Prison vs. Harvard in an unlikely debate • Hacker News Board

Re: Prison vs. Harvard in an unlikely debate

#11

Post by ebfe » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

lazyant wrote: post #7

"Republican politicians () argued that many law-abiding families struggled to afford college and shouldn’t have pay for convicted criminals to get degrees"- while this opinion has merit, it shows again Republicans have no compassion, it's a paradox that many called themselves Christian when in the Bible Jesus explicitly commanded to help the imprisoned.

Surely you see the difference between helping the poor vs. taking other people's money and using part of it to help the poor.

Re: Prison vs. Harvard in an unlikely debate

#12

Post by kaffeemitsahne » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

asdfologist wrote: post #9

lazyant wrote: post #7

"Republican politicians () argued that many law-abiding families struggled to afford college and shouldn’t have pay for convicted criminals to get degrees"- while this opinion has merit, it shows again Republicans have no compassion, it's a paradox that many called themselves Christian when in the Bible Jesus explicitly commanded to help the imprisoned.

It's also incredibly short-sighted. Norway treats their prisoners with respect and invests in rehabilitating rather than punishing them, and guess what? Their recidivism rate is 20%, compared to 67% in the US.

Pretty sure higher education in Norway is also cheap/free for non-prisoners.

Re: Prison vs. Harvard in an unlikely debate

#13

Post by akiselev » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 5:35 PM UTC

ebfe wrote: post #11

lazyant wrote: post #7

"Republican politicians () argued that many law-abiding families struggled to afford college and shouldn’t have pay for convicted criminals to get degrees"- while this opinion has merit, it shows again Republicans have no compassion, it's a paradox that many called themselves Christian when in the Bible Jesus explicitly commanded to help the imprisoned.

Surely you see the difference between helping the poor vs. taking other people's money and using part of it to help the poor.

Surely you see the difference between just taking other people's money vs requiring everyone above a certain means to pay into the social contract that brings order to chaos and keeps us from Darwinian anarchy?

Re: Prison vs. Harvard in an unlikely debate

#14

Post by elektromekatron » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 5:37 PM UTC

ebfe wrote: post #11

lazyant wrote: post #7

"Republican politicians () argued that many law-abiding families struggled to afford college and shouldn’t have pay for convicted criminals to get degrees"- while this opinion has merit, it shows again Republicans have no compassion, it's a paradox that many called themselves Christian when in the Bible Jesus explicitly commanded to help the imprisoned.

Surely you see the difference between helping the poor vs. taking other people's money and using part of it to help the poor.

You're already paying for the jails. If you want to pay less for the jails, provide free college in jail. If you don't want taxes on the other hand, you have no prisoners to worry about educating anyway, as you have no jails. Or for that matter, schools, hospitals, army, police, paved roads, or stable currency.

Re: Prison vs. Harvard in an unlikely debate

#15

Post by stephengillie » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 5:46 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #2

I was expecting to read about a debate on the relative merits of going to prison, or to Harvard.

You'll likely learn a great deal at either place, and we could indeed debate the merits of lessons learned at each place. But the body of knowledge learned at each is so different - there's so little overlap. Minus the social stigma, being processed through both institutions likely results in a very rounded worldly education. Knowing that some individuals have indeed done this, what is their perspective?