Prison Bans Books and Disco Pickle Learns a Lesson

[Slyph]

Disco Pickle's argument is equally applicable to a missile strike that kills a shitload of civilians and one terrorist.

Actually, Disco Pickle's argument is equally applicable to an ICBM strike.

[Slyph]

*500 megacorpses*

"Nothing's random, Why where they standing there, anyway?"

*Some of them are wearing military fatigues*

"See? The system works."

[Disco Pickle]

UPSHOT:  anyone who thinks this is all "fine" and being in prison is "a choice"...they just haven't made it THERE yet.

Yet.

Saying that being incarcerated is a choice has terrible implications. For one thing, it assumes the infallibility of the system - that no one is sent to prison by mistake or receives an unfair trial.
Or, at the very least it assumes that such mistakes have to be accepted as "inevitable" glitches in the system.

It's one thing wax philosophical about causality and choice, but it's another thing to use such abstract concepts to justify something as real and heartbreaking about a life ruined by an unfair and unjust system.

never, not even once did I ever even come close to suggesting that being incarcerated was a choice. 

[Sita]

My shitty mood this morning says just kill them all. Soon everyone will be dead and the world will be a better place without all these problematic humans about.

Non-shitty mood says let them have books and newspapers. Either that or make sure everyone is in a padded cell because with nothing to keep their minds active they'll end up crazy.

As to who ends up in prison: If you're there you have damn bad luck, simple as that. Whether innocent or guilty, the fact someone singled you out is some of the shittiest luck in the world. The system needs a change but damned if I know how.

[Cain]

The only difference between here and a place like Mexico is that in the good old US of A, you need to add an extra zero or three to the bribe amount.

I pretty much said the exact same thing to the Thai guy I was working with the other night, when we were discussing the FIFA World Cup corruption on the news.

I'm not adverse to a little corruption (hell, I seriously considered a job offer in Taiwan, which was technically illegal but because of bribes I could safely do for a few years without hassle.  Taiwan runs on bribery as a way of life) but it has to be affordable.  The amazing thing about advanced post-industrial nations is how they have raised the barrier for low level corruption, while turning high level corruption into a form of big business.  Whereas I believe in corruption for the masses.  Every worker slipping every low paid cop a few bills to avoid a parking ticket!

[LMNO]

UPSHOT:  anyone who thinks this is all "fine" and being in prison is "a choice"...they just haven't made it THERE yet.

Yet.

Saying that being incarcerated is a choice has terrible implications. For one thing, it assumes the infallibility of the system - that no one is sent to prison by mistake or receives an unfair trial.
Or, at the very least it assumes that such mistakes have to be accepted as "inevitable" glitches in the system.

It's one thing wax philosophical about causality and choice, but it's another thing to use such abstract concepts to justify something as real and heartbreaking about a life ruined by an unfair and unjust system.

never, not even once did I ever even come close to suggesting that being incarcerated was a choice. 

Ahem.

I have no issues with putting people sentenced to long term time to work that benefits those of us who make the decision to not break laws.

It is a decision.

As an aside, combining this idea with the "no random actions" idea brings us very close to THE SECRET™.  Which makes me giggle.

[Cain]

"Politicization of crime" made me chuckle, as well.

Who writes the laws, again? 

[Disco Pickle]

UPSHOT:  anyone who thinks this is all "fine" and being in prison is "a choice"...they just haven't made it THERE yet.

Yet.

Saying that being incarcerated is a choice has terrible implications. For one thing, it assumes the infallibility of the system - that no one is sent to prison by mistake or receives an unfair trial.
Or, at the very least it assumes that such mistakes have to be accepted as "inevitable" glitches in the system.

It's one thing wax philosophical about causality and choice, but it's another thing to use such abstract concepts to justify something as real and heartbreaking about a life ruined by an unfair and unjust system.

never, not even once did I ever even come close to suggesting that being incarcerated was a choice. 

Ahem.

I have no issues with putting people sentenced to long term time to work that benefits those of us who make the decision to not break laws.

