Thread

Federal judge orders Texas to air condition all prisons by the end of 2029

120 points · 202 comments · bonefishgrill

boredatoms · 1790270522 · focus · HN ↗
The US needs to get over this whole ‘punishment’ view of prison. It either a social-safety quarantine, or a rehabilitation
1. mrits · 1790270740 · focus · HN ↗
  [dead]
  1. Glemmlko · 1790271477 · focus · HN ↗
    No it shouldn't.
    It should be the understanding of a society that no human being is just 'bad'. A human being became 'bad' by a definiton of a society due to circumstances like upbringing, environment etc. and a society which failed you.
    Prison is the removal of you from society due to impatibility of current values and should help you become 'better'.
    Be happy that you had good/avg parents, the mental strength to help yourself, money, luck, body strength, whatever it was which allowed you to comment on HN instead of being in a prison.
    WalterBright · 1790271856 · focus · HN ↗
    > due to circumstances like upbringing, environment etc. and a society which failed you.
    It's always someone else's fault.
    Glemmlko · 1790272155 · focus · HN ↗
    Its a brain, a brain which gets teached how to act and behave.
    Some learn how to think critical, some don't. Some are intelligent, some are empathic, some don't understand the world very well.
    Don't simplify this by a snarky and ignorant comment.
    I'm not even against moving people out of our society, its fucked up enough that this is necessayr, but i'm against cruelty and i'm for helping.
    WalterBright · 1790274191 · focus · HN ↗
    > Don't simplify this by a snarky and ignorant comment.
    It is simple. People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong.
    vidarh · 1790274664 · focus · HN ↗
    Please do define free will, and try to do so in a way that a) gives people actual agency (define that while you're at it, and b) compatible with the available evidence of how the universe works.
    WalterBright · 1790275136 · focus · HN ↗
    You chose to write that post.
    vidarh · 1790278984 · focus · HN ↗
    So on other words you don't have an answer.
    WalterBright · 1790284321 · focus · HN ↗
    Everything you write is your free choice. And you know it.
    vidarh · 1790288866 · focus · HN ↗
    No, I don't know it. In fact, I don't think there's any kind of evidence to suggest "free choice" is even possible for any kind of definition of "free choice" that doesn't make a mockery of the idea it is "free".
    I'm still waiting for a definition that could even suggest otherwise. I know I won't get one, because nobody I have this discussion with is ever capable of coming up with one.
    If you can't even define the terms, why do you imagine I should "know" it to be true?
    WalterBright · 1790369477 · focus · HN ↗
    Saying you have no free will absolves you of any responsibility for your actions. Call it the "Lindsay Clancy" defense. Human society cannot function with such notions.
    zzrrt · 1790382811 · focus · HN ↗
    The "Lindsay Clancy defense", AKA not guilty by reason of insanity, has roots going back thousands of years, and was used as early as 1844 in the US in the murder trial of Abner Rogers, Jr. In 1982, John Hinckley, Jr. used it after shooting at the president. Others have used it even after the post-Hinckley reforms. Yet society hasn't crumbled.
    Saying "He had no free will" doesn't mean "The state has no right to confine him away from people he might hurt."
    vidarh · 1790525116 · focus · HN ↗
    > Saying "He had no free will" doesn't mean "The state has no right to confine him away from people he might hurt."
    You get it.
    Saying "he had no free will" would mean there's no basis for using incarceration for vengeance, and it ought to change how prisoners are treated. It does not take away a legitimate need to lock people who remain a threat away. Nor does it entirely take away a justification for some use of incarceration as deterrent, to the limited extent it actually works.
    It just means a different calculation over how and when the harm done to those incarcerated outweigh the risks and harms to society of letting them go free, as well as a collective responsibility of society for addressing the conditions that causes these outcomes in the first place.
    vidarh · 1790524875 · focus · HN ↗
    Of course human society can function with such notions. For starters, we still have no evidence that supports "free" will, and human society manages to function just by blatantly ignoring it and holding on to what we have nothing to suggest is more than fiction.
    But a society that accepts that people have less or no actual agency would still have legitimate reasons to incarcerate, just fewer, and still has legitimate reasons for a criminal justice system, just with different priorities.
    E.g. protecting against genuine risks of reoffending is still a moral reason to incarcerate where there are no alternatives - maximising freedom means protecting people against real threats even if the person making up that threat is not able to choose differently.
    But if you accept that there is no free will, then the moral basis for conditions that amount to vengeance disappears. Society won't collapse over that - in fact, we know from the reoffending rates in places like Norway that treating prisoners better correlates strongly with less reoffending, and so even if you don't buy that there is no free will, it remains the most moral choice purely on the basis of lessening the suffering inflicted on the rest of society as well.
