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The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

ethanzuckerman.com

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Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#31

Post by [deleted] »

ModernMech wrote: post #25
cousin_it wrote: post #20

I keep thinking about Dostoevsky's account of late 19th century Russian prison in "The House of the Dead". It's in a remote town, but it's pretty open, civilians walk in and out and do business with inmates. Why are modern prisons so cut off from society in comparison?

The modern prison is not modeled after a town, school, or hospital as a place of community, growth, and rehabilitation. The modern prison is modeled after a dairy farm, where prisoners are livestock to be housed and milked for profit. I’m a big believer in the idea that economic incentives determine behavior, so until we take the profit motive out of the prison system, I believe it will continue to be a place of expl…

[deleted]

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#32

Post by nemo44x »

simmerup wrote: post #9
FeepingCreature wrote: post #8

I mean, I'm with Snow here. I think the response is a bit poor in that "well, we don't know that this is safe, so this proposal is obviously crazy and does no one any good." Maybe we could find out if it's safe? It doesn't seem obvious to me that it's a bad idea.

What happens when a rowdy prisoner breaks the VR headset and is suddenly trapped alone in a box for 10 years. What state do you think he’ll be in when he’s let out? Ridiculous idea

Lobotomy was used for this purpose for many years to make unruly prisoners docile. The practice is still legal (and doesn't use an ice pick any longer), however it is rarely used today.

There are however an array of medications that could be administrated to force compliance and do not cause a permanent state like a lobotomy would.

But yes, the entire idea is dehumanizing in my opinion.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#34

Post by nemo44x »

ModernMech wrote: post #26
FeepingCreature wrote: post #8

I mean, I'm with Snow here. I think the response is a bit poor in that "well, we don't know that this is safe, so this proposal is obviously crazy and does no one any good." Maybe we could find out if it's safe? It doesn't seem obvious to me that it's a bad idea.

The idea is obviously bad because it’s ostensibly designed to protect prisoners by reducing the opportunity for prisoner-on-prisoner violence. A noble goal, but what this fails to recognize is a good chunk of prison violence originates from guards, including sexual assault. I fear giving guards free reign to isolated prisoners would have the exact opposite effect of reducing violence in prison.

That sounds like a pretty easy problem to solve with auditable surveillance that is redundantly deployed and has realtime ML algorithms that "watch" it.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#36

Post by mcguire »

_fat_santa wrote: post #5

Archive link to the story the author is talking about https://web.archive.org/web/20160304065420/http://maneatingr...

"My list of biggest fears in life goes something like this: #1: Being trapped in submarine, #2: Floating away into space, #3: Going to prison"

He then proceeds to convert #3 to #1.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#37

Post by jrm4 »

Honestly, as a black person I'm all too familiar with this kind of obliviousness. For me, it usually comes in the form of dumb commentary like..

"We can fix this in a way like the following; if I were a kid from the rough part of town, I would go to the library instead of joining a gang. We need to work on why this doesn't happen more."

In a way, these are even worse because they're simultaneously technically correct and royally stupid and completely unhelpful because it's very obvious the writer is absolutely ignorant and clueless about the big picture and efforts that already exist. It's like running up in a hospital and yelling at doctors to wash their hands because infections ARE STILL KILLING PEOPLE.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#38

Post by cybernautique »

sombremesa wrote: post #4
Veen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sure, we have to “draw the line”, but isn’t that arbitrary? Perhaps, insofar as it's arbitrary to be more concerned about the well-being of victims than perpetrators. Personally, I have arbitrarily decided to care more about potential murder victims than convicted murderers, potential rape victims than convicted rapists, property owners than convicted thieves, and so on.

Makes sense - I’m well aware no one here cares about anyone else’s wellbeing (but some claims to the contrary sure are good for your image), and you can freely move that line around whenever you want to dunk on someone on Twitter or HN. That’s what life’s about. Or maybe that’s just Twitter, on HN it’s about saying things everyone agrees with and never bringing up something difficult to respond to, so you won’t get d…

Which of these points leads you to declare that the parent doesn't "care about anyone else's well-being?" Genuinely interested.

> Perhaps, insofar as it's arbitrary to be more concerned about the well-being of victims than perpetrators.

[1] Personally, I have arbitrarily decided to care more about potential murder victims than convicted murderers;

[2] potential rape victims than convicted rapists;

[3] property owners than convicted thieves;

[4] and so on.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#39

Post by ModernMech »

nemo44x wrote: post #34
ModernMech wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea is obviously bad because it’s ostensibly designed to protect prisoners by reducing the opportunity for prisoner-on-prisoner violence. A noble goal, but what this fails to recognize is a good chunk of prison violence originates from guards, including sexual assault. I fear giving guards free reign to isolated prisoners would have the exact opposite effect of reducing violence in prison.

That sounds like a pretty easy problem to solve with auditable surveillance that is redundantly deployed and has realtime ML algorithms that "watch" it.

And this surveillance system would be controlled by…

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#40

Post by cousin_it »

ModernMech wrote: post #25
cousin_it wrote: post #20

I keep thinking about Dostoevsky's account of late 19th century Russian prison in "The House of the Dead". It's in a remote town, but it's pretty open, civilians walk in and out and do business with inmates. Why are modern prisons so cut off from society in comparison?

The modern prison is not modeled after a town, school, or hospital as a place of community, growth, and rehabilitation. The modern prison is modeled after a dairy farm, where prisoners are livestock to be housed and milked for profit. I’m a big believer in the idea that economic incentives determine behavior, so until we take the profit motive out of the prison system, I believe it will continue to be a place of expl…

That can't be the answer to my question, as prisons have become more isolated also in countries where they aren't privatized.
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