• psivchaz@reddthat.com
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    10 days ago

    My favorite “we had to regulate this” is coal mining. You see, the larger a coal mine tunnel, the more work and time it takes. So smaller tunnels will be more profitable. So in some places they preferred smaller women and children, so they could make make smaller, easier tunnels. This one I only ever found one source on, but supposedly one mine owner noticed that snags on clothing were slowing things down in the narrow tunnels so he insisted on sending them in nude. Nothing more capitalist than naked coal mining children.

    • arrow74@lemm.ee
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      10 days ago

      The fact that these fucks were not regularly dragged from their mansions and beaten to death blows my mind

      • BearGun@ttrpg.network
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        10 days ago

        as humans, our arguably greatest trait is the ability to adapt to almost any circumstance. unfortunately that also often makes us accept unacceptable living conditions because changing them involves too high of a personal cost.

    • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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      9 days ago

      I realy would like to fact check you on this, but i will definitely not search for “naked coal mining children”. “Trust me bro” will have to do it for this one.

      • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        That miners often worked naked or partially naked is definitely true. That children, men and women worked together in mines is also true. If it’s legally allowed, then it’s going to happen basically.

        That there were owners who preferred children/women over men, is probably false. They will have tended to do different jobs in the mines, but I can’t recall having ever read anything about a mine that preferred to not employ any male miners.

        That the workers worked naked because of owner mandates is also going to be false, because those miners used to be paid according to how much they extracted, so there was no reason for the owner to have such a mandate. Instead it was the workers their own choice: some clothes hinder them in their work (heat, snagging, dust) + the job eats up clothes + they have to pay for their own clothes = they’re not going to be wearing many clothes at work.