Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison • Hacker News Board

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#131

Post by sejje » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #62

sejje wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well if (I assume) you're talking about the prisons that aren't max-security, it's not very ridiculous at all. Most of the inmates in our prison system are treated "with humanity."

As a former minimum security inmate, you couldn't be more wrong. Security status has nothing to do with treatment. Just from your comment, I know that you've never so much as been detained. Prison is a lot better than county detention; in prison, there is a loose respect structure between COs and inmates (you live there, they don't). In county, inmates are dehumanized beyond nothing as a form of control and a mechani…

I appreciate your reply.

You are not incorrect, and most of my "knowledge" came from one person, who was incarcerated for ripping off a casino--not via my own experience.

He did 17 years in a really lax place. Pool tables and ping pong and TV and community rooms, stuff like that.

A bit of a knee-jerk response on my part.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#132

Post by markvdb » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:33 PM UTC

jsmeaton wrote: post #129

ShinyCyril wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Rehabilitation is supposed to be one of the purposes, but is that true in many places in the world anymore?

Some serious attempts at rehabilitation in Norway:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-pri...

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#133

Post by rudolf0 » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:37 PM UTC

Alupis wrote: post #119

rudolf0 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Where are you drawing this line between religion and ethics? Jews believe it is wrong to eat pork, vegans believe it is wrong to eat animals. What makes one of these beliefs a protected status and one not?

>How do you actually determine if a diet is being followed for pure taste reasoning, or if it's something based on personal ethics?

One can also lie about religious affiliation, or magically "convert", to get better or alternative meals, and in fact some prisoners do this. I don't see your point.

Religious belief and ethical belief both reside in someone's mind and nowhere else.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#134

Post by psykovsky » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:37 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #73

film42 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Although Sunde did not provide Ars with specific financial details regarding The Pirate Bay's operational expenses, he did argue that the site's high bandwidth, power, and hardware costs eliminate the potential for profit. The Pirate Bay, he says, may ultimately be operating at a loss. Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/02/pirate-bay-big-re...

I'm generally in favor of TPB, but " may be operating at a loss"? How the hell do you not know if your bottom line is going up or down? This sounds fishy to me.

Because he was mostly a mouthpiece for the site and not privy to financial details?

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#135

Post by baby » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:43 PM UTC

film42 wrote: post #18

adamnemecek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running servers costs money. And IIRC they were actually losing money even with the ads.

> Although Sunde did not provide Ars with specific financial details regarding The Pirate Bay's operational expenses, he did argue that the site's high bandwidth, power, and hardware costs eliminate the potential for profit. The Pirate Bay, he says, may ultimately be operating at a loss. Source: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2008/02/pirate-bay-big-re...

I don't believe any of this, they have a very optimized website that only serves text and ads. Even one small server could handle the traffic.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#136

Post by thaumasiotes » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:43 PM UTC

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…

> Astrologically speaking, iron ions from spinach are dramatically different than iron ions from a steak, but your biochemistry won't know the difference.

In general, this is not true. In particular, we can read the straight dope ( http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/696/why-was-spinach... ):

> Spinach's star dimmed once more research was done. It turned out the iron in it couldn't be readily absorbed by the body.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#137

Post by Alupis » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:48 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #125

Alupis wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Not agreed. Your right to accept certain philosophies while in prion is forfeited upon conviction. There are a bunch of international covenants and agreements that disagree with you. This document talks specifically about food: http://www.prisonersabroad.org.uk/uploads/documents/prisoner... Your misrepresentations of the reasons some people are vegan or vegetarian are so severe it makes the conversation pointless.…

The document you linked to does not protect personal choice of diet.

> 2.3.9 European Prison Rules

> See para (1.2.4) above for an explanation of the European Prison Rules. Rule 22 states “Prisoners shall be provided with a nutritious diet that takes into account their ... religion, culture ..."

> 2.4 Vegetarian and Vegan diets

> In some countries, the food provided to all prisoners may be vegetarian (non-vegetarians may have to buy meat).

So the inverse is true with prisons that serve meat.

> Receiving vegetarian or vegan meals in prison may not be an easy process. In some countries, you may be required to show that your request for a vegetarian or vegan diet is based on ethical or religious beliefs.

Again, the EU portion of this document does not protect ethical beliefs, only religious ones.

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#138

Post by MichaelGG » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:49 PM UTC

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #79

MichaelGG wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still unelegant and inconsistent. If I claim my diet requires high-quality food determined by me daily, that gets ignored. I understand Kosher for commercial enterprises like airlines: with a minimum of effort, they can satisfy many customers. But governments should have consistent treatment of citizens.

> It's still unelegant and inconsistent. If I claim my diet requires high-quality food determined by me daily, that gets ignored. Wardens are not robots and are capable of applying common sense and judgment. If a prisoner claims that his morals require him not to eat animal products, he's likely to be telling the truth. If he claims his morals require Kobe beef daily, he's probably lying.

Why is my claim that I must have Kobe beef (because I'm divine, and I say so) any less valid than the claim I can't eat pork because God said so?

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#139

Post by geofft » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:50 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #117

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wait, why is it stupid and pointless in this case?

We have multiple anecdotes indicating people have had problems; we have at least one indicating people don't. This is, to me, clearly evidence against both "Everyone has problems" and "Nobody has problems" and in favor of "Some people have problems", and for the specific policy question at hand, we're trying to evaluate "Some people have problems".

Re: Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Released from Prison

#140

Post by joe_the_user » Mon, Nov 10, 2014, 10:51 PM UTC

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…

Western society once considered prisons to have multiple functions; punishment, deterrent and rehabilitation. Now it seems the punishment part has become it.

Obviously, this seems to go along with the assumption that the only thing stopping committing crimes is there fear of getting caught. I think that's probably much more true for hacking a bank for a million dollars than murder (which most people aren't just itching to get away with).

The rehabilitation assumption goes along with the idea that if person improves, if they are uplifted, they won't commit crimes. The punishment assumption goes with the idea that everyone is a criminal and the question is who can get away with it. And the "everyone is a criminal" assumption certainly makes with those presently at the top of society making out like bandits (aside from having made laws which make their actions legal).

So, perhaps what you say is true at the moment. But it's truth involves us being diminished.