It is a decision.

As an aside, combining this idea with the "no random actions" idea brings us very close to THE SECRET™.  Which makes me giggle.

breaking a law is a choice.  whether you spend time in jail for it is not.

[LMNO]

You logic quoted above clearly shows that you feel if someone is in jail, they made a choice to break the law.

Combine this with your "no random actions", and you draw a straight line from "choose crime" to "incarcerated".

Ergo, your position = if you are incarcerated, you made that choice.




They're your words.  Maybe you should be better about choosing them. 

[Disco Pickle]

You logic quoted above clearly shows that you feel if someone is in jail, they made a choice to break the law.

Combine this with your "no random actions", and you draw a straight line from "choose crime" to "incarcerated".

Ergo, your position = if you are incarcerated, you made that choice.




They're your words.  Maybe you should be better about choosing them. 

not everyone in jail should be there, and increasingly incarcerating people for non-violent offenses serves no value to society.  I thought I was clear about that early on. 

[LMNO]

And yet you have no problem with them being treated as slave labor.  Interesting.

[Phox]

You logic quoted above clearly shows that you feel if someone is in jail, they made a choice to break the law.

Combine this with your "no random actions", and you draw a straight line from "choose crime" to "incarcerated".

Ergo, your position = if you are incarcerated, you made that choice.




They're your words.  Maybe you should be better about choosing them. 

not everyone in jail should be there, and increasingly incarcerating people for non-violent offenses serves no value to society.  I thought I was clear about that early on. 

No, that was not at all clear. Even so, you still sound like you're saying "well, so long as their in prison, they might as well be useful". And if you are, your statement applies just as much to the people currently in prison unfairly and/or on stupid charges as it does to murders and rapists. The system is full of drug offenders and non-violent criminals, as well as innocent people. The bulk of your slave labor comes from people who are not "Criminals" under your definition. And you keep purporting to be okay with this.

[Disco Pickle]

And yet you have no problem with them being treated as slave labor.  Interesting.

I'm for educating first and foremost.  A lot of prisoners are paid for work though admittedly not very much.  The alternative to working is to have them do nothing, and it's well established that an idle prison population is far more dangerous and does nothing in the way of helping rehabilitate.

[Jenne]

And yet you have no problem with them being treated as slave labor.  Interesting.

I'm for educating first and foremost.  A lot of prisoners are paid for work though admittedly not very much.  The alternative to working is to have them do nothing, and it's well established that an idle prison population is far more dangerous and does nothing in the way of helping rehabilitate.

This is correct.  But, you have to be careful how you see "occupation" vs. labor that exploits a malnourished and diseased set of people that society is willing to "throw away"...simply because they are being punished.

Rehabilitation means they are being prepared for society or at least learning skills that will make reintegration successful.  That's NOT the objective for most of the employment on any given prison grounds in the US.  Instead, it's another form of subjugation and sometimes torture.  At times, in fact, probably in MOST scenarios, the prospect of work is that much better than isolation or idleness.  But not always, and chain gangs and the like are nothing short of slavery in most of the conditions that the inmates are under when they are made to work in them.

Actually, one would hope that privitization of prisons would actually work more like privitization of hospitals--but in fact it works in reverse.  Care is not better, but rather worse due to lack of transparency and a "nod/wink" style of those that could control what goes on behind locked steel doors and bars of iron.

[Triple Zero]

I assert that no action any person can take can ever be considered to be random.  Fuck, not even a computer program has been written that can be considered to produce a result that is truly random.  It's all probability.

This is pedantry. I suggest you drop that line of thought.

Randomness does exist.

Both "randomness for all intents and purposes", as well as "true randomness". And they're more often the very same thing than you apparently realize. But who even fucking needs "true randomness" anyway. The distinction doesn't belong in a discussion like this.

Asimov's Foundation series is a work of fiction, impossible fiction, not prophecy He's excused though, back when he wrote it they didn't have computers nor the proper mathematical foundations, for all they knew, it might be theoretically possible.