# Pitting Max\_S **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 8, 2022, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074 "2022-02-08T00:26:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 39
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/761 "2022-05-26T22:41:14Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > You are a undocumented black man, living in 2022 Vermont. You are hiding in a barn, having escaped from indentured servitude at a farm just down the road. > > A white man opens the door to the barn. > > Do you I’d need more information. I’ve barely escaped some kind of work farm and I’ve already been found. Is this some kind of drug operation I’m escaping? Do I know if the gang running the farm has all the locals under their thumb? Is the farmer armed? Am I armed? Have I actually been spotted yet? Could I get away without killing the farmer? > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > Are you physically incapable of putting yourself in the position of the fugitive slave? Is that a thing you are unable to imagine? I can try to do so but nobody has asked. Was there something unrealistic in the section you quoted? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/762 "2022-05-26T22:43:26Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > @Max_S, do you pull the lever? Sure, why wouldn’t I? I could save five lives by pulling that lever. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/763 "2022-05-26T22:48:13Z")
I only claim to be a subject matter expert in my field, which is healthcare administration for a small doctor’s office in the U.S. Even so, there are people more expert than I. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/764 "2022-05-26T22:55:15Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I’d need more information. I’ve barely escaped some kind of work farm and I’ve already been found. Is this some kind of drug operation I’m escaping? Do I know if the gang running the farm has all the locals under their thumb? Is the farmer armed? Am I armed? Have I actually been spotted yet? Could I get away without killing the farmer? … you didn’t need more information when you were “white”. Why do you suddenly need more context now you are Black? Work with what you’ve got. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/765 "2022-05-26T23:03:04Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > … you didn’t need more information when you were “white”. My previous example set in 2022 was me finding people in my own garage today. I didn’t need any more context as to the local environment. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/766 "2022-05-26T23:04:48Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > My previous example set in 2022 was me finding people in my own garage today. I didn’t need any more context as to the local environment. …you didn’t need any additional context for the example in the 1800’s. Just give us your answer already. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/767 "2022-05-26T23:06:34Z")
You haven’t given me enough information. If I was actually in that situation, and didn’t even know what I had escaped from, I would just sit in the corner in shock until I came to grips with my amnesia, or was shot by the farmer who may or may not be armed and may or may not have seen me. Am I blind or something? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/768 "2022-05-26T23:09:51Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Sure, why wouldn’t I? I could save five lives by pulling that lever. The fact that you answered the question when I was clearly taking the piss about there being any moral dilemma says something about your moral intuition. Still, you got it right! Baby steps. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/769 "2022-05-26T23:12:17Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > taking the piss Learned a new phrase today, so thanks for that I suppose. I wasn’t 100% sure if you were serious or not. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/770 "2022-05-26T23:17:02Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > You haven’t given me enough information. If I was actually in that situation, and didn’t even know what I had escaped from, I would just sit in the corner in shock until I came to grips with my amnesia, or was shot by the farmer who may or may not be armed. Am I blind or something? > > ~Max > [@Babale](#): > > @Max_S , I’m curious. You’re living in 1858 Vermont. You open the door to your barn. Inside is a black man, who says he escaped from a plantation in Virginia and is heading to Canada; he stopped in your barn to rest for the night. Do you… > > 1. Help him get to Canada > 2. Hide him for the night, but that’s it > 3. Tell him to leave > 4. Turn him in > [@Max\_S](#): > > Either 3 or 4 depending on circumstances not specified. > > ~Max …so just to be crystal clear here: You were able to imagine living in 1858 Vermont, opening up a barn door, and instantly decide what to do with the black man you found in the barn, without any additional context. But you can’t imagine being a black man in America today, without knowing what “kind of drug operation you were escaping.” Gotcha. To be clear: I never said you were escaping a drug operation. I said you were escaping [indentured servitude.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude) As in they are the _victim_ here. That you went straight to the assumption they were part of a drug operation says everything we need to know about you. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/771 "2022-05-26T23:26:13Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > But you can’t imagine being a black man in America today, without knowing what “kind of drug operation you were escaping.” > > Gotcha. > > To be clear: I never said you were escaping a drug operation. I said you were escaping [indentured servitude.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude) That’s why I asked. I have no idea what you are referring to when you talk about indentured servitude in the U.S. in the year 2022. Involuntary servitude is illegal except as punishment for a crime; in other words, the only legal indentured servitude is one which I am free to leave at any time, or following conviction. We don’t normally refer to inmates working on penal farms as indentured servants. Which makes me wonder why I would feel the need to escape indentured servitude. It follows that I am escaping some sort of illegal farm. You said it was a farm I escaped from. What kind of illegal farm operation would it make sense to say I ‘escaped’ from it, and hid in a nearby barn? So that’s where I got a drug operation from. ETA: Hence the question, which is a _question_ and not an _assumption_, > [@Max\_S](#): > > Is this some kind of drug operation I’m escaping? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/772 "2022-05-26T23:33:16Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > That’s why I asked. I have no idea what you are referring to when you talk about indentured servitude in the U.S. in the year 2022. Involuntary servitude is illegal except as punishment for a crime; in other words, the only legal indentured servitude is one which I am free to leave at any time, or following conviction. Which makes me wonder why I would feel the need to escape indentured servitude. It follows that I am escaping some sort of illegal farm. > > You said it was a farm I escaped from. What kind of illegal farm operation would it make sense to say I ‘escaped’ from it, and hid in a nearby barn? So that’s where I got a drug operation from. > > ~Max …I mean: here’s the thing. I don’t _care_ about your answer. The hypothetical _wasn’t_ the point. How you _responded_ to the hypothetical was the point. You are simply incapable of framing anything outside of the framework of “White America.” Even if you aren’t white yourself. You don’t know the history of indentured servitude. You even think that it isn’t happening today. