SturmOgre

As I pointed out in my last sentence, (free) manual labourers were always able to shelter, feed and entertain themselves from their pay in civilizations that used money. In fact, the popinae of Ancient Rome were bars that catered directly to this demographic.

That clearly isn't universally true though, given the existence of company towns and other similar arrangements. And as for a more Rosharan example, we know that the manual labourers in the workcamps have some sort of shelter (and obviously eat). Manual labourers have been able to buy/rent shelter and food, as well as have enough left over for luxuries for long before social programs were implemented.

I'm starting with the assumption that this is from the time right after the capture of BAM, where people know that the singers used to be sapient. The pay would be similar to how an author's royalties would be managed if they would fall into a coma. It doesn't matter if they can't use it at the moment, they deserve it anyway. Besides, at that time we wouldn't know whether or not the state of the singers was permanent. The singers would "buy" food and board. Again, a portion of the population only buying necessities will not cause total economic collapse. And as I pointed out earlier, any singer without inheritors would have their earnings put back into the economy in some fashion.

I don't understand your point here. Do you think businesses that employ workers have a net negative profit? What you are getting is any surplus food production, just like a regular self-sufficient farm (and presumably any transactional taxes from the purchase of the surplus). And as I said, you would most likely be protecting that place anyways, so it's not like you're doing something extra. Edit: That isn't necessarily true though. Savings can be passed down through generations without being spent, and only being affected by any applicable taxes. And why would it take millennia? Not every slaveform singer will have inheritors, and they have similar lifespans to humans. So is Rosharan countries have similar inheritance laws to IRL ones, the earnings of a dead Singer will return to the economy in one form or another.

Yes, I should have specified that they aren't directly invested by the worker themselves. Most earned money is managed and reinvested by the banks, which is where the pay would be stored anyways.

That doesn't actually matter. Do you think that every penny earned by any worker is reinvested into the economy? There is no situation where people only buying necessities will crash the economy. Especially since the slaveform singers wouldn't be participating in the economy anyways, so businesses wouldn't lose money. You would have to protect them anyway if they were slaves, and besides, they are in your territory, and presumably near other population centers, so you would be protecting that land whether or not they even exist. Either way, any farming community would be effectively defenceless against a proper army, and the purpose of a government in the first place is to protect its constituents.

We know that they can do things on their own. So it's not certain that they would do absolutely nothing when left alone. As far as we know, there have been no Rosharan scientific studies done on this front, so we can say nothing for certain. For instance, perhaps after a long enough period without orders, they revert to basic animal instincts and start foraging for food. This is just a non sequitur. You asked for better ways to treat slaveform singers, not how to treat human slaves. As I said, if this arrangement is selected, the cost of food and board would be deducted from their pay. Do you have any evidence that only paying for basic necessities will cause the economy to collapse? Besides, another option that I pointed out was to put them into self-sustaining farming communities. You don't have to pay or feed them, and depending on how tyrannical you want to be, you can set up population controls so that you won't have to expand the farms. And if there is any surplus, you can take it and give them money for it.

Yes, we also know that they care for the dead on their own initiative (Way of Kings), and that they do have parental and familial instincts(Oathbringer). It doesn't matter if they can't do anything with the pay, you pay them anyways and deduct food expenses as necessary. Not paying them makes it slavery, while paying puts it into a grayer area (It would still be bad though, as slaveform singers are unable to give any sort of informed consent).

We do know that slaveform singers can do some things on their own initiative, such as caring for their young and their dead, so it's not certain that they would starve if left alone. And even if that isn't true, it wouldn't be impossible to make self-sustaining farms for them, thus eliminating any resource drain. If you're going to make them work like everyone else, then pay them like everyone else.

Yeah, it seems like he's trying to get them to manifest physically. I wonder if those spren are properly dead, or if the experiments are the cause of those unaccounted-for deadeyes Adolin and company encountered in Shadesmar.

I would also point out that if they didn't make their fabrial themselves, or ask for it to be made, and if using the fabrial does not cause any more suffering in and of itself, they wouldn't really be doing anything hypocritical.

Now that aluminium is being used as a defence against Shardblades, I'm wondering how sharp living Blades can get. Given that Shardblades don't really have to worry about structural integrity in the same way as normal blades, they should be able to get pretty sharp. In the modern world, we already have atomically sharp blades that would cut through almost anything like butter if not for their edges dulling too quickly. If a Shardblade could get to that sharpness, it would be basically unaffected by aluminium, at least in regards to cutting power. But would that be possible? Are there WOB's on the limits of sprenblade shapeshifting?