slavery in North America is just the blink of an eye. In historical terms, there's a much broader history of slavery. In fact, it's more or less the default means of organizing labor throughout human history.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So when you say the default means.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of organizing labor, what exactly do you mean by that?

[Nick Pell]

So there's some hunter gatherer societies that have slavery, but virtually every human society that invents agriculture also manages to invent slavery. This is probably also a good place to start talking about what we mean when we say slavery. So I think slavery, for the purposes of this episode, is actually referring to two overlapping phenomenon. First, there's chattel slavery, which is people owning other people. Not only are you working for me for free, but I can sell your kids or basically do anything I want to or with you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That's, I think, typically what people mean when they talk about slavery, especially when they're coming from a Western or American perspective.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So what's the other kind of slavery?

[Nick Pell]

It becomes really difficult to talk about modern slavery if we limit the definition to chattel slavery. Because a lot of modern slavery isn't chattel slavery. It's what we'd call forced labor. So you're basically working what's usually a very dangerous and deeply unpleasant job in abusive working conditions and not being paid for it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I see.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So you can't be sold or traded.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Or your kids traded or whatever, but otherwise it's very similar to slavery. Sounds almost like the same thing.

[Nick Pell]

And to be clear, there's all kinds of abuse that takes place in these forced labor environments. Sexual assault, beatings, what have you.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So this is obviously all quite horrible.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It's an interesting distinction because when we think about slavery, the whole not getting paid part of it, it's not even.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Remotely the most disturbing aspect of slavery. Right. The wages are really low or like non existent. Yeah, that's not what we're worried about here, folks.

[Nick Pell]

Well, I'm also worried about that, but you're correct that it's not being paid for. Your labor as a slave is the least of your worries when you're a slave, Right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah, I'm more worried about my kids are being sold for me and I'm getting physically abused or worse constantly on a daily basis and living in fear.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So when you say that slavery is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The main way labor is organized throughout.

[Ryan Reynolds]

History, why is that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is it just because it's cheap or free? I mean, maybe it's a dumb question.

[Nick Pell]

So some things never change and one of them is that you can't get something for nothing. If you want to make things happen, you need one of two things. You need muscle or fire. You have to yoke a bunch of horses together or get a bunch of dudes to work together. Or you need to light something on fire and use the energy from that to power a machine. The big change between ancient history and today is we've got way better stuff to light on fire. We've got oil, we've got coal, we've got magic rocks that boil water. For us, there's less need for muscle. But the ancients didn't have any of that. They had wood, and so they had to lean a lot harder on muscle.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I see. Okay. And before people want me to do a skeptical Sunday on magic rocks, we're talking about nuclear power, right? You're just being facetious. Yes, yes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The whole time you're describing this, I'm thinking of the Hebrew slaves and the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ten Commandments building the pyramids and they're just carrying all those giant Moses. Yes, exactly right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And apparently somebody's going to correct me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

On this or refer me on this, but apparently Jews never actually built the pyramids. But whatever. Despite what it might say in the.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Bible, the Jews were maybe never really.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In ancient Egypt building the pyramids at all.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Kind of a disappointment. A lot of my Jewish friends are pretty proud of their ancestors hand in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Building one of the wonders of the world, myself included.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Although man, as a Jew, I can't imagine, even if they tried, they'd be.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like, these people complain way too much. Get rid of them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We need somebody else.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I can't listen to this anymore.

[Nick Pell]

I'm so glad that my Jewish wife can't hear any of this to react to it. Actually, as everybody knows, the pyramids were built by aliens.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, go get the aliens.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I can't listen to this guy complain anymore.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Hatshepsut. He's driving me crazy. They're driving me nuts.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, I mean, a bunch of those ancient wonders were built by slave labor, probably most of them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Kind of a downer. Takes a bit of shine off of things. But you're right, if it's the default.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Way of doing something and it's really.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Grand, it probably wasn't a passion project.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of the leader to do himself in his spare time.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, you guys are not allowed to enjoy classical architecture anymore.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, they canceled the pyramids, Parthenon, the Acropolis, all canceled.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sorry, folks.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, these kinds of large scale architecture and infrastructure projects are definitely one of the bigger uses of slavery in the ancient world, which isn't to say that every hand that ever touched a stone that went in the Parthenon was slave labor because I don't have the info in front of me. But like, I would be shocked if that were the case because a lot of it's highly skilled and the artisans.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And stuff are going to. People are going to be like, hey, there's documentation of artisans being paid to decorate this thing. And it's like, okay, but where did the raw.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Where'd the frame come from?

[Nick Pell]

Well, you know, who dragged the marble there?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exactly.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. So the main uses of slavery in the ancient world are agriculture and mining. Which brings us back to the marble thing. The mining is almost unimaginably brutal in its type of labor. And everybody who's seen Ben Hur knows about the galley slaves.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yes. Okay, so for those playing at home.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Those are the guys with the oars.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Rowing the big boats, right? Is that what that is?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. And actually most galley oarsmen were free men working for pay, probably a share of the plunder because that's typically how sailors were paid in those days. It's typically how the military was paid in those days. The exception was during times of war, Rome desperately needed every free hand it would get. Presumably they were taking a lot of these guys out of mining and agriculture to throw them on boats. Rome is good to talk about when we talk about slavery for a couple reasons. One, the average person knows a fair bit about ancient Rome from movies and TV shows. And we also have a lot of data on ancient Rome that we just don't have about Samaria or Babylon or even ancient Egypt. In ancient Rome, mining was basically always slaves, especially salt mining. Mercury mining was like almost always slaves. I don't know how you get somebody to do mercury mining unless you were forcing them to do it because it's kind of a slow death sentence. Mining in general is a slow death sentence in the ancient world.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I did a show a long time ago. Actually, it wasn't that long ago. Episode 807 Siddharth Kara about how the blood of the Congo powers our lives. And essentially what he's talking about is how these kids and adults of course, mine for chemicals like cobalt coltan in mines. And it's like they're using mercury as well. So they're. The health ramifications are like horrific. And they're in these swampy, disgusting environments, dying like flies, getting all kinds of sicknesses.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And it's basically modern day slavery.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Although I think they make 10 cents a day or something like that. I don't Know if that even counts. They basically have no other choice that you either starve to death or you do that. And sometimes gangs are enforcing it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, this sounds absolutely nightmarish. I don't even want to do mining.

[Jordan Harbinger]

If I'm getting paid for it and have a union and OSHA and everything. It still sounds horrible. And maybe that's unique to me. I'm sure there's miners that listen to this, but I'm like, I'm not going in that little shaft and sitting down there all day, that seems terrifying.

[Nick Pell]

For anybody who remembers the trades versus College episode. My father has told me that the one job you could not pay him enough to do if his children were starving is going to mine. Which, yeah, mining is unpleasant at best. Right? In the best conditions, Mining is deeply unpleasant. In the worst conditions, it's a living hell. So a lot of these guys in ancient Rome anyway would have been convict labor. It's an incredibly gruesome death penalty. But given that the Romans crucify people, it's not really that surprising that they would work dudes to death in salt mines and mercury mines.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I guess if you were giving me the choice between dying on a cross and dying in a salt mine.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I might actually pick the salt mine. At least at first.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So was mining the main use of slaves in ancient Rome?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I guess I thought it was gladiator combat and pool boys or something. I don't know. I guess I need to read up.