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/773 "2022-05-26T23:35:24Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > You don’t know the history of indentured servitude. You even think that it isn’t happening today. I admit, I could be ignorant of the indentured servants working farms in modern America. If that’s a thing I know nothing of it. I also admit that my Google skills are not helping me find out what on earth you are talking about. Do you have an article or something I could look at? I don’t even have a frame of reference. Everything I’m seeing ends with the 13th Amendment or the downfall of peonage in the early to mid twentieth century. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/774 "2022-05-26T23:48:59Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > Everything I’m seeing ends with the 13th Amendment or the downfall of peonage in the early to mid twentieth century. “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.” …it didn’t end with the 13th. It was _enshrined_. And **illegal** involuntary servitude also exists. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2022, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/775 "2022-05-26T23:55:22Z")
You could say if you have penal farms in mind. I previously ruled that out because it’s very _weird_ to call inmates _indentured servants_. > [@Max\_S](#): > > We don’t normally refer to inmates working on penal farms as indentured servants. If I’m escaping a penal farm wearing a jumpsuit or what have you, or if the alarm is going off just down the road, that’s important context because under no circumstance would I appeal to a random farmer’s humanity. This leaves killing the man or submitting to him, which is a false choice if there is any possible way to escape or remain undetected without killing him. Something I wouldn’t know without more details, such as whether I have already been spotted, or who is armed. If I escaped from a penal farm there is also the question of _why_, because my default opinion is that it is wrong to do so if I’ve been convicted and sentenced. I assume a slave in 1858 was born into chains, and was never part of the society that punishes him. He has no reason to respect the laws. An inmate in 2022 is probably in a different situation. If I don’t have a good reason (in _my_ opinion) for breaking out, then the moral thing for me to do would be to turn myself in. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > And **illegal** involuntary servitude also exists. Surely, but again, how can I tell you what I’d do if I don’t know the circumstance? ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/776 "2022-05-27T00:38:46Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I previously ruled that out because it’s very _weird_ to call inmates _indentured servants_ . It’s not, if an inmate is sentenced to work, it is indentured servitude by definition. The same one **Banquet\_Bear** linked to a few posts ago. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > To be clear: I never said you were escaping a drug operation. I said you were escaping [indentured servitude.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indentured_servitude) As in they are the _victim_ here. > **Indentured servitude** is a form of labor in which a person is contracted to work without salary for a specific number of years. The contract, called an “indenture”, may be entered voluntarily for eventual compensation or debt repayment, or it may be imposed as a [judicial punishment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_(law)). ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/777 "2022-05-27T01:33:47Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > You could say if you have penal farms in mind. …but I _didn’t_ have penal farms in mind. I was simply answering your question regarding 13th Amendment and/or the downfall of peonage in the early to mid twentieth century. The 13th Amendment has an _exception_. But it wasn’t what I had in mind at all. > [@Max\_S](#): > > Surely, but again, how can I tell you what I’d do if I don’t know the circumstance? When you “were living in Vermont in 1858” you didn’t need to know the circumstance before you narrowed it down to either turning them in or kicking them out. Because you are simply incapable of framing anything outside of the framework of White America. You can imagine being the white farmer that opens the door to the barn. But you are _incapable_ of imagining being the black man behind the door. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/778 "2022-05-27T04:07:07Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > It’s not, if an inmate is sentenced to work, it is indentured servitude by definition. While technically true (and [I understand the link](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/convicted-of-a-crime-sold-into-chattel-slavery/949829/64)), in my experience colloquial useage of “indentured servitude” does not imply penal labor. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/779 "2022-05-27T04:29:55Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > in my experience colloquial useage of “indentured servitude” does not imply penal labor. …probably because you don’t listen enough to any black people. Which means that you frame everything through a colonialist, white American lens. (and it doesn’t matter if you are white or not) Can I suggest that you start with watching the _ **13th** _ by Ava DuVernay. [13th (film) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_(film)) ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2022, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/780 "2022-05-27T04:30:37Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > When you “were living in Vermont in 1858” you didn’t need to know the circumstance before you narrowed it down to either turning them in or kicking them out. The hypotheticals are materially different. In the 1858 scenario I am in the position of a man who discovers a fugitive. In your 2022 scenario I am in the position of the man who _is_ a fugitive. Surely you can understand that the decision making process will be different, and rely on different circumstances, depending on whether I am the person who discovers a fugitive, versus if I am the fugitive himself? In the 1858 scenario I made the assumption that I had the runaway slave in my power. It was written into the hypothetical that he begged me to stay. I assumed I was armed and the runaway was not. I assumed the runaway faced probable re-enslavement, assured bodily injury, and quite possibly death if turned over. I assumed I understood, in general terms, his motivation to escape slavery. These were all factors in my decision. If you remember, even then I had to say “depending on circumstances not specified”. In the 2022 scenario I haven’t made any of these assumptions because they seemed inappropriate to make. If I assume that I will beg for the man to let me stay, as the runaway did in 1858, then that makes your entire hypothetical moot. If I assume I am completely in the man’s power then that rules out the “kill him” option. If I assume my punishments for being returned to the authorities is probable enslavement, assured bodily injury, and quite possibly death, I would do anything humanly possible to avoid being cought, and would take the wildest chances, including attacking an innocent man if necessary. > [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > But you are _incapable_ of imagining being the black man behind the door. If you are capable of answering your own hypothetical definitively, and not conditional upon unspecified circumstances, I suggest you are incapable of imagining being the black man behind the door. ~Max [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074.md?page=38) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074.md?page=40)