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perihelionslast Saturday at 8:59 AM1 replyview on HN

That (initially) $175 billion/year will pay for itself in forced labor. I think most countries with large-scale systems of concentration camps converged on that solution, when the costs of those systems ballooned into something unsustainable.

Modern China has that. Their system makes use of their (reportedly millions) of incarcerated Uyghurs as low-skill forced labor, mainly in textiles/clothes. Few talk about it, but a significant fraction of Western clothing comes out of these camps.

The 1940's Germans were efficient: in extremis, they realized you could optimize value from concentration camps by starving the workers to death, extracting value from the final months of their lives with minimal operating costs. That was "extermination through labor".

Hacker News, being what it is, will be most focused on the impact on their 401k's. Their grandchildren will read these comments.


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archagonlast Saturday at 9:51 PM

The fact that this is downvoted is deeply disturbing. Timothy Snyder has similar thoughts on concentration camp labor: https://snyder.substack.com/p/concentration-camp-labor

Meanwhile, SV darling Curtis Yarvin is plainly insinuating that we should bring slavery back: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:gqqqg5xi4p2x4bfgphr7akip/po...

What in the fuck is wrong with people?

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