[Nick Pell]

What, did you watch Spartacus this weekend or something?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I might have. I might have watched something recently. Yeah.

[Nick Pell]

It depends on what you mean by main use. Fields, mines, and mills were the biggest use of slaves and also kind of the worst. I'm going to sound ridiculous when I say this. There was no room for advancement.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, lack of upward mobility. Not really on my bingo card for reasons. Slavery is bad. Oh, I've been toiling away in this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Mercury mine, but one day I'm going to be a manager. I don't know.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In some cases, was there a way.

[Jordan Harbinger]

To work your way up the corporate slavery ladder in other places or other slavery organizations?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. So a lot of these guys were only enslaved because they owed a debt to somebody. So you pay off your loan, you're free. Or you buy yourself from your master and you're free. Or he sees you working as a towel boy or whatever. This guy's smart. I can have him do this for me instead. And it's cool. I'm not a pool attendant anymore.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm a valet. Or something. Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Pell]

Maybe your master just frees everybody when he dies. That was reasonably common. Maybe he just likes you. That's another thing that was reasonably common. The master just likes a guy, so he frees him. Other than freedom, like I mentioned before, there's ways to work your way up the ladder, so to speak, by learning valuable skills. So like I said, one day you're cleaning latrines, and the next day you're the master's personal valet.

[Ryan Reynolds]

One of those jobs is definitely shittier than the other.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. So moving on from that one, we do know more about Roman slavery than many others, but it's not like they had a Bureau of Labor Statistics, so it's hard to tell exactly who did what and in what proportions. What we do know is that the majority of Roman slaves were in mines or fields, and they kind of got just worked to death because every time you got tired, somebody would beat you. City slaves and household slaves had better lives. These are the ones who could buy their freedom. And after they bought their freedom or were freed through manumission, which is the fancy sat word for your master freeing you, you were kind of like part of the extended family. Like, you didn't usually leave the. The manor or whatever. You kept living with them.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Really? Wow, okay.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And you think your holidays are awkward? Imagine your family actually bought you from a slaver, used to beat you and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Work you until you somehow earned your freedom. I might skip that Thanksgiving. I don't care how good the green bean casserole is. I'm leaving the manor.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It just seems hard to believe, like.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, he's a member of the family now. We're gonna totally treat you in a different, more respectful way. What do I know? But it just sounds like it's a tall one.

[Nick Pell]

I love you throwing in your little Groucho Marx jokes while we talk about sleeping.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The green bean casserole was pure, dad.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, so what we need to point out, there's no way that being owned by another human being can be considered, quote, unquote, not that bad. Masters could do literally anything they wanted to their slaves, and they frequently did. With that said, at a certain point in Roman history, there are some improvements in the lives slaves, period. Not, oh, I got lucky, and this guy's a nice guy. It's not as horrific as working in a mercury mine.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So what were the improvements in general?

[Nick Pell]

Slaves could eventually sue their masters for poor treatment, and the masters were punished by losing their property. I probably should say that if I refer to somebody as somebody else's Property in here. I'm doing that for ease of communication. I just don't accept that a human being could be another person's property. So bear with me.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I think we're on the same page here.

[Nick Pell]

You would lose your slave to another slave master. So it's not like you got freed. You just got transferred.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, interesting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So you get beat too bad and you can sue, and then what, you become someone else's slave instead? I mean, it hardly seems like justice.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And this is just Rome.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What about other cultures and civilizations?

[Nick Pell]

So the thing is, like I said before, slavery is the default method for human labor organizations throughout history. I use Rome as an example because you spent all weekend watching Spartacus. Apparently, people have seen HBO's Rome, people have seen Gladiator, so there's a pretty decent awareness of Roman history through popular culture. Even if it's not super accurate, at least we have some kind of frames of references to share in common. The Greeks were very similar, but the Spartans.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The Spartans.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Those are the guys from the movie 300 with the amazing abs, Right?

[Ryan Reynolds]

For those of us who get our.

[Jordan Harbinger]

History exclusively from Hollywood and now this podcast.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. And that movie, surprisingly, is not the most inaccurate piece of comic book slop ever made. Frank Miller, who wrote original comic book it's based on, was a really big fan of the Spartans. Spartans had slaves who did all their agricultural work for them. They were called helots, and they just treated them like garbage. And they were in almost constant revolt against the Spartans. So the dynamic there is quite different. The main point I want to make, which is why I'm repeating it for a third time, is that slavery is absolutely normal. And by that I mean very common.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Clarify what you mean when you say.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That you think that slavery is normal. Trying to avoid the inevitable hate in.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The comments, you're normalizing slavery.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I know what you mean, but let's really put a fine point on it.

[Nick Pell]

Look, I think a lot of things are normal. It's not a moral endorsement of that. Like I said before, like, I don't think it's possible for a human being to own another human being. It's just. It's not possible. You can beat someone to do what you want them to do. Like, if you want to go sell yourself to somebody, I reject the idea that's even a thing that you can do because you can't sell your feelings, you can't sell your moods. You can't sell yourself to somebody else. You can't own another person. This is not like a moral condemnation of Slavery as such, It's. I just don't think that It's. Here's a 50 Cent SAT word. I don't think it's like ontologically possible to own another human being. You can have a state apparatus and such that makes it so that people have to do what you tell them to or they're going to get beat or killed or whatever. But I don't think it's possible to metaphysically own a human being the same way that I own a car or own livestock for that matter. I just. I don't think it's possible. And I find the idea morally repugnant. But that said, we are kind of lucky that we live in one of the few times and places in history where most people are not slaves, because that is the reality for most of human history.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, you mentioned time, but also place, because I have questions about that that are coming up soon. Spoiler alert. There's still a lot of slavery going on.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, this ancient slavery, the widespread slavery.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of the ancient world.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How does that lead to the transatlantic.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Slave trade and slavery in America? I'm not asking you to draw like a straight line. No, there's not a straight line. Between Rome, 300 B.C. and Atlanta, 1810. Where does American slavery come from, in brief? And how is it different?

[Nick Pell]

Slavery gives way to serfdom by the end of the classical period in Europe at least, serfdom is different from slavery in ways so subtle that it's not really, in my opinion, worth calling something else. I think that it definitely fits our definition of slavery as forced labor, even if it's in some ways subtly different from chattel slavery. But when I say slavery, like, the first thing people think of is big cotton plantations in Alabama being worked by men and women kidnapped from Africa. And this is a completely different historical development.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In what ways? What makes the African slave trade or the Transatlantic slave trade different or unique?

[Nick Pell]

African slavery is different for a few reasons. The main one is that there's an entire race of people that are enslaved on the basis of being part of that race.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Didn't the Romans also do that, though?

[Jordan Harbinger]

My history is so weak.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But didn't they conquer places like Gaul.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they just haul all the Gauls back as slaves?

[Nick Pell]

They did not haul all the Gauls back as slaves. They'd haul some of the people back, definitely. Absolutely. They wouldn't typically go raiding back into places they'd conquered and taking those people as slaves. And they also did not have an elaborate philosophical justification for why it was okay to enslave All Gauls on the basis of the fact that they were Gauls. They had a pre. Actually the Romans had a very deep respect generally for people they conquered. The Gauls are actually a really good example of it. There's all kinds of classical art that depicts Gauls as these barbaric but like physically strapping, brave, heroic people.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Can you tell me what Gauls are?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Clearly this place doesn't exist anymore. What is this place now? Where do these people live?