    If you accept there is no free will, most of the other logical consequences comes down to how you approach society as a whole, and how criminal justice changes is just a side effect: If people have no free will, then a whole lot of arguments use to e.g. deny benefits and welfare breaks down, and we arrive at a strong moral argument for improving conditions for the poor since we know poverty correlates strongly with more crime, which directly produces harm both for society as a whole and directly for the perpetrator and victims.
    None of this causes society to stop functioning. It just stops people using "free" will as an excuse to not to look for root causes and focus on what actually works to reduce offending and reoffending rates by hiding behind immoral ideas about moral hazards.
    P.S. I note you've still not tried to actually provide any argument for how free will could even potentially exist.
    t-writescode · 1790274838 · focus · HN ↗
    Oh honey… tell that to Alan Turing, or millions or gay people, or the literal millions of people who smoked pot and are stuck in prison forever.
    And that’s ignoring all the laws people break on the regular.
    WalterBright · 1790275072 · focus · HN ↗
    I did not say there was no injustice happening.
    Nor did I say that all laws are just.
    I'm not your honey, either.
    t-writescode · 1790277218 · focus · HN ↗
    Is your entire line of thinking about crime and punishment not entirely dependent upon laws and punishments, as they exist right now, being perfectly just?
    Because otherwise, “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them” is a bit Javert from Les Mis.
    WalterBright · 1790284548 · focus · HN ↗
    I was pretty clear.
    > “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them”
    Please don't make up quotes and attribute them to me. That's called the strawman fallacy.
    t-writescode · 1790285944 · focus · HN ↗
    I'll quote you clearly.
    > "People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong."[0]
    Broader Context: In response to a commentary on how 'good and bad' can be complicated:
    > "It's always someone else's fault."[1]
    Broader-broader Context: Prison is punishment, etc.
    So, a reasonable chain of thought here and paraphrase of what you've said is: "people know right from wrong" -> we're in the context of crime and punishment, so this is operating as a substitute for "they know what's legal and illegal". If it's not, it doesn't belong here, because at this point we should all know that legality != morality.
    "and they chose wrong" -> therefore they chose the consequences - they chose punishment. The colloquial way of saying that is "they get what's coming to them".
    So, while those weren't your words, was that your implicit statement? And if not, what is the implicit statement?
    I ask because the people in those cells are real, and 23 of them died of heat.
    [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834799 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49834226
    [deleted] · 1790287166 · focus · HN ↗
    [deleted]
    WalterBright · 1790287688 · focus · HN ↗
    > at this point we should all know that legality != morality
    Recall that I wrote this to you:
    "I did not say there was no injustice happening. Nor did I say that all laws are just."
    lcnPylGDnU4H9OF · 1790337893 · focus · HN ↗
    Recall also that you wrote this here:
    > People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong.
    The context being that the "bad" person is such simply because they chose to break the law. Even if it doesn't match your thoughts, surely you can see how one might read your comments as both claiming that laws are not morals, and also that those who break the law made the "wrong" (moral) choice (put another way: laws are morals).
    Breaking the law is not strictly a moral failure. It can be, but they have an "orthogonal" relationship. To that point:
    > I did not say there was no injustice happening. Nor did I say that all laws are just.
    Choosing to follow an unjust law is a moral failure. That moral failure is baked into the word "unjust". This blanket statement that the choice to commit a crime is a choice to be "bad" is not self-evident (or it's laughably tautological) and, regardless, is contradicted by the assertion that not all laws are "just".
    Of course, one can assume you have more nuanced thoughts than that; the point of my coment is that you've not communicated that nuance here, so you appear to be contradicting yourself: saying both that laws are morals and that they are not morals.
    WalterBright · 1790369177 · focus · HN ↗
    I am not making any claim about the law. You have confused that with what honor is.
    zippyman55 · 1790282813 · focus · HN ↗
    Wow! what a dodge! Try reading: The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
    WalterBright · 1790287567 · focus · HN ↗
    That case is irrelevant to the point. I never said law and justice were perfect. Nothing human is perfect.
    zippyman55 · 1790288684 · focus · HN ↗
    Not sure I am following your point. You commented that people have choices, good and bad. I presented you with a story where a good boy was watering his mother's yard and he was thrown in prison (28 yrs) for a murder he did not commit. I guess the only choice to be made was the corrupt police employees? I think you and I will go around and around in circles on this. I wish you well.
    Glemmlko · 1790363445 · focus · HN ↗
    No they don't. They have a range of free will. And free will alone doesn't help you if you are unable to understand what you actually want.
    Short term goals vs. long term goals requires long horizion thinking. Critical thinking is necessary to break through cultural heritage. I grew up a christian, took me until 14 to denounce this garbage.
    cindyllm · 1790368435 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.