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After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

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171–180 of 370 posts

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#171
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Emotional responses shouldn't trump your sense of justice and fairness to human life. I have someone that was close to me murdered and I don't think that a harsher punishment only for my enjoyment is the answer to "what is justice?".

hypothetically, if you could see into the future and ascertain that the perpetrator feels regret and would never commit another crime, should they still serve time? I would think that there should still be some period of incarceration as a putative measure.

Incarceration is a great punishment by itself, depriving someone of their freedom of movement is already quite a lot. What I meant is there is no need for a vengeful justice beyond that.

If an individual is dangerous for society they shouldn't be in it, this doesn't mean forever if there is a possibility of rehabilitation. There are many monsters locked up that probably should never be released, in that sense the justice systems of Norway, Germany, Sweden and others work well: you are locked up to 20 years, after that your case is reviewed and if you are still deemed a danger to society you get it prolonged, a few times this goes on for life.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#172
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term. In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are rout…

>10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. Ross Ulbricht got double life imprisonment + 40 years for a non violent crime.

I mean, paying to have someone murdered is, kinda sorta violent.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessive for most non-violent crimes. you miss the point. prisons are a massive industry with serious lobbying clout. Putting lots of people in prison for a long time isn't a punishment to the prisoner, it's a gift to the prison system. The "punishment" is just a side effect, and the longer it lasts, the richer the people in power…

10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term. In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are rout…

Not rare in New York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Drug_Laws

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#174
post #81

This bit at the end was the most interesting to me. "For me, I stepped out into an uncertain future. I don’t really see meaningful human interaction anymore. I see a society that is impossibly distracted by likes and selfies, smartphones, and similar technologies, and I often find it frustrating to find my place in the midst of this new interconnected world simply because I was not there to naturally evolve with it."

Has it really changed that much in 10 years, or is part of it just the sense of alienation everyone experiences getting out of jail after a long time? I mean, 10 years ago people lamented over the exact same thing; and before that, and before the before. I can't prove it of course, but I'd bet you might feel that "human interaction" is not quite what you remember it to be if you had only just spent 10 years behind th…

>has it really changed that much in 10 years

I'm inclined to follow Peter Thiels view here. We were promised flying cars and got 140 (now more) characters on Twitter.

Tech has changed. But everything else is so much the same it almost hurts.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#175
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term. In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are rout…

>10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. Ross Ulbricht got double life imprisonment + 40 years for a non violent crime.

Didn't he try to hire a hitman to murder some associate of his?

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has more prisoners per capita than North Korea.

Honestly and without sarcasm: from what I understand, it seems like pretty much everybody in North Korea is a prisoner of North Korea. Not having control of your own life, being constantly monitored, and not being allowed to leave are all hallmarks of prison life. Add to that starvation and retributive acts against your family by the state itself.

Let's not get caught up in hyperbole here. North Korea is a harsh dictatorship, but even then, you get to live, breathe the outside air, have a family, raise kids, and you don't risk being raped at every turn (as in physically raped, let's not mince words here and go on a tangent about "mental rape by the state" or whatnot).

It's probably choosing between two kinds of hell, but if given the chance, I'll 100% no-questions-asked go to live in North Korea rather than be incarcerated 10 years in a US prison. (It goes without saying that I'd rather live free in the US, I hope this doesn't need saying. Also it goes without saying that I'd rather live in another country rather than North Korea; this is a thought experiment where these are the only two options).

Of course, prison in North Korea must be hell too, but that's not what we're talking about.

Finally, comparing the US to North Korea -- is that really the bar we want to use?

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#177
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. Ross Ulbricht got double life imprisonment + 40 years for a non violent crime.

Didn't he try to hire a hitman to murder some associate of his?

He wasn't charged with that, although all reports indicate he did do it. All sorts of conspiracy theories as to why he wasn't charged, most likely boils down to LE or prosecutorial incompetence.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 years of prison time for a single non-violent crime is extremely rare in America. What can happen in certain states, is that repeat offenders are hit with escalating prison terms each time they are convicted (the classic example are the three-strikes-your-out laws), whereby someone can be sentenced to a life term. In those cases, sentences don't translate to actual prison terms since non-violent offenders are rout…

Can those 'three strikes' happen as part of the same crime complex? Not a perfect example, but let's say an addict robs someone on the street, buys a big score of her favorite drug and then sells some of that to an addict friend. Would that be considered three strikes?

No, that wouldn't work that way.

Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#179
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and that really should be the only point for prisons (protect the public) That's not true. Our prisons should protect the public, rehabilitate prisoners in so far as they can, and, to an appropriate extent, punish. Some people are skittish about the idea of punsihment. But it's abhorrent to our sense of justice that one suffer no consequences after committing a crime. Now in general I think our prisons and sentenci…

In my observations of the American public, people generally seem to be fine with the extreme sentences and punishment that the system doles out. We’re completely apathetic towards most criminals (usually unless they happen to be rich & white), without understanding the circumstances that created their situation. Take the Crystal Mason case. She’s a Texas woman of color who voted illegally in the 2016 election and got…

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Re: After 10 years in tech isolation, I’m now outsider to things I once had mastered

#180
post #108

> "Caging me for a decade is not rehabilitating. I may be making excuses for myself, though there is a lesson that could have been learned with the same amount of value for justice if the sentence was 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, even 6 years." From the article at: https://forklog.media/ex-convicted-hacker-ghostexodus-severi... I don't consider myself a bleeding heart lib but I think that a decade in prison is excessiv…

There are problably plenty of dictatorships that punish harsher than the US, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find democratic, freedom-loving countries that punish harsher than the US does. Except maybe when it comes to crimes by rich/important people with good connections.

Us has the highest verified incarceration per capita in the world and the largest number of total prisoners. So at least by verified numbers it's not really even close, the US is by far the worst. Are the numbers accurate for China or other oppressive regimes? Who knows and North Korea doesn't release numbers but they're thought to be close to or slightly higher than the US' per capita numbers.

https://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-popul...

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