The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#81

Post by zbentley » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 8:28 AM UTC

Moodles wrote: post #58

SavantIdiot wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you're saying, but let me try to explain what I see as the difference between the two situations. Curing cancer is about biology, chemistry, etc. It literally does not require any experience having cancer as you stated. Just lots of research and college education. However, if you said you were going to write an app to cure "the mental anxiety associated with having cancer," and you've never had cancer, but…

Psychologists help cure anxiety, depression, addiction, etc. all the time without actually suffering from it themselves. They're "privileged" not to suffer from it themselves or even necessarily have any friends or family who suffer from it. They just do good user research before creating a solution presumably. Also, conversely, plenty of people who have "lived experience" of how they cured their anxiety with a cult…

Psychologists attend years of school and training for the express purpose of understanding their clients' experiences.

There are multiple ways out of privileged obliviousness. One is lived experience. Another is taking the time to develop a structured and empathetic understanding.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#82

Post by zbentley » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 8:49 AM UTC

alfl wrote: post #11

sombremesa wrote: post #2

If people were actually worried about inmate mental health we would do away with incarceration. Being held against your will doesn’t exactly do wonders for you - and the consequences don’t end when you’re released. Sure, we have to “draw the line”, but isn’t that arbitrary?

No, it’s not arbitrary. It’s dialectical. “The line” is drawn by laws passed by well-constituted popular government and based on long-standing precedent.

Like the laws that result in extreme racial bias in sentencing, or an outsize proportion of inmates locked away due to mandatory minimums for nonviolent drug crimes? The laws that don't take into account abuse by prison staff or other inmates, secondary effects on inmates like PTSD, or tertiary effects on society from things like grooming? The "long standing precedent" of drug criminalization that was willed into existence by public hysteria campaigns spearheaded by a highly agendaed political elite in a short span of time in the 1980s and 90s? The "well constituted popular government" whose judges and sentencing behavior vary so much between states that which side of a street you live/get arrested on can be the difference between months and life in prison? The government that turns a blind eye to prisons whose conditions are condemned by other governments (the UN) as torture?

Once you depart from the minority of incarcerations that are reasonably unquestionable (e.g. demonstrably uncorrectable violent sociopaths), you will find abundant arbitrariness at every level: in the formulation of laws, their application by courts, their enforcement by police, and the conditions of their punishments.

"Arbitrary" is the rule. "Dialectical" (which I interpret as "civically intended, publicly acknowledged proportional consequences") is the exception.

Re: The worst thing I read this year, and what it taught me (2016)

#83

Post by throwaway210222 » Fri, Sep 17, 2021, 8:56 AM UTC

thatjoeoverthr wrote: post #6

sombremesa wrote: post #2

If people were actually worried about inmate mental health we would do away with incarceration. Being held against your will doesn’t exactly do wonders for you - and the consequences don’t end when you’re released. Sure, we have to “draw the line”, but isn’t that arbitrary?

This may be one of my spicier opinions but I think we should have caning for some crimes. Fines and incarceration both have collateral damage, if the person punished is responsible for anyone. Fines are regressive. Incarceration has a host of well known problems. But, unfortunately, a sufficiently dangerous person does need to be physically put away. Being held against your will may well do wonders for people you thr…

> but I think we should have caning for some crimes.

Do you think your countrymen are prepared to cane women then?

If not, you'll know why this isn't a good idea.