{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "So in the iconic situation of prisoners tasked to break rocks apart in the yard, what are they\u2026 accomplishing? Creating gravel?", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/647496147963887616/", "html": "

kontextmaschine:

So in the iconic situation of prisoners tasked to break rocks apart in the yard, what are they\u2026 accomplishing? Creating gravel?

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Enough of you are suggesting “for road surfacing” and that’s coherent; road and ditch work is a classic unskilled labor sink

(Roads used to be built and maintained by corvee labor, citizens required to work a certain number of days a year. The wealthy hired others, and it was effectively a way to keep farm laborers employed and occupied in the summer between planting and harvest)

But still I have a hard time picturing even forced manual labor being as efficient as a triphammer mill set up on even the dinkiest creek

"}