this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2026
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Just the framing of the question is insanely insulting nonsense and almost makes me believe this is not a question being made in good faith.
In an attempt to reduce my blood pressure, how bout we go ahead and assume the people enduring slavery were, largely, the same as you and I. Wouldn't you know, they probably could've figured out how sneaking away in the goddamn night works.
Now, let's say you found yourself enslaved, AND knew the one weird trick slave owners hate (waiting until night time). What might keep you from fleeing slavery in this situation?
Maybe, vicious dogs? Or perhaps the threat of being scourged within an inch of your life with a whip? Maybe it's just the fact that any random what person within 300 miles is going to string you up from a tree if they see you out at night?
If all else fails, literally the entire state apparatus will hunt you to the end of their jurisdiction and beyond and make an example of your ass.
There was no getting out. You were property, someone's farm tool. If you didn't understand that, they'd make your life more of a living hell than it already was.
And that jurisdiction, at the time of the start of the a Civil War, was the entire United States, including free states. That was what the Fugitive Slave Act was all about, and it was a major contributor to the beginning of the war.
Calm down. Nobody knows everything, and the first step to knowing stuff is often to ask questions about it.
USA started as, and continues to be, a shithole country
fuck this place
Do you think everybody comes into existence knowing history?
This is not that
How is it different? You're assuming that everybody knows what you do, and anybody who doesn't is acting in bad faith.
OP is an engagement farmer reposting from reddit, so it literally isn’t the circumstance posed in that xkcd.
Really? I didn't realise. Dang. Explains a lot about their posts in that case