Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How extreme isolation warps the mind

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 143 posts

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#21

Post by xcntktn »

There is a prisoner in the US Federal system who has been in solitary confinement for 27 years:

http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/

A court recently ruled that his conditions did not constitute a violation of the 8th amendment:

http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-co...

It is scary to think that while this article start out with an example of "almost 10,000 hours" in isolation as something horrific, here is a prisoner in the US who has been in isolation more than 20 times longer than that, and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal.

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#22

Post by ZenoArrow »

MarkPNeyer wrote: post #7
nostrademons wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homelessness as well. I wonder if much of the mental illness that characterizes chronic homelessness is as much an effect as a cause of it, creating a vicious cycle that's really hard to escape.

http://s3.neyer.me/homeless.txt

I would like to read more from your pen if it exists, please feel free to share more.

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#24

Post by jqm »

biot wrote: post #18
jqm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with you 100%. Some of these symptoms might appear in people who are isolated and working remotely or people who spend long stretches of time locked away and working on projects. In fact, I'll go so far as to say I am sure less severe version of these symptoms appear. I'm surprised you don't see the connection and can only assume you have not been in one of these situations or are not a programmer.

This is the comment you should have made originally. Your initial comment comes across as little more than an unsuccessful attempt at a funny one-liner. Here's what pg has to say[0] about those kinds of comments: "The most dangerous form of stupid comment is not the long but mistaken argument, but the dumb joke. [...] Whatever the cause, stupid comments tend to be short. And since it's hard to write a short comment t…

Stupid comments might tend to be short.

But all short comments are not stupid. Sometimes it is possible to say much with humor in very few words.

Thank you for providing a guys opinion. But I don't happen to be religious.

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#26

Post by AimHere »

jqm wrote: post #2

Good article. Now I have an excuse for getting on HN from time to time while locked away in the solitary confinement of VIM.

See, this is why you should have been using emacs all along. Theological and ergonomic considerations aside, for your sanity's sake, GNU emacs comes with two IRC clients, a web browser, an email reader and a usenet reader to stave off isolation-induced hacker-madness. And in extremis, with no network connection, there's always M-x doctor.

Truly, RMS thought of everything, and then put it in emacs twice, just in case.

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#27

Post by moe »

xcntktn wrote: post #21

There is a prisoner in the US Federal system who has been in solitary confinement for 27 years : http://www.peteearley.com/thomas-silverstein/ A court recently ruled that his conditions did not constitute a violation of the 8th amendment: http://solitarywatch.com/2013/09/25/federal-appeals-court-co... It is scary to think that while this article start out with an example of "almost 10,000 hours" in isolation as somet…

and the courts have upheld this treatment as legal

Well, given his track record, what alternative is there?

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#28

Post by electromagnetic »

This is more "extreme sensory deprivation is bad" rather than "extreme isolation is bad".

There is lots of evidence of extreme social isolation having minimal impact on people's mental stability over long periods. It's not that we need people, it's that we need to be able to form our own narrative. We need to know what we're doing, why and what it's getting us.

Extreme isolation of small groups seems much worse, especially long term where increased rates of social deviance becomes evidenced.

Re: How extreme isolation warps the mind

#30

Post by thom »

delluminatus wrote: post #5

A psychological gem was dropped in the middle of the article: People in her circumstances have their world suddenly inverted, and there is nothing in the manner of their taking – no narrative of sacrifice, or enduring for a greater good – to help them derive meaning from it. They must somehow find meaning in their predicament – or mentally detach themselves from their day-to-day reality, which is a monumental task wh…

These are similar to the arguments Camus makes in the Myth of Sisyphus (on the minor philosophical point of whether or not one should kill oneself).
Post reply on HN