Elfthreads!

[DanielH]

It sounds like you are required to torture escapees to death, not just allowed or encouraged? What happens if you don’t?

What happens if you can no longer afford to keep a slave but also can’t afford to free them/they legally cannot be freed? Are there always buyers, or do the slaves just starve? What about if you want to move somewhere smaller and there is no room in the new place for all your slaves?

[lintamande]

You can always find a buyer, though sometimes not for very much. You can be fined if you failed to handle an escapee appropriately, and they'll take the escapee and do it themself. (It is required; this country is really worried about slave revolts and thinks that there's a sort of collective action problem with being soft on your slaves and encouraging them.)

[atheistcanuck]

This seems like failure at incentives to me.

[DanielH]

“Let’s be especially hard on the slaves, so they won’t revolt”. Really good idea. A+ on incentives; Anitam would be proud of you. If you carried that policy further, there is zero chance that the slaves would decide they had nothing left to lose and revolt anyway.

[lintamande]

I drew on historical examples; it was very common for slaveowning societies to prohibit manumission or make it expensive or difficult, or to require harsh handling of slaves in some circumstances, because of fear of slave revolts. I don't know enough to evaluate whether it works but it doesn't obviously not work.

[DanielH]

I guess it depends on the type of slave revolt anticipated, the actual punishments involved, and the typical treatment. I was thinking of jt like the probably-apocryphal tale of that Chinese general:

“What is the penalty for attempted escape?

“Torture and death”

“And what is the penalty for joining the terrorism in the East?”

“Torture and death”

[Marri]

...I realize it's sort of off topic but I am now curious about the rest of this tale, Google is failing me.

[Kappa]

Googling found this quote:

"The reign of terror imploded almost the moment the First Emperor died. One day in 209 BCE, the story runs, heavy rain prevented two lowly officials from delivering conscripts to a garrison on time. The penalty for lateness was, of course, death. 'As things stand, we face death whether we stay or run away', Sima Qian reports one of them saying, 'while if we were to start a revolt…'"

[DanielH]

This is a reference to the Dazexiang uprising.

I first saw this in a Slate Star Codex article (section V), but I have seen it in other places since.

(Including a translation into Amentan history, I think)

[Ezra]

In Milliways, while the door is closed, a little girl with cobalt blue hair opens the door.

eeeee! :D