[Nick Pell]

They were Celts that lived in what's now France.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

Like the ancestors of the French, though the French have a lot of German in them now. That's a whole other episode. But yeah, when I say Gaul equals Celts living in France.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

American slavery isn't even like America conquered some tribe and that tribe was enslaved. It was like blacks in Africa are fair game.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Period.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, period. They tried doing this with Native Americans when first settlers and conquerors got here, but it didn't work because it was too easy for the natives to run away. They just run away and rejoin their tribes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Sure, you just go, I'm going to go pick you some berries. I'll be right back.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you just never. Yeah, that's it. You know the land. You're not going back to that nonsense.

[Ryan Reynolds]

What about the Irish? I know some people claim the Irish were slaves.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I heard about that a lot when I lived in New York. There's the whole thing there.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And then other people get really mad when you even suggest that white people were also enslaved because it was not the same thing.

[Nick Pell]

The Irish thing is complicated. Jim Goad, the author, does a really good explanation of the Irish thing in his book the Redneck Manifest. The short version is that Irish slaves, their tenure of slavery was typically seven years rather than their entire life.

[Ryan Reynolds]

God, that's such a long time. The seven years is still a long.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ass time to be a slave. Especially.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I don't know what years this was.

[Jordan Harbinger]

But didn't people die when they were 35 back then or something?

[Nick Pell]

That's not as true as people think it is because that keeps infant mortality into it. It's like if you got to the age of 12, you were probably going to make it to about 60.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Oh, okay.

[Nick Pell]

Is my understanding of it. This isn't off comfortable remark. Flood the comments and tell me I'm an idiot.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I know it's different for different races or ethnicities too. I was talking to my friend George Raveling and when he was born, I think the life expectancy for an African American man was like 43 or something. Crazy. But that was different because they had no access to health care, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, but okay, seven years.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Still the longest time to be a.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Slave, regardless of how long you live.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. And they're euphemistically called indentures. And it's eh. Yeah, they're slaves with a limited term. And yes, there's differences and the differences are significant, but there's some pretty compelling evidence that the Irish indentures were often treated worse than the African chattel slaves for the same reason you treat your own car better than a rental. Geez, if you were an Irish indenturer, the guy that owned your indenture contract couldn't sell your kids. Which I think is important. You know, this is an important distinction.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sure.

[Nick Pell]

But when we're talking about kind of the day to day, like, yeah, they could be treated extra bad because what do I care? I only got the guy for seven years. For some reason, people really hate the idea that there were white slaves who were in some ways treated worse than their black counterparts. Like, I don't really know why that bothers some people, but there are people who are definitely, like, really invested in proving that Irish indentures weren't slaves. Yeah, I think we can say that they weren't slave slaves. And yes, there's obviously something to be said for not being able to have somebody sell your children, but their lives were terrible. Their lives are absolutely terrible.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, the distinction is important. There's a significant difference between being treated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like a rental car for seven years and being owned, potentially sold away from your family. Having your children sold off, which I can't even imagine as a parent's like the most painful thing I can think of. And yeah, that distinction has to be made at some level.

[Nick Pell]

No, I completely agree. I just don't understand why people are offended by the idea that, yes, many Irish indentures were treated worse on a kind of day to day basis. It's a bit of a third rail, but whatever. People also hate hearing that all slave owners weren't just relentlessly sadistic for the sake of sadism. So a lot of what we think we know about slavery, antebellum slavery in the United States, comes from one television show, Roots, which is fictional. For anybody who's not aware, Roots is fiction. Alex Haley settled a plagiarism case over it that included admission that he stole sections from a work of fiction.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay, but wasn't it based on realistic stuff? I feel like we're veering dangerously close to, hey, not all slave owners were bad or something like that. I don't know if that's the take we want.

[Nick Pell]

A bunch of them were probably sadistic monsters who got off on treating people like garbage. I would say most of them had a very different idea of human decency than you or I did, which is maybe being unduly generous.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's horrific, but it's almost like the Nazi thing in World War II.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And it's not everyone in Germany was a Nazi.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And you just have to wrap your mind around this horrible thing and how, like, seemingly normal people can do it.

[Nick Pell]

I think most of them are probably just businessmen, and businessmen want to protect their capital. And it's not my favorite way to talk about other human beings, but it's just the cold reality of the situation.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it is kind of a gross way to think about it.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. But it's. You have to inhabit this headspace a little bit to be able to wrap your head around it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yep.

[Nick Pell]

So a plantation owner saw his slaves as a potential investment in capital. Maybe in some cases, he weirdly viewed them as part of the family, which I don't want to lean too heavily into that, but I think it's worth mentioning he saw the indentures as a rental. You take the car that you own to get the oil changed religiously, and when the little orange light goes on, you take to the mechanic and rentals, you go out, Garrett's making a weird noise. Who cares? Drive it like I stole it. And that was how a lot of the slave masters treated their Irish indentures. It's how they treated a lot of their African slaves, too. I would imagine there's some evidence to suggest that they really rode the Irish indenture's heart.

[Ryan Reynolds]

What's weird is they justify the African slavery thing.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And they're like, oh, there's something, whatever.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Biblical, or like, they're a different color.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So they're not human.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And then you get these, like, whiter than anyone else, white ass Irish people who, like, go out the sun for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Three minutes and turn red. And it's like, okay, you need a different rationale for that. And that is what I paid for their boat trip here. So I can just tell them what to do for seven years. Is that kind of the idea part of it?

[Nick Pell]

And then also, I don't know the degree to which this was related, but the Irish were not considered white.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's so weird, though. They're whiter than.

[Nick Pell]

It's not accurate that they were considered black, but they were not considered white. You can read stuff By Benjamin Franklin talking about Germans. That's like the most racist thing you've ever heard in your life. And he's talking about Germans.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So bizarre. But it just shows you the arbitrariness.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of all of these lines drawn in the sand. Like, he's Italian, he's not white, he's Irish, he's not white, they're Jews, they're not white.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And then you put a bunch of.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Jews and Irish and Italians in a.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Room and you can't tell who's who, no matter what. Especially now. It's like you just. You have no frickin idea. Unless they start speaking Italian, you just don't know.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino look like they could be cousins.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And these are like stereotypes, right? This is without the leaning into the stereotype. Okay, so but once these people finish the seven years, then they're totally free? Is that the idea?

[Nick Pell]

It's more like if they survived seven years, it was so common for these people to die when they were done. It was also very common for them to be like, abducted at sea and forced back into indenture.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Ugh.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, it was nasty. Just everything about it is horrible. Indenture and chattel slavery are horrific and morally repugnant and evil, but there are differences between them. I also think that when we're talking about, like, less bad forms of slavery, it's such a weird way to try and quantify the experience of being indentured servant in colonial America.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah. And now I slaved away getting you the following great deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by Shopify. If you've ever bought something online at midnight, half asleep, there is a good chance you use Shopify without even realizing it. That purple shop pay button that saves your info so you don't have to crawl out of bed for your wallet. Yep, that's Shopify. Honestly, I don't even like buying from stores that are not on Shopify. You can tell immediately, right? The checkout feels like jumping through hoops just to give them your money. Shopify is a smoother, faster, way less annoying process. And it's not just easy for buying. Shopify makes starting your own business crazy simple too. Big names like Mattel and Gymshark use Shopify, but so do tons of the other small brands you stumble across at 1am scrolling through your phone when you can't sleep. Shopify powers 10% of all E commerce.

