Michael Lorrey wrote:
>
> "S.J. Van Sickle" wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 29 Jan 2001, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> >
> > > The point I agreed with had nothing to do with who goes to prison; the
> > > point is simply that zoo cages are not psychologically conducive to
> > > improvement of character.
> >
> > Yes, I agree. Which is why prison should not be expected to improve
> > character...merely segregate the extremely dangerous. Notice that Malcom
> > did not argue that there should be no prisons.
>
> However, Malcom X, nor Eli, have ever had military experience, to the
> best of my knowledge. When recycling a damaged/warped ego, you must
> first break it down before you can build it back up. Rehabilitation
> means making a person fit to live again. You don't make a cracked bottle
> whole again by just gluing it up, it is likely to crack again, even
> easier. You've gotta crush it into silica dust, melt it down, and craft
> a new bottle out of the old material. Rehabilitating people requires
> reprogramming.
Remind me not to be incarcerated by you or your appointees. If I am in
jail I am in for running afoul of the local politicos or some asinine
law. Trying to break down the personality and mental structure I have
painstakenly built up would NOT be appreciated. Trying to do so would
result, to the extent it succeeded at all, in producing a truly violent
person. Guess who the violence would be directed to first once I got
out? Also, to the best of my knowledge from friends who were in Viet
Nam including some special forces and red beret characters who got
really warpend for dealing with normal civilization, breaking them down
entirely was not the therapy employed.
- samantha
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:26 MDT