21–30 of 99 posts
I recently had to spend 14 days locked in a hotel room alone as mandatory quarantine to enter Australia. Shockingly (for me), after just 14 days I already felt more comfortable inside the room than out, and I got a real glimpse into what being "institutionalized" means. Life was so simple and not scary, it was enjoyable, in a sick kind of way. I couldn't imagine what coming out after an entire year would be like, let…
I urge anyone touched by this to learn about the prison abolition movement. My favorite thinker on the matter is Angela Davis. She was wrongly imprisoned for over a year in the 1971-1972 which called attention to political prisoners the world over. After a global call for her release she was acquitted of the charges and released. She became a college professor and a prolific author, and is still today a highly respec…
"They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison." --Angela Davis on Czech opponents to the communist regime Seems her opposition to prisons was a bit... selective.
Double standards are everywhere.
UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…
IMO something that I think would make a huge difference while also being realistically achievable is criminal justice reform. We cannot let prisons continue being factories for drug addicts and career criminals. There must surely be a better way than this.
UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…
Health insurance for all? Agree. I’m not sold on the economics of UBI. IMO something that I think would make a huge difference while also being realistically achievable is criminal justice reform. We cannot let prisons continue being factories for drug addicts and career criminals. There must surely be a better way than this.
So yea, I'm not sold either. No one really is until we get the hard truth. Nothing more complex (and chaotic) than society and it's economy. Good luck modelling and predicting that reliably ha!
UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…
> There are a few genuinely 'bad people' out there Do you want to count the number of violent rapes by year? Violent premeditated murders? Lets add violent robbery and assault by people have food and a place to stay, but are looking to level up and buy shiny things? This is not a circumstance, and there are many 'bad people' out there.
People do keep count of this, and the (per-capita) rate of violent crime has been falling fairly monotonically since at least the end of WW2. Our genetics haven't changed in that time, but circumstances have.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The very same Angela Davis who on 8/5/1970 bought the shotgun that was used to blow Judge Harold Haley's head off two days later? https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E3UiyuqVUAE816j?format=jpg
She maintained her innocence and was eventually found not guilty on all counts. > A defense motion for a change of venue was granted, and the trial was moved to Santa Clara County. On June 4, 1972, after 13 hours of deliberations, the all-white jury returned a verdict of not guilty. The fact that she owned the guns used in the crime was judged insufficient to establish her role in the plot. John Lennon and Yoko Ono i…
Lennon came to regret much of his left-wing activism later in life.
[0] Cf. Tom Wolfe’s Radical Chic: https://nymag.com/news/features/46170/
UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…
> There are a few genuinely 'bad people' out there Do you want to count the number of violent rapes by year? Violent premeditated murders? Lets add violent robbery and assault by people have food and a place to stay, but are looking to level up and buy shiny things? This is not a circumstance, and there are many 'bad people' out there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Health insurance for all? Agree. I’m not sold on the economics of UBI. IMO something that I think would make a huge difference while also being realistically achievable is criminal justice reform. We cannot let prisons continue being factories for drug addicts and career criminals. There must surely be a better way than this.
UBI no one knows. Being sold or otherwise doesn't matter. Small trials here and there aren't much use. We need a country with balls to try it like Portugal did with drug policy. So yea, I'm not sold either. No one really is until we get the hard truth. Nothing more complex (and chaotic) than society and it's economy. Good luck modelling and predicting that reliably ha!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget her book "Are Prisons Obsolete?" https://www.amazon.com/Are-Prisons-Obsolete-Angela-Davis/dp/...
Simple answer, no they are not. There are people that need to be locked up to protect society. Think Breivik, or the psychopaths that eradicate whole families for their perverted pleasure. That being said, prisons as a punishment seem to scale very badly. I think that a prison sentence up to maybe a year or so is a very effective deterrent against crimes like tax evasion, theft, fraud, or domestic violence (if it is…
UBI + health (and other calamity) insurance for all. A strong public mental health system. Prescription drugs of every kind, heroin, meth, whatever. With the right counselling and support attached. I might be an idiot but pretty sure most crime will just go away, then we can spend proper resources to help and support (and punish when needed) the few offenders who really struggle to stay within the rules of society. T…
Yes, it would be great to improve the quality of life for prospective criminals, but we don't need to set the bar as high as UBI, we could start by having a fair and sympathetic penal system.