[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

This episode is also sponsored by Caldera Labs. I used to just steal Jen Skincare.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Or just, you know, not bother. Bar soap, maybe a splash of water.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't really understand what that means, but there you have it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

But that's also handled with this stuff.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Jordan Harbinger]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Ryan Reynolds]

Don't forget about our newsletter, Wee Bitwiser. It's just about every Wednesday. It's a two minute read, literally. Either that or less very practical. Something that'll help you apply what you hear on the show. And you can reply to it and complain about random unrelated things like many of you have chosen to do, or you can engage in a nice way. Either way, you can sign [e-mail] News now back to Skeptical Sunday. This is like one of those things.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Where people go, hey, the labor camps weren't that bad. They weren't all being sent to the gas chambers. And you're like, do you hear yourself right now?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that, hey, there's this other group of people who were treated very horribly in a way that's like they were slaves.

[Ryan Reynolds]

These both sound awful, but I guess.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't know the difference between how these people were treated and the scale of each and all that.

[Nick Pell]

Ah, see, the scale is it. The scale is the thing that's worth noting. The indenture that kind of fades away pretty quickly, whereas slavery persists until there's a gigantic war over it. I'm sure there were slaves who were treated better than indentures. I don't think the individual cases really matter that much. Because the point, I think, to put a button on all this is that the point is that the entire economic and political system of the United States, particularly the south, revolved around the chattel slavery of Africans in a way that it did not indenture, forced labor of Irish. You did not have big slaving expeditions into the interior of Ireland to harvest slaves. There's a lot of reasons for that. One of them is you weren't allowed to enslave Christians, generally speaking, even heretics like the Irish Catholics. But even the idea of everybody has this idea of like slaving expeditions into the African interior. And this is not really the most accurate picture of how slavery worked. The reality of the transatlantic slave trade was more like you pulled up at a mixed slaver's along the coast and bought what you wanted. Most of the slaves purchased by Europeans were bought from other Africans. They were not captured during European raiding parties. Most of these cases, tribes would subjugate other neighboring tribes and then would sell to Europeans because it's lucrative. It's like finding gold.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yikes.

[Ryan Reynolds]

This is going to be, or is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I would assume, a Controversial issue, Right. The role of other African tribes and the participation of them in the transatlantic slave trade. It was this sort of settled?

[Nick Pell]

No, I don't think. It's totally unknown, but it's not talked about that much. For the record, I don't think this makes it better or worse. It's not suddenly okay or less bad or worse or anything because dominant African tribes were enslaving, they're subjugated people. Is it better or worse to enslave your neighboring tribe because they have the same skin color of you than it is to enslave someone across an ocean? Like, I don't think it really matters.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm glad you said that because it almost seems like the kind of thing that, like, it's like an American history X kind of point where it's like, oh, you bought the slaves from other.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Black people, so it's not our problem.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Like, it wasn't us.

[Ryan Reynolds]

No, it was you, bro. I've heard this before and I was always curious about how true it was or not. We have sources in the show notes.

[Jordan Harbinger]

People can evaluate that on their own. I'm sure we're going to get emails about this from history buffs and whatnot, and I welcome those.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But isn't there some sort of moral.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Culpability on the part of the people.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Who are buying slaves?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Ryan Reynolds]

The Europeans, for example, in the drug trade, yeah, we blame the cartels, but I also blame the gangs that are shooting and snorting and selling and killing each other. I blame them, too. And I blame the end user.

[Nick Pell]

No, and I completely agree. If there was no market for slaves, there'd be no reason to kidnap Africans and sell them. There's no market for it. It's not gonna happen. I'm not trying to let anyone off the back here. I'm just simply trying to highlight the difference between the myth and the reality of the situation. And I think that particularly when you're talking about culpability up the supply chain, it's. Yeah, like, the guy coming home with a boat full of them is to me, not, like, off the hook because he bought them from another African. Like, Africans have some right to sell other Africans. Like, all of it. There's no justification for any of this. The other thing that's maybe worth mentioning at this point is that during the same time period, there was a bustling slave trade in European slaves on the Barbary coast, which is basically what is now the northern coast of Algeria and Tunisia. Even at this point in history, the transatlantic slave trade is not the Only kind of slavery that's going on in Africa.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So is it basically the same as the transatlantic slave trade, but in reverse?

[Jordan Harbinger]

What's going on there?

[Nick Pell]

No. People do try and make some equivalency between these two. There's some pretty critical differences between the transatlantic slave trade and the Barbary slave trade. People have heard of the Barbary slave trade. It's. It's like this American History X thing where it's like they were enslaving white people from the south of France and Sicily and bringing them to Tunisia. And it's like, these are not equivalent things.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How are they different?

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's funny. It would be rich to hear them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Say they were enslaving white people from Sicily. Not that we consider those Italians whites.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Depending on what time we're having this conversation or if my uncle's in the room, it's just, like, exhausting. But, okay.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How are these different, then?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Is it the scale?

[Nick Pell]

Mostly the scale is a big one. I think atrocities are atrocities. I'm not really, like, big into saying this genocide's worth.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, okay, I accept that.

[Nick Pell]

But the most generous numbers say that the Barbary slave trade had 1.25 million slaves. There were 10 times as many Africans that made it to the New World as slaves, and God knows how many of them died in the Middle Passage. There's some estimates that say half the ship would die, which, I don't know, you know, wasn't the focus of the episode. But then they had to go through what was called seasoning, which was slave boot camp in the Caribbean.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Oh, I am afraid to even ask what that is.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Tell me what that is.

[Nick Pell]

I'm going to tell you anyway. They were worked, like, extra hard and punished extra hard. One alleged punishment was that they would whip pregnant women and then pour salt and pepper and wax into their wounds.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Oh, my God.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So this is sadistic and disgusting. There's.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I can't imagine the point of that.

[Nick Pell]

I think there is no rational point.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There can't.

[Jordan Harbinger]

There just can't be. That's gross.

[Nick Pell]

So I think that the scale is definitely one difference. The Barbary slave trade did not have the same kind of middle passage that killed off a third, a half, a tenth, whatever it is, percentage of ship.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I feel like when I was in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The Marine Corps Reserve in college, which is a thing I should probably talk more about at some point because people keep asking me about it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

There's a song, right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's. We mentioned Tripoli.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, right. It's the Marine Corps Song like the Shores of Tripoli.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I remember being like, I gotta look this up, because Tripoli, as far.

[Jordan Harbinger]

As I know, is not in the United States. So what are we talking about here? And this has something to do with it, right?

[Nick Pell]

Tripoli is, I believe, in Libya.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It is, yeah.

[Nick Pell]

But, yeah, the American military ended the Barbary slave trade. America, Sicily, and Sweden, they fought two wars against the Barbary pirates.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sicily, you never. That's kind of like saying Hilton Head island fought a war with America and defeated slavery.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Like what?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I guess it was separate back then.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. Sicily, huh? And as many people may or may not know, France conquered most of northern Africa. That conquered Algeria and Tunisia.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Anyway, so this is a good pivot to the Civil War. I keep hearing, like, the Civil War wasn't actually fought over slavery. And I'm like, oh, my high school education is totally inaccurate and dumb.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Now I don't know anything. How accurate is that?

