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After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

forklog.media

101–110 of 370 posts

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#101

I recently had someone in a restroom ask me how to flush the toilet. The toilets had IR sensors and flushed automatically. This person had been in prison for many years and had never seen that before. I think part of the social reform that people are protesting for recently needs to extend to people in prison. Our system does nothing to rehabilitate people or to prepare them to re-enter society. We need to treat pris…

Nowhere in the article does he ask for empathy, just describes what he is experiencing.

Just describing what I am experiencing too.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#102

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

In the UK, crime against property regularly attracts harsh sentencing; crime against the person not so much. Why? I think it perpetuates our historical values. The Government believes we're expendable, although useful enough to pay tax.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#103
post #8

Its terrible how the American system thinks about prison's. Imagine he could do/learn something good in those 10 years, when he was locked away to protect the public (and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public))

First of all, comparing to many many other prisons if the world, US prison system is like a hotel.

Second of all, when you do a crime you already know what the punishment will be. IF you proceed you consciously agree to that.

Sure he could do a lot of good in 10 years, but he also could do a lot of bad.

Sure there are many things that can be improved, like giving access to learning etc. And this probably will be done. But its hard to prioritize them, considering even people who are not imprisoned have a lot of problems, and they haven't done anything wrong. So logically their problems should be prioritized.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#104
post #51

The story seems off (temporally) for someone who got incarcerated circa 2010. Nothing very interesting has happened to technology since then.

That is what I was thinking, too. Hell, we had iPhones well before 2010. There hasn't been any kind of tectonic shift in technology since 2010, just mild evolution. Outside of a few specific areas (web frameworks, anyone?), skills from 2010 should still be very applicable today. Now, if the author was arguing that it's a mindfuck to be incarcerated for 10 years and it makes him feel out of place, and his mindset is n…

> Now, if the author was arguing that it's a mindfuck to be incarcerated for 10 years and it makes him feel out of place, and his mindset is no longer really tuned towards technology, that I could totally believe.

You and I can see that forest. To the author, there are only trees. I think that's pretty understandable given the context.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#105

I recently had someone in a restroom ask me how to flush the toilet. The toilets had IR sensors and flushed automatically. This person had been in prison for many years and had never seen that before. I think part of the social reform that people are protesting for recently needs to extend to people in prison. Our system does nothing to rehabilitate people or to prepare them to re-enter society. We need to treat pris…

FWIW, the rest of the world considers prison sentences in the US to be absurdly long. This guy apparently got 10 years for hacking; in much of Europe, you'd get less than that for murder.

Not arguing, the US system needs a lot of work. The recent protest have been about what happens on the street but that is only half of the story. Once you are in the system here its very hard to get out. Our recidivism rates are crazy.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#106
post #54
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public) That's not true. Our prisons should protect the public, rehabilitate prisoners in so far as they can, and, to an appropriate extent, punish. Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime. Now in general I think our prisons and sentenci…

The appropriate extent of punishment is that you are not allowed your freedom. You are restrained from engaging in society. However, currently, in the US, prisoners are a) primarily incarcerated for non-violent crime, b) used as indentured servants with their labor sold without freedom to withdraw their labor, c) kept in prison beyond reasonable and appropriate sentences to provide the private and public purse of peo…

> prisoners are a) primarily incarcerated for non-violent crime

You need to be careful about the difference between "of people sentenced to prison, how many were sentenced for a nonviolent crime?" and "of people currently in prison, how many are serving a sentence for a nonviolent crime?".

Only the first question will tell you that prisoners are primarily incarcerated for nonviolent crime. This is a result of sentences for nonviolent crimes being much lighter than sentences for violent crimes.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#107

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

You are in Asia right? Let’s see

China - disappeared for comparing xi jing ping the dictator to Winnie the Pooh, or mention Hong Kong or Taiwan in a postiive light on wechat

Singapore - 2 years in jail for selling gum, death penalty for Having drugs

Vietnam - 34 years for drug trafficking

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#108

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

There are problably plenty of dictatorships that punish harsher than the US, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find democratic, freedom-loving countries that punish harsher than the US does. Except maybe when it comes to crimes by rich/important people with good connections.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#109

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

North Korea is harsher

Did you know the recidivism rate in the US is around 43%? Maybe it would be better for us a nation to work on making the justice system more about rehabilitation than punishment.

Setting the bar at "North Korea" is simply childish and unhelpful.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#110
post #24
post #8

Its terrible how the American system thinks about prison's. Imagine he could do/learn something good in those 10 years, when he was locked away to protect the public (and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public))

> and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public) That's not true. Our prisons should protect the public, rehabilitate prisoners in so far as they can, and, to an appropriate extent, punish. Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime. Now in general I think our prisons and sentenci…

> Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime.

Consequences could be restoration and responsibility instead of mere punishment.

Still, let's say punishment has a place for some severe crimes where restoration/responsibility isn't possible or for people who will not cooperate.

Imprisonment itself is punitive -- there should be no better time that the entire public should understand fully that the loss of freedom and opportunity and association involved in confinement is no small one, because almost all of us have gotten a small taste of what that's like, and some people have found it difficult even when it's their own homes stocked with their own possessions and comforts.

Can we really justify the degree to which we create further suffering beyond the consequences of imprisonment itself?

And if these consequences aren't actually written into the law -- which specifies imprisonment, but not necessarily isolation, or $.05 per email, or informal violence in prison -- can we really said to be a society based on law or justice?

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