From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Fri Nov 29 2002 - 14:01:46 MST
On Fri, 29 Nov 2002, John K Clark wrote:
> A no premature release policy would make it far more difficult to keep
> order in a prison, and by that bland sounding phrase I mean it would be
Tough luck. Try wrecking that cube.
> very hard to keep them from killing each other. With no death penalty
If you're confined in a stainless steel box, the only person you can kill
is you. Well, if you insist...
> there is no stick and with no hope of parole there is no carrot.
Tough luck^2.
> If you can snap you fingers and conjure up a practical way to confine two
> million people with zero chance of any of them ever escaping then why not do
A lot of those 2*10^6 inmates are there for consensual 'crimes'. So I
think you can cut that figure by half, if not by 3/4. How many of them are
lifers? 1%? Less than that. So it doesn't seem to require excessive
hardware construction.
> the job properly and conjure up a law enforcement system that was so good it
The best law enforcement is those based on passive confinment. Motion
detectors and perimeter defense are a lot cheaper than internal security
for freely roaming inmates.
> would always stop someone before they committed a murder, then the entire
> death penalty issue becomes moot. Only trouble is that conjuring is hard.
We seem to approach the issue from some very different angles. You want to
apply massive capping as an attempt to improve security and/or to save
money, I want to apply massive confinement, which is de facto solitary
(but for the small but crucial issue of audiovisual I/O, which will
prevent you from going crazy).
> I don't think you're serious, I hope not. Not only would it be enormously
> expensive but if they were not insane when they went into the box they
I don't think it would be at all expensive. Rackmount boxes are cheap.
> soon would be. I thought the entire objection to the death penalty was that
See audiovideo I/O. You might consider it a small thing. It is not,
however.
> it was supposed to be inhumane, so much for the moral high ground.
I don't mind semisolitary confinement but for the video chat. I very much
mind capital punishment, video chat with the ash urn, or no.
> > Would you rather spend 10 years in prison, or ride the lightning?
>
> If you mean 10 years inside a stainless steel cube that has been welded shut
> then I'll take the lightning please.
Not me. But please make the video HTDV, and can I have the Net access
pretty please?
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