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Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

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Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#111

Post by jsmthrowaway »

DanBC wrote: post #96
jsmthrowaway wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the society you live in. The entire point of prison is to suck, so as to be a deterrent against going there.

But thise prisons are stupid. They're very expensive and they just don't work. And by removjg diets you are disproportionately punishing some people. A Muslim given the same sentence as someone with no religion will suffer more as a result of imprisonment purely because of the lack of dietary choice. "Prison should suck" is a horrible sentiment, and runs contrary to the UDHR. I understand that American hasn't ratifie…

I didn't say it was right. I said it is the society we live in. Subtle difference but a key one, since you ran with it and ascribed things to me I didn't say (I'm not sure where you read -- and quoted -- me saying "prisons should suck," so this is a really crucial misread). It is very important to understand that I did not share an opinion with that observation.

To that end, I've been there. You think I'd come out and go "gosh golly, that was sure an effective means of handling my situation?"

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#112

Post by tn13 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #100

It's pretty rich that almost this entire thread is arguing about the prison not respecting Sunde's vegan wishes and his personal wealth and ideals. There are more than ninety comments here and all of them hang off nearly-dead comments. The entire point of prison is to suck, otherwise it wouldn't serve its role, which is to deter crime. Louis CK has a bit about this in one of his recent specials: ...but we really need…

I dont think the role of prison is to suck. The idea of justice has three components retribution, deterrence and prevention.

As a society it is of paramount importance how we define these three components and the fact that we adhere to those definitions. If it has to suck, it has to be defined apriori to what extent it sucks.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#113

Post by baddox »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #105
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the only goal of forcing someone to eat something they consider immoral is to punish. Prison is punishment first, rehabilitation second (and it's pretty bad at that considering the percentage of recidivists). Of all the consequences of breaking the law, being forced to eat something you don't like certainly sounds pretty mild.

>Prison is punishment first, rehabilitation second Says who? Punishment (beyond the punishing nature of the denial of one's freedom) need only be a part of prison because some peoples' (defective) morality demands it. The first priority of a prison is to protect the people at large from the expected behavior of convicted criminals. >Of all the consequences of breaking the law, being forced to eat something you don't…

It sounds like many of us in this thread might be talking past one another confusing normative and positive claims about the purpose of imprisonment.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#114

Post by baddox »

schoen wrote: post #68
zak_mc_kracken wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the only goal of forcing someone to eat something they consider immoral is to punish. Prison is punishment first, rehabilitation second (and it's pretty bad at that considering the percentage of recidivists). Of all the consequences of breaking the law, being forced to eat something you don't like certainly sounds pretty mild.

I think it's significant that you switched the parent commenter's "something they consider immoral" to "something you don't like". It does sound pretty mild if it's something you just don't like for mild aesthetic or taste reasons. That's definitely not the way many people think about some of the things that they don't eat.

> I think it's significant that you switched the parent commenter's "something they consider immoral" to "something you don't like".

I'm not the parent commenter, but I think those two phrases imply only a difference in scale.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#115

Post by ShinyCyril »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #100

It's pretty rich that almost this entire thread is arguing about the prison not respecting Sunde's vegan wishes and his personal wealth and ideals. There are more than ninety comments here and all of them hang off nearly-dead comments. The entire point of prison is to suck, otherwise it wouldn't serve its role, which is to deter crime. Louis CK has a bit about this in one of his recent specials: ...but we really need…

> The entire point of prison is to suck, otherwise it wouldn't serve its role, which is to deter crime.

Prison serves many purposes other than punishment - one of which is rehabilitation. Making someone's life miserable for several years, purely to punish them, does nothing in the long-run - hence why re-offending rates can be so high.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#116

Post by na85 »

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #100

It's pretty rich that almost this entire thread is arguing about the prison not respecting Sunde's vegan wishes and his personal wealth and ideals. There are more than ninety comments here and all of them hang off nearly-dead comments. The entire point of prison is to suck, otherwise it wouldn't serve its role, which is to deter crime. Louis CK has a bit about this in one of his recent specials: ...but we really need…

> How about the fact that he went to maximum at all?

Agree. It seemed obvious to me, an outside observer, that he was being disproportionately sentenced. Someone, whether influenced by the RIAA/MPAA cabal or not, decided that he should be made an example.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#117

Post by DanBC »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #57
Carrok wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe your friends. They may notice the meat in their stomachs and feel more 'full' than usual, even feel bad. But 'incapable of digesting it'? Not likely. What, the toilet has whole hotdog pieces in it?

I stopped eating meat as a regular part of my diet nearly four years ago, and now eating more than a little tiny bit will make me physically ill with severe stomach distress. I would certainly count that as 'not capable of digesting', and to say otherwise is pure pedantry. And if you're putting whole hotdog pieces in your stomach you might want to consider chewing a little more carefully, that way leads to choking.

