How I got here • Hacker News Board

Re: How I got here

#161

Post by zoogeny » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:39 PM UTC

wavemode wrote: post #128

zoogeny wrote: post #117

> Who else has an opportunity to spend 12+ hours a day learning something for years? With no other obligations or responsibilities? Totally tangential, but this prison article reminded me of a short story by Cory Doctorow about a monastery for programmers. I imagined living in a room about the size of my home office, a bed, a desk, a decent MacBook Pro and a high-speed connection and just hanging out on the Internet…

Athene was indeed trying to start a cult (it had all the basic elements). And from watching him speak in the past, he did seem to me like a huge narcissist. Haven't been following his latest projects much, and I can't speak to how the Singularity group has changed since back then. Though I have seen his AI channel sometimes. It's moderately entertaining.

I cant't comment directly on whether or not he was or wasn't actually trying to start a cult, but I am interested in cults in general (and any kind of esoteric/occult stuff) so I devoured a lot of content related to this. I mean, a 21st century digital cult!? That is some juicy stuff!

What I found was a young idealistic kid who was playing a character online. He was optimizing for views and we all know what kind of behavior gets attention online. The character was overblown and narcissistic. There is zero argument from me that if you take selected clips of him from when he was at the height of his streaming fame he was a dumb-ass edge-lord playing the role of a prophet or spiritual leader. He even leaned into it when he was accused because he thought it was funny. But when you watch recent videos of him (he does a pretty good react to Asmongold's react of him), I think I saw a different side.

All that being said, he isn't a kind of character I trust. He seems to me to be very much the kind of person where the ends justify the means. He has some pretty high ideals, some of which I agree with and others which I am sympathetic towards. It's like Greenpeace or animal rights activists ... even if I agree with their overall goals I often disagree with their methods.

Re: How I got here

#162

Post by simplicio » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:41 PM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #144

gavinhoward wrote: post #3

This is an incredible post, and I encourage everyone to read it. I wish I knew better how to help incarcerated people. Based on the Norway(?) model, I feel like help would reduce return rates, but I don't know how to go about it.

I just got out after 10 years. I work with a lot of people just coming out (just been helping a guy locked up for 40 years, he's doing great). The biggest issue is that 95% of them will be returned within a few months. Drugs is the main cause. You get out, you have no ID, no job, no family, no friends. You're stuck in a halfway house that is just like being in prison (lots of rules, line up for meal service etc). All…

The no ID thing is interesting. The article mentions that as a major issue as well. Seems like it'd be a pretty cheap intervention to just issue all out-going prisoners a gov't photo ID on their release.

Re: How I got here

#163

Post by overrun11 » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:45 PM UTC

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #124

TacticalCoder wrote: post #108

TFA is interesting but I've got a problem with this: > I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apar…

Asking newly-release prisoners to have the absolute strongest constitution and pain endurance is also not obvious to me. The average person would struggle in this situation, and we expect formerly-incarcerate individuals to be even stronger than them? It doesn't offend me at all to see it highlighted as "obvious" to the author. For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the on…

Crime will always pay better than legitimate alternatives. You can either choose to sacrifice the extra income or risk going to prison– that's kind of just how society functions.

> For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the only choice).

Then they can go back to prison. Society need not be blackmailed into giving ex-cons excessively lucrative jobs in hopes of luring them away from crime.

Re: How I got here

#164

Post by lkj34tlk34t » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

ulizzle wrote: post #110

JessicaHicklin wrote: post #94

Whatever people are incarcerated for, the fact of the matter is that 95% of the people currently incarcerated in the US will one day live next door to one or more of us. Isn't it better to prepare them to live there, self-sufficent and contributing to society? (Disclosure: I am the Cofounder of Unlocked Labs, Preston's current employer and formerly incarcerated myself). I can say without hesitation, Preston is an inc…

There are a lot of historical examples arguing for and against you. But murder and rape is far different than getting popped for heroin or selling weed and our laws already reflect that

[flagged]

Re: How I got here

#165

Post by _dark_matter_ » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

overrun11 wrote: post #163

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Asking newly-release prisoners to have the absolute strongest constitution and pain endurance is also not obvious to me. The average person would struggle in this situation, and we expect formerly-incarcerate individuals to be even stronger than them? It doesn't offend me at all to see it highlighted as "obvious" to the author. For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the on…

Crime will always pay better than legitimate alternatives. You can either choose to sacrifice the extra income or risk going to prison– that's kind of just how society functions. > For some high proportion of these individuals, it is obvious (and indeed seems like the only choice). Then they can go back to prison. Society need not be blackmailed into giving ex-cons excessively lucrative jobs in hopes of luring them a…

Certainly. But it's not quite as binary as you make it out to be. Lowering the threshold to having a stable job for the people might change the proportion quite a bit. If we gave them excessively lucrative jobs as you suggested, we may be able to prevent most recidivism!

