Asymmetric Knowledge: Slave Trade Networks and Information Monopoly

During my cryptanalysis work in WWII, I learned that information advantage determines outcomes more decisively than physical resources. The fundamental problem was always the same: those who possess knowledge select from informed possibilities, while those denied information face maximum entropy—total uncertainty.

Studying historical slave trade networks reveals this principle operating with brutal clarity. The profitability calculations weren’t mysterious: triangular trade routes generated extraordinary returns because traders possessed complete channel information while the enslaved possessed none.

Channel Capacity and Control

Consider the information channels operating across centuries and continents. Venetian and Genoese merchants coordinated sophisticated Mediterranean slave networks linking Italian ports to Islamic markets, moving not just human cargo but intelligence about prices and political conditions. Vikings operated complex supply chains connecting Scandinavian raids to Byzantine and Abbasid demand centers, leveraging their unique position as intermediaries with access to pagan populations that religious prohibitions made valuable commodities. Dutch, English, and French traders managed Atlantic routes from African coastal trading posts to Caribbean plantations, creating triangular networks that maximized information arbitrage across three continents. Each network functioned as a communication system with asymmetric channel access—and that asymmetry was the source of profit.

Traders controlled multiple information streams: navigational knowledge specifying safe routes, ocean currents, and harbor locations; market intelligence detailing prices, demand fluctuations, and arbitrage opportunities; military reconnaissance identifying vulnerable raid targets—monasteries with wealth but no defenses; political intelligence about enforcement capacity and official corruption. This represented enormous channel capacity for informed selection.

The enslaved operated in an imposed state of maximum entropy. Separated from families, stripped of language communities, isolated from geographic orientation, denied knowledge of destination or purpose. Information theory defines entropy as uncertainty measurement—and slave systems engineered maximum uncertainty as a control mechanism.

Selection Power and Representation Transformation

Information functions as selection from possibilities. When traders chose profitable routes from navigational options, they exercised selection power enabled by knowledge. The enslaved had no selection capacity—pure entropy, zero information, complete uncertainty about their fate.

More insidiously, traders performed representation space transformation. Neural networks map inputs through learned geometries to create new representations—raw coordinates become abstract feature spaces where classification becomes trivial. Slave traders similarly transformed humans into commodities through systematic categorization, pricing mechanisms, and market protocols. Information monopoly enabled this transformation: those controlling knowledge schemas controlled how humans were represented, valued, and exchanged.

The mathematics are precise. Channel capacity sets ultimate transmission limits. In slave networks, information flowed unidirectionally: intelligence gathering transmitted knowledge to traders while enforcement systems prevented information transmission to the enslaved. Asymmetric channel capacity produced asymmetric power.

The Entropy Question

This raises uncomfortable questions about modern systems. Neural networks learn from training data—do dataset asymmetries create analogous power differentials? Adversarial training introduces controlled uncertainty—are we engineering entropy as a control mechanism? Models possess knowledge advantages over users who don’t understand their training data or decision boundaries.

Can we measure exploitation using information metrics? Perhaps power asymmetry reduces to channel capacity ratios: bits transmitted to advantaged parties divided by bits available to disadvantaged parties. Slave systems approached infinity—perfect information monopoly.

The fundamental problem remains: information distribution determines power structure. Symmetric information access requires deliberate design, not natural equilibrium. The question isn’t whether we can build equitable systems, but whether we will.