[Nick Pell]

The Civil War was absolutely fought over slavery, but it was not fought over slavery for the reason that most people think.

[Jordan Harbinger]

What do you mean? Like, it was fought over slavery, but not because we're such good people. We wanted slavery to end, but for some other reason. That's why I feel like you're going.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, people did not care a bit about the slaves. For the most weirdo Quakers and, you know, some people in Massachusetts. Right.

[Jordan Harbinger]

The hippie equivalent back in 1850 or whatever.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. Like Henry David Thoreau and Harriet Beecher Stowe are like, the only people who care about slaves. In the 1860, the Civil War was the culmination of a conflict between two economic systems, agricultural slavery and industrial free labor. Again, like, there's very few people, outside of some Quakers, some radicals in Massachusetts, for the most part, who really cared about the plight of the slaves. The Civil War was not a humanitarian crusade to free the slaves. That had nothing to do with freeing the slaves until the very end. And that was just by accident. It was so that the north could get a military advantage against the South. If you read Lincoln's papers and stuff from the later part of the war, it becomes clear to him, like, we're not going to be able to go back to the way things were. Whereas at the beginning, he's just, I don't really care. We can have slaves. We cannot have slaves. I don't care. We're preserving the Union. And by the end of the war, we're not going to be able to keep having slavery because slavery is what caused the war. One of the big reasons the south had trouble attracting allies and Getting recognition from European powers was that they did not like slavery. And this was particularly true of the British. The transatlantic slave trade ends because the British blockade the continent.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Oh, wow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I did not know that.

[Nick Pell]

Yes. That was why the transatlantic slave trade ended was because the British blockaded the continent. And so you had to be a blockade runner to, like, get new slaves out of Africa. Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It becomes too costly, too difficult.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. The Civil War as a crusade to end slavery is a myth. And I think that there's a somewhat more dangerous myth about the Civil War.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

Which is that the Civil War ended slavery in America.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, this is gonna need a little.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bit more unpacking for me. Once again, my high school education on this subject. I should qualify this. I did go to college and grad school. I don't only have a high school education for those who are new to the show.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But I don't know.

[Nick Pell]

You're a lawyer with a high school education.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yes. Who also has a high school education. But my history really does stop in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

High school in the 90s.

[Ryan Reynolds]

This just has to be unpacked for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Me because I am not following how the American Civil War didn't end slavery in the United States. Didn't the Civil War end? And they were like, okay, no more of this. And then Jim Crow know. That's all I know.

[Nick Pell]

Okay. So if we go back to the beginning of this episode, we define slavery in two ways. The first is chattel slavery. And the Civil War and subsequent constitutional amendments definitely ended this, except for extreme outliers that do exist and are horrific, but, like, they're against the law.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

Previously, owning other human beings was enshrined in constitutional law, and it's not anymore. It's illegal. And it's considered one of the most transgressive acts that a human being can commit against human morality. But in the sense of forced labor, I think if we don't count forced labor as some kind of slavery, we can't really talk about modern day slavery much at all. And I think that the distinction is important, but that we can call both slavery.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But. Okay, forced labor is illegal in the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

United States, to be clear. Right.

[Nick Pell]

No, it's not. It's enshrined in the United States Constitution.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

I'm going to read directly from the 13th amendment of the United States Constitution. The amendment that most Americans erroneously think bans slavery, quote, begins, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted shall exist within the United States or any place Subject to their jurisdiction. So prisoners are still allowed to be slaves. And that's big business in this country. There's 800,000Americans in prison. We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world, I believe. Wow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I did not know that. I remember when I went to North Korea with this author, Neil Strauss, and he was like, we're talking about the labor camps that they have there. And we asked what the incarceration rate.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Was of North Korea, and somebody somehow.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Either knew it or found it. And it's 1%, which I think is about the same as the United States per capita, which is crazy because we're talking about North Korea now. That's different because it's North Korea. But whatever.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I guess my only quip here, one of my quips so far, I should say, is that they've been through the judicial system. Regardless of what we all think about.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It or how the processes work, they warm up the angry emails now, folks. Now is the time. These processes are fallible. There's corruption. I get it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But it's still not just like, hey, you, get over here. You're a slave now.

[Nick Pell]

No, and I understand that distinction, and I do think it's an important one. But there's a special carve out for this type of forced labor in the United States, and it's profitable.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Nick Pell]

People profit off of this.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, that's messed up. Now that you say it like that. Yeah.

[Nick Pell]

So there's some polling from these convict laborers. 64% feel unsafe at work, 70% receive no training, and 76% said they'd be punished if they didn't work. And to be fair, like, I have friends who've done pretty serious prison time. Not. I went to jail for 90 days for DUI. Giant grain of salt. Anytime inmates speak, they're not generally the most notoriously honest people. But my point here is it's just not true that we don't have slavery in the sense of forced labor in the United States, that this was abolished. It's not. It's enshrined in the Constitution.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

And that's just one example.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So is there another example?

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. The draft.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Do we have the draft anymore? Do we do that?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I'm old now. I don't remember.

[Nick Pell]

I registered for selective service when I turned 18.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I must have done that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Wait, maybe I got bone spurs and flat feet. No, I was again, I was in rotc. I was in the Marine Corps Reserves. Technically, of course, I registered for the draft.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I remember that little card. And, man, I don't think I know anybody who didn't do that. It was all anybody talked about when.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We got those things.

[Ryan Reynolds]

How is the draft slavery, though?

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't want to get too far ahead of myself.

[Nick Pell]

I want to turn that question on its head and ask, how is it not? There's this cultural touchstone of baby boomers get their draft notice and they can run away to Canada or Sweden or something like. Or they can go fight in a war they don't want to fight in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah. I guess the argument that many would make myself, maybe included, is you owe some kind of service to the country during a time of emergency. Was that abused?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Vietnam. Right.

[Nick Pell]

I think that this kind of becomes a little clearer to our American centric audience if I use other countries to illustrate this point.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

Russia has a draft. Most of the guys fighting in Ukraine right now are conscripts on both sides. I've seen so many videos of, like, guys who just walk around Ukraine, like, grabbing dudes and throwing them into vans and making them cry.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I've seen that. Yeah. You go to a bar and someone's like, hey, you look like you are.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Old enough to go sit in a trench.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And it's like, oh, this is the worst day of your life, man, so far.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah. I mean, is that okay with you?

[Ryan Reynolds]

No, that's.

[Nick Pell]

This is a rhetorical you for the audience. I'm not trying to put you on the spot specifically, but, like, person listening to this, are you okay with that? And if you say yes, because Ukraine has to fight the Russians, okay, but if the Russians do it, are you okay with it? And then does it become this thing that's conditional on who you think the good guys are. And it's like, the good guys aren't grabbing people off the streets and forcing them to go to war. And if your emergency is such a big deal and your war so great, presumably you wouldn't have to be threatening people with prison or grabbing them out of bars and, like, forcing them to go to the front. And this is not meant to be a specific comment on the Russo Ukraine war by any means. It's just to illustrate the point that. Okay, so insert country you don't like here has a draft. Is their draft okay?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Right. I do see your point. I don't know if I agree in.