Re: How I got here

#166

Post by overrun11 » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:52 PM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #20

causality0 wrote: post #10

I don't at all care for the way in which he mentions his crimes were nonviolent and tells us about being arrested for dealing ecstasy (a drug with little taboo associated with it) while skipping over the fact he's currently in prison for dealing choke-on-your-own-vomit synthetic opiods, not cute party drugs. That stuff killed a coworker's son a few years ago. Died right in his own recliner.

People do things they're not proud of in desperate situations. Also, everyone was 18-21 once. Speaking as someone who (barely) survived an unintentional acetyl-fentanyl overdose that hospitalized me with rhabdo and almost killed my then-fiance -- him dealing this stuff is not the end of the world. I think a lot of people on HN don't know what it's like to be someone below the poverty line who is also entangled with t…

> People do things they're not proud of in desperate situations.

Having to get an office temp job for minimum wage at 24 isn't ideal but it's a stretch to call it "desperate" and somehow justifying pushing opiates.

> what it's like to be someone below the poverty line

Which he wouldn't have been with the job options he had available at the time.

Re: How I got here

#167

Post by vertis » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:54 PM UTC

chroma wrote: post #141

andai wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I’ve been a victim of violent crime at least a dozen times in my life. I can't think of a way to say this without sounding insensitive, but have you considered moving?

I've moved lots of times. In terms of crime, the SF bay area was by far the worst. The Bronx was second-worst, but I hear it's gotten a lot better since I lived there. Portland has gotten pretty bad over the past few years but at least I can legally carry a gun there. When you're 5'6" and 120lbs, criminals will target you.

You should try Europe or Australia. The worst I've ever experienced is having someone break and enter while I wasn't there. I have lived in what could be considered less than savoury areas in Sydney and have stayed all over Europe and the world (as a digital nomad, currently at 45 countries).

And you won't feel the need to carry a gun...

Re: How I got here

#168

Post by neilv » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

lynx23 wrote: post #114

closewith wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you know how alone you are in this compassionless response.

Going with the opinion of the masses was never anything I aspired to anyways, so... Thanks for the compliment.

Are your comments on this post more about you and your experiences, than about the person who wrote the article?

I hope that you're doing well, and that you see compassion from others whenever you need it.

Re: How I got here

#169

Post by oooyay » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 6:59 PM UTC

chroma wrote: post #154

k1ns wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not defending this. It's not an argument, it's a fact. If you're not afraid of the idea, look it up. Part of the problem here is never bucking back against what we've been taught and doing our own exploration.

I'm asking for facts. Surely if there are thousands of examples, three exploitative companies shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

I think this describes the issue k1ns is referring to: https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/private-c...

> The next year, 111 inmates continued to produce “decorated party balloons” for MINNCOR, according to NCIA’s database. Large contracts such as this, coupled with correctional industries wages of between $0.50 and $2.00 per hour, allowed MINNCOR to make a profit of over $13 million in 2019.

Also relevant: https://minncorprod.blob.core.windows.net/files/MINNCOR%20In...

I'm actually having trouble squaring the claim from corpaccountabilitylab.org of an average of $.50 - $2/hr and what MINNCOR claims which is an average of $14.20/hr. The leading value of MINNCOR industries is to have the industrial programs pay for the prison system, thereby not passing new taxes onto residents. The only way that I can think to measure whether that system is healthy or not is to determine if it can both scale down and scale up. If it can't scale down, then they will indeed be incentivized to incarcerate new people.

Also of note, MINNCOR continues to employ people on release. From the report: 172 released + 753 incarcerated = 925 total active participants. The low of self-reported wages is $10/hr, the high is $22.38.

Re: How I got here

#170

Post by zoogeny » Sat, Nov 11, 2023, 7:06 PM UTC

btrettel wrote: post #143

zoogeny wrote: post #117

> Who else has an opportunity to spend 12+ hours a day learning something for years? With no other obligations or responsibilities? Totally tangential, but this prison article reminded me of a short story by Cory Doctorow about a monastery for programmers. I imagined living in a room about the size of my home office, a bed, a desk, a decent MacBook Pro and a high-speed connection and just hanging out on the Internet…

I've had a similar idea before. I once was talking to someone who wanted to financially support independent scientific research. He had started a successful business (you may have heard of it, though I won't name it) and he wanted to put his money to good use. He wanted to find people he could write a check to, basically. I suggested that if he wanted to advance science as much as possible, it would be far more effic…

It is interesting to think that your definition of a "a dormitory for scientists with free room and board, as long as they do scientific research." is kinda-sorta what I think of when I consider the Institute for Advanced Study. If you squint hard enough, it is kinda-sorta what tenure in universities aims to provide.