To counter your anecdote: I was vegetarian for 26 years (and had been vegan for 5 of those years) and I had no problems eating beef, mutton, lamb, or pork.

Anecdotal evidence is stupid and pointless (includng my anecdotal evidence) and it's weird to see it so often on HN.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#118

Post by wamatt »

mikeyouse wrote: post #15
carlisle_ wrote: post #2

>There was no concern for his vegan diet I can't be the only one that thinks it's ridiculous for a prison to accommodate voluntary diets like this.

Is it really much different than Jews keeping Kosher or Muslims keeping Halal? Prisons are for punishment for crimes that we consider significant enough to jail people, they don't have to dehumanize the prisoners. The cost of 'specialty' food for a few tiny percent of prisoners is a minuscule figure in the total cost of imprisonment, and could easily be accommodated within the wider food offerings. If every meal had…

>The cost of 'specialty' food for a few tiny percent of prisoners is a minuscule figure in the total cost of imprisonment, and could easily be accommodated within the wider food offerings.

Agreed, this would seem to be manageable without much burden on the system.

On the other hand however, this reasoning discounts scenarios where inmates are pushing these subjective demarcations, for furthering their own needs, at the expense of being fair to everyone.

For example, in many states prisoner's may earn exemptions based off their religious practices.[1] If, an atheist prisoner, was denied sex, just because of their beliefs, I suspect they would have a right to be upset.

One should keep in mind, that it's quite possible to be supportive of increasing prisoner's rights and benefits, whilst also pushing for prisoner equality.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014...

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#119

Post by Alupis »

rudolf0 wrote: post #98
Alupis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, religious diets are arguably not voluntary. I'd say it's far different to allow a Kosher meal than it is to plan, purchase, prep, and serve a special diet to one inmate who has a preference of diet because that is how they chose to eat on the outside.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Religious diets are not voluntary, but choice of religion is voluntary. Vegetarian/vegan diets adhering to an ethical philosophy are not voluntary, but choosing to accept an animal rights philosophy is voluntary. Either both are a choice or neither are a choice, depending on how you define your terms. Now, if the vegan diet was for personal taste or even for health reason…

> Religious diets are not voluntary, but choice of religion is voluntary.

Agreed

> Vegetarian/vegan diets adhering to an ethical philosophy are not voluntary, but choosing to accept an animal rights philosophy is voluntary.

Not agreed. Your right to accept certain philosophies while in prion is forfeited upon conviction. This means, if you are not eating meat because you simply feel it's wrong -- well, the prison has no obligation to oblige you. If you are not eating meat because of your religion, that is different. Sure - one may "convert" to a new religion to obtain a certain preferred diet, but that is still applying the rule evenly and fairly.

> Now, if the vegan diet was for personal taste or even for health reasons (as long as there was no significant health impact from going off of it), then it's a different story.

This would be the foundation for an awful law which would be enforced with bias and randomness. How do you actually determine if a diet is being followed for pure taste reasoning, or if it's something based on personal ethics? You cannot, and therefore this cannot be a rule. Rules and laws must be based on a foundation that can be applied evenly and fairly to all, not left up to judgement by a sometimes-in-a-nice-mood-sometimes-in-a-bad-mood warden.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#120

Post by hiou »

VLM wrote: post #81
geofft wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My vegetarian friends say that they literally can't eat meat any more, in the sense that their stomach physiology (acids? bacteria? not sure) isn't capable of digesting it. Yes, it was voluntary at some point, but it's not clear that you can still apply that label. As someone with food allergies, I could understand (and be unhappy) if a captor decided to feed me allergens as intentional punishment, but I'd be pretty…

"in the sense that their stomach physiology isn't capable of digesting it" Its a very popular strightdope urban legend discussion topic. You'd die pretty quickly if you couldn't adsorb complete proteins. Astrologically speaking, iron ions from spinach are dramatically different than iron ions from a steak, but your biochemistry won't know the difference. You can get three interesting effects: 1) Any time you mess wit…

It's actually for the same reason people get sick when the visit countries with poor water quality and drink the water. They aren't used to the pathogens.

Check page 2 of this Consumer Reports article[1] for an example.

> Enterococcus was the most common bacterium we found, occurring in 79.8 percent of our samples. Next was E. coli, in 65.2 percent of them; campylobacter, 43 percent; klebsiella pneumoniae, 13.6 percent; salmonella, 10.8 percent, and staphylococcus aureus, 9.2 percent.

It's part of the reason that only some people experience the problems as a lot of it depends on how long you have not eaten meat, at what age you stopped eating meat, the overall strength of you immune system and just if you were unlucky the first time you resumed eating meat and ate something with higher percentage of pathogens present. Also, if you regularly cooked and ate from a kitchen that was mixed use or non meat.

[1] http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/02/the-high...

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