[Jordan Harbinger]

All cases, but that's not really what we're trying to explore here.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Now, let's hear about some of the fine products and services that support this show, none of which were made by slaves, probably. Maybe we'll be right back. This episode is sponsored in part by the Defender. You ever meet somebody and instantly know they've been places that calm and chaos? I've driven through a storm and found the sunrise kind of energy. That's the Defender in vehicle form. It's not just a car, it's a statement, a nod to the ones who don't wait around for life to hand them an adventure, they go and get it. And whether you're a seasoned trailblazer or just figuring out how to swap city limits for treelines, the Defender is built to back you up. It's capable of great things just like you. But here's the real destination defender 5-16-18th in Port Jervis, New York. Think off road driving courses that'll make your inner 10 year old scream. Yes, add live music, chef tastings, outdoor adventures, and a whole community of like minded explorers who get it. It's not just an event, it's a celebration of grit, curiosity and pushing past the usual. So if you've been waiting for a sign to finally take that trip, forge that new path, or just see what you're made of, this is it. The Defenders Ready when youn Are. To learn more, visit destinationdefenderusa.com this episode is sponsored in part by the Something you Should Know podcast. Finding a great new podcast can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Let me save you some hassle. Check out Something youg Should Know with my friend Mike Carruthers. Every episode is packed with fascinating insights that you can actually use. Mike interviews top experts on topics that shape your life, like how to optimize your brain chemistry, the best and worst ways to apologize. Probably could have used that recently. Why Couples Hate to Talk about Money. No matter the topic, Mike asks the questions you'd want to ask, getting straight to the good stuff. And the conversations are always engaging, always insightful, guaranteed to leave you a little smarter than before. They've got thousands of five star reviews, but do you even need that? I'm recommending it. You don't need other people's opinion right? At this point, I would hope. Anyway. Give it a listen. Just search for something you should know. Wherever you get your podcasts, look for the bright yellow light bulb and start listening to something you should know. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. All of the deals, discount codes and ways to support the podcast are searchable and clickable over on the [e-mail] deals. You can also search for sponsors using the AI chatbot on the website as well Please consider supporting those who support the show now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. You hear about countries like North Korea where the guys join the military for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I want to say, 10 years, and it's mandatory.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But also, they're not gearing up for.

[Jordan Harbinger]

War against the south or the United States.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Supposedly they are, but when you go there, what you do is you see.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Them working on farms for free because it's just forced labor. And this is up for debate, I suppose, but it's also designed to make.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Men closer to the state and the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Military than to their own families. Because if you're 18 and you go.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Away until you're like, 30, that's a long time.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Many of those guys don't see their family ever during that period of time? It depends. So you might even be 10 miles away and never see them. That's kind of how that goes. But, yeah, I don't know. I don't want to get too in the weeds on that, I think.

[Nick Pell]

I mean, my personal view on this kind of thing is like, things don't become okay when the state does them because the state's doing them. So if it's unethical for me to do something to you, it's unethical for the state to do the same thing to you or somebody else. So I can't go to your house and threaten to keep you in my basement if you don't go to a war of my choosing. And. Right. You laugh because it's ridiculous, but for some reason the state does it. We just go, okay, it's okay now. And if that's your view of the world, I understand that my view of the world is not the same as many other people's, but that is my view of the world. Things don't become okay when the state does them versus when private entities do them.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I guess I have to agree. It is forced labor, but maybe war.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Existential crisis to the state facing genocide. It's like the one situation where, like, maybe. And again, I'm not saying this is my opinion, because I have to think about it more. Maybe this is the one time where it's actually acceptable.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But now I'm saying, hey, forced labor is acceptable if, you know, colon.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I gotta think about this a lot. This is like a philosophical thing. I wasn't expecting to dip into service of the state. Maybe it's different than being forced to farm potatoes for Monsanto someplace.

[Ryan Reynolds]

As for prison labor, I can definitely see some people arguing that since you're.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Convicted of a crime and society has to pay to house, feed, clothe you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Et cetera, that working in prison is just paying your debt to society. But that's another conversation. And also you mentioned that there's profit.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Happening off of this.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Am I getting some rebate on that then? No, the private prison system is profiting off that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So that's definitely not fair. Right. I heard about these fire brigades at this prison that I worked at in California where I did some volunteering.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They have a fire brigade and the.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Guys like it because they get to be outside all the time. And all of a sudden it is optional.

[Ryan Reynolds]

They're not forced to do it. But also they're doing like controlled burns and stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So they're helping the state of California.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That might be a little bit different. But then are they paid? But then that money goes to the prison and is that a private prison? I don't know how any of that works. Now that you mention it, obviously slavery still exists in an underground sense, no matter what we think of prison labor or the draft.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I kind of want to get back to, like, what everybody universally agrees is slavery.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I know what's going on in North Africa.

[Nick Pell]

Yeah, there's open air slave markets in Libya right now. Thanks, Heller.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Yeah, you're not joking. I looked this up a couple of.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Weeks or months ago when I was thinking about this topic for Skeptical Sunday.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I've seen some insane photos of slave markets in Libya. It's worth a Google, because it's really wild to see something like this happening in 2025 where it's being photographed and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Videotaped in 4K for the whole world to see on the Internet and you just see like an Ethiopian woman bound and gagged in a room with a bunch of other people.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It'll break your brain. And I guess people are being sold.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I looked this up in Time magazine and the article's a few years old, but it was like 500 bucks. And that's before the last five years of inflation or whatever.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And that's big money.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In a place with no functioning government, it's probably more than people making a month.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So it seems that slavery is. It's still big business in many parts of the world. Do we know how big the business or industry is?

[Nick Pell]

So, as is often the case, you're going to get different numbers for total amount and per capita. And when we're talking about per capita, that is the highest proportion of people out of the total amount of people that are enslaved. The hall of Shame is in order of most enslaved population to least North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tajikistan, and the United.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Arab Emirates after North Korea was Eritrea, just in case people were like, I didn't hear it. So North Korea, Eritrea, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Tajikistan and the uae.

[Nick Pell]

And I would make an argument that North Korea is a slave state.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I agree.

[Nick Pell]

I know that 10% of their population being enslaved, which is what the official numbers are. I think that the definition of slave as being a little too tightly applied, and it should be closer to like 95%, certainly.

[Jordan Harbinger]

About North Korea, I agree. They have a massive prison industrial complex whose job it is to basically slowly.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Kill the incarcerated political prisoners and use them as labor.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And also I mentioned earlier the military. That's why it's not 1%, which I think is the percentage of population that's incarcerated. The military is all men, but they're.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Not sitting there in a trench waiting.

[Jordan Harbinger]

For the south to invade. They're fricking picking rice and stuff and they're pulling plows and teams of men because they don't have enough animals.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So assuming that the number is true, how does it compare to the percentage of the US Population that was enslaved.

[Jordan Harbinger]

When slavery was at its peak? How does that number for these enslaved states compare to the percentage of the US Population that was enslaved when we had peak slavery?

[Nick Pell]

The peak in terms of percentage of the population being chattel slaves in the United States is 1790, and it's about 18% of the population. That's a big number. The last census prior to the abolition of slavery has about 4 million slaves in a country of 31 million. So that's not quite 13%. So, yeah, America loses to all of these countries 150 years ago.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Still, those are staggeringly high numbers.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Okay, so to your earlier point, what if we count the draft during World.

[Jordan Harbinger]

War II or Vietnam or whatever, and.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Then we add in prison labor.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So he's take sort of the widest view of what you sort of said might be considered slavery. Do we have more or fewer slaves than we did in 1790?

[Nick Pell]

I think it's sticky when we start comparing it in this way. Like, okay, it's not my argument that drafted American GIs on the beach at Normandy are the same as guys working a plantation in 1817. I think the real apples to apples here is what percentage of the population in what is now Saudi Arabia were chattel slaves in 1860.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Okay.

[Nick Pell]

And that's obviously not data that's exists.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah.

[Nick Pell]

I can think of one guy that I know at the mises Institute, who I interviewed once, who would probably be able to rattle this right off. But if you're a serious academic, you may have access to these numbers.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I just figured they didn't even exist. Okay. It's a fool's errand to try and make these comparisons.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Who has the most slaves in the world today?

[Nick Pell]

Total number India, 11 million.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Wow. So how does India get the gold here?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Obviously, if it's a lot of people, what does Indian slavery look like typically?

[Nick Pell]

Honestly, like the guy trying to scam your grandmother from the call center may well be a debt slave in India. He does make it a little sad when you hear it like an additional layer of elderly people being scammed out of their life savings. Most of what goes on in India is child slavery. They have a lot of debt bondage. That's what the call center guys or the fake call center guys might become semi property of the person that you owe the debt to. There's a lot of human trafficking, forced begging, which is to me is a very weird use of a slave. Seems like a very economically inefficient use of a slave. And then, yeah, there's a lot of.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Sexual slavery for people who are wondering about the begging. That's like, what Slumdog Millionaire, when they burned the kid's eye with a spoon or something, and then they made him go out on the street and beg. Cause he's like, oh, he's blind.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So I'd done episodes on some of this kind of stuff.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Bruce Latabue, episode 976. He talks about kids working in carpet or brick factories in I think Bangladesh or India or both in Pakistan under just horrific conditions. And then those people have kids and they just keep the kids there and basically you can never work the debt off. That's the whole idea.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Who else is on the worst offenders list for slavery?

[Nick Pell]

China comes in second, 5.7 million. North Korea, 2.6 million. I know that a lot of the North Korean is prison labor and military. And then China has basically has concentration camps for the Uyghurs. And again, like, I think that it's worth noting that, like, people who live under communist regimes or were maybe defining slavery too narrowly and letting these countries off the hook. And yeah, America comes in at number 10 with over a million slaves.

[Jordan Harbinger]

That is prison labor mostly.

[Nick Pell]

I would suspect that most of it is, given that. Yes, the number I cited above for prison slaves was over 800,000. So if you think that's not slavery for some reason, like they're paying their debt to Society, like you said, you can go ahead and count America much lower. But by the way, most of Eritrea's slaves are conscripted military. So apparently I'm not the only one who thinks the draft is slavery.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Eritrea, you're supposed to go to the.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Military for three years.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Numerous people who have escaped and they're like, yeah, I was in the military for 14 years. They just don't let you go. And you're not doing anything military, you're just working in a mine or in a plantation, growing some food. And they just say, oh, three years is up. Oh, you're not going home, we need you. And that's just kind of how it works. That's slavery. They give you a badge or something. It doesn't make it not slavery.

[Ryan Reynolds]

It is a little odd how they're.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Able to count conscripted military as slaves in Eritrea, but not in other countries. But I really think the distinction is because they are exclusively using them, essentially slaves there.

[Nick Pell]

I don't know if they're exclusively using them as slaves there, but there is a weird thing where the term's been Open ended since 1998. In theory, it's supposed to be 18 months, but the average term in the Eritrean military is six years. And there are tons of guys who say that they were enslaved, I mean conscripted. They say they were there for over 10 years.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, looks like we read the same article. Yeah, exactly.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I think most people who are aware.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of what's going on in the world, they're aware that slavery exists in some.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Form today, but they tend to not.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Be aware of just how widespread it is. You're talking about Cambodian call centers where they trick people who live in Thailand to go live there and they're stuck in Burma or whatever. You get the people in the military, you get the people in Africa, you get the people in prison.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So how many people total are enslaved.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Around the planet today? Do we know?

[Nick Pell]

According to the International labor organization, it's 40 million worldwide. That's one of those numbers. Like 40 million is a relatively small amount of people around the world and it's relatively small amount of labor force, but it's absolutely obscene that we have that many. Yeah, it's definitely on the other side of an imaginary line that I can't hand wave and be like, this is not a big deal to me. This is a big deal to me. Another estimate puts it at 50 million. We gotta go back and come full circle with this about what is slavery. And I think that we may want to consider that These numbers are somewhat inflated, which is not to say that I think that the real numbers are anything I'm going to be comfortable with, but I think some of the things that are counted as slavery are just not.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Look, the population of California is something like 40 million.

[Jordan Harbinger]

So if we think there are 40 million slaves on the planet, that's go to California. Imagine every single person there is a slave. That's absolutely incredibly huge number.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Especially because isn't California like the world's fifth largest economy or whatever it is?

[Jordan Harbinger]

It's just like that's an insane amount of economic value held in slaves.

[Ryan Reynolds]

All right, so now I see why.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You wanted to split slavery into multiple parts here. Because this is. It's not so clean cut, really.

[Nick Pell]

No, it's not. And like I said, it's impossible to talk about modern slavery without including forced labor. Because like, I think the guys in Eritrea are being paid, but who cares? This is not okay. Chattel slavery does still exist in pockets in isolation, but the main form is forced labor. So Anti Slavery International gives some definitions of what constitutes modern slavery. Some of them are. They're slavery, or close enough to that we can call them that. That being owned is chattel. It still happens. I don't know if many parts of the world, but multiple parts of the world. Debt bondage, you know, you take on the debt that's so large you can't ever repay it. You're bought and sold, more or less, and forced to work awful jobs and your children inherit your debt and thus the status after you die. There's the forced labor that we talked about in the Eritrean and North Korean military. Human trafficking, where they take your passport. Geez.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot more than we normally think of. Because really I was thinking people in chains. The end. And this all sounds like slavery to me.

[Ryan Reynolds]

We also did that show.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I mentioned the Cambodia, Burma call centers. Many of those calls received here in the United States and elsewhere are run by people who cannot escape. That was episode 833, by the way. And there was actually recently a giant rescue of a bunch of these people due to pressure. So that's a huge relief. But there's so many of these places and in fact entire cities where there are just thousands of slaves working.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Anyway, what do you think about the numbers? You seem to think they're inflated.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You mentioned that.

[Nick Pell]

I'm curious as to why I think inflated. Ish. The thing about non governmental organizations or NGOs is they have a sort of clear incentive to exaggerate Problems. So, like, domestic servitude is generally defined in really nebulous ways. I know there's examples of people underpaying domestic servants who don't know anything about the law or treating them badly. And again, it's not okay. I'm not okay with that. But I don't know that that's slavery. I think that underpaying people is a wage violation and not slavery. I just don't think it's the same thing as army captain holding a gun to your head or the Cambodian loan sharks are going to kill me if I don't work in the call center. I just don't think it's the same. Another one is the laborers in Persian Gulf countries. They have to work construction for a single company. They get paid garbage. They live in terrible conditions. That gets counted as slavery a lot. Simon Legree isn't standing behind them with a whip selling their children.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Simon Legree? Who's that?

[Nick Pell]

He's the cruel overseer from Uncle Tom's Cabin. Famous abolitionist book from the 19th century.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Obscure ref.

[Nick Pell]

Bro, it's not. You just slept through high school English.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That is true.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I remember my mom reading me Uncle Tom's Cabin when I was a kid. Odd choice, but, yeah, clearly I don't remember it anyway.

[Nick Pell]

So I think it's weird to start conflating unpleasant working conditions and scammy wages, no matter how egregious the unpleasant working conditions and scammy wages may be, to some kind of forced labor. And I think it enters you into this slippery slope of accepting Marxist argumentation about how guys who work in auto factories and make $80,000 a year are slaves because they have to.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I don't get behind that. If I'm having brunch with you, you're not a slave.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Somewhere you might feel like it sometimes, but no.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You're drinking a $38 mimosa, dude. Yeah. No.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Why do you think that slavery still.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Exists in the 21st century?

[Ryan Reynolds]

Haven't we moved past that as a species?

[Jordan Harbinger]

We have machines now.

[Ryan Reynolds]

That's what I don't really understand. And I know this is going to.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Take a dark turn because I'm like.

[Ryan Reynolds]

What can humans do that machines can't do?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Come on already. And the answers that pop into your head are pretty gross.

[Nick Pell]

Ooh, yeah, they are. I think we obviously haven't moved past it.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Right.

[Nick Pell]

I don't really subscribe to the worldview that says that the world gets morally better over time. To me, it's like, we're damned lucky to be living in this infinitesimal period of human history where being a slave who gets worked to death in a salt mine and has your children taken from you to get worked to death somewhere else isn't just normal human existence. That is what happens to most or damn near most people. And I think in an apocalyptic situation where you saw the breakdown of the rule of law and a lack of reliable energy sources to achieve certain labor tasks, I think you would see slavery come back pretty quickly. I mean, didn't Libya, which is a real world example, I'd imagine it would probably start with sexual slavery. This is a plot point in Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which is, yes, it's fiction, but I think he really nailed just how close we are to everyone having to worry about being a slave.

[Ryan Reynolds]

But like you said, we don't live.

[Jordan Harbinger]

In the Road or whatever novel. So why are there still 40 or 50 million slaves in the world today day when we have machinery that doesn't run away? I don't know. Just the only thing I can think of is really gross sexual slavery and stuff.

[Nick Pell]

Old habits die hard. There's a lack of rule of law in many parts of the world. And I just don't think that the Western liberal view of human rights and human dignity as universal equality as people think that it is. I don't accept that this is the default view that everybody on earth has. Like this is a very specific cultural view that all human beings are endowed with some kind of dignity and rights. This is a very specific cultural view that I just don't think most of the world Share Read about the Yugoslav wars. Sexual slavery in particular was a widespread phenomenon. That's a really good example of what happens when a normal functioning country just completely falls apart. I was obsessed with this as a kid, which I think I've mentioned on other episodes that we've done. I'm slightly obsessed with it now still. I think that the real question is why don't we have more slaves? And the short answer is oil, because.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We don't need human muscle as an energy source anymore. So people who are not just despicable.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Are going to go, well, there's other.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Ways that we can do this, more efficient ways, more powerful ways.

[Ryan Reynolds]

I mean, I'd love to say, oh.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You have a very grim view of humanity, but I don't know if I disagree with, with what you're saying either.

[Nick Pell]

I do have a grim view of humanity. This is what helps me to explain why 40 to 50 million people are slaves. About a quarter of them are children. Oh, why? Why did these screams to the heavens? Because you live in an imperfect world. The world tend towards chaos. Your shoes aren't going to tie themselves. You need to work to create order out of chaos. And the absolute easiest, most time honored way of doing that is beating somebody until they do what you want.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Yeah, I've got a buddy. He comes from a wealthy Indian family, lives in America, served in the US Military. He told me he doesn't like to visit home as much because they have.

[Ryan Reynolds]

People that work in their house that.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Are mistreated by the rest of his family and he just can't be around it.

[Ryan Reynolds]

And I've asked for examples and it's.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Not like, horrific, but it's definitely like, wow, I would never treat anyone that way. And it's, yeah, watching your sister do it is not fun yet.

[Ryan Reynolds]

So what can people do if they want to help end slavery worldwide or at least be part of seeing some.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of these enslaved people freed? Is there anything that we can do from the luxury of the Western world here?

[Nick Pell]

There's tons of organizations out there who work to do just that. Charity Navigator is a good place to start your search. Check out their overhead. Is the other thing too, that I would say, like, that's specific to slavery. I've heard about this happening. I don't know that it's actually true, so I'll preface it with that. But I have heard told that there are groups that, like, buy slaves to free them, don't give them money because all you're doing is making a market.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Slaves. Yeah, I've spoken about that with Bruce Lataby, who I mentioned earlier. He will buy child slaves to rescue them. And I said, aren't you just creating a secondary market? And he's like, yeah, but we're also.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Rescuing these particular people.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And then we try to work with law enforcement to make sure they can't re. And it's just like such a losing battle.

[Nick Pell]

Right?

[Jordan Harbinger]

Because you either leave those people there working, enslaved, or you buy them and they're like, all right, cool, I'm going to take this money and buy some more slaves. And it's like, damn it.

[Nick Pell]

I understand his perspective of, you know what? I don't care. I just. Free child slave. I totally get that. But if you're looking to attack this in like, a systematic way, if you see homeless people and you feel bad and you want to help homeless people in a systematic way, what do you not do? Give the homeless guy money? You go give money to the organization that supports homeless people. Yes, I would encourage people to think about if you want to do something about slavery, please do not go buy an 8 year old Cambodian child or give money to somebody who is now.

[Jordan Harbinger]

It sounds ridiculous, but there are people who are wondering how to do just that and had many offers like sponsor.

[Ryan Reynolds]

This child and it's okay.

[Jordan Harbinger]

I got to look at the organization and many of them are legit, but many of them who knows where your money's actually going or what's really happening.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Anyway, fascinating subject. I hope we've freed some people's minds on this subject.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Thanks again to Nick for helping us dig into this admittedly somewhat depressing and distressing topic.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Nick, this kind of stuff seems to be your specialty, man.

[Nick Pell]

That's why I'm Reddit's favorite.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Thanks for listening topic suggestions and all.

[Jordan Harbinger]

Of your angry emails.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Now to Jordanordanharbinger.com, show [e-mail] advertisers, discounts, deals, ways to support the show, and people to complain to about why we covered this topic all on one convenient page, jordanharbinger.com deals I'm JordanHarbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

[Jordan Harbinger]

You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

[Ryan Reynolds]

This show is created in association with podcast one. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism.

[Jordan Harbinger]

And knowledge that we doled out today.

[Ryan Reynolds]

In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn and.

[Jordan Harbinger]

We'Ll see you next time.

[Nick Pell]

Most people would rather attend a corporate.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Team building workshop than search for auto and home insurance.

[Nick Pell]

Go team.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Feel that synergy?

[Nick Pell]

That's why the zebra searches for you.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Comparing over 100 insurance companies to find.

[Nick Pell]

Savings no one else can Compare [e-mail] who's ready for the trust fall.