Jokes about prison rape on men? Not a fan.

[Jarhyn]

It was tried in USA and didn't work for whatever reason.

I think you need to back that up a lot more than you have done so far. The suggestion that the USA engaged in such 'enlightened, soft-landing' policies and that they resulted in increased crime and greatly increased prison populations is genuinely new to me. On the face of it, it seems that the prison population rose dramatically during or after a time when they...what...weren't putting people in prison so readily, or for so long, or what?

I know nothing about the claims regarding lead poisoning.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkn...americas-violent-crime-epidemic/#27265aec12c4

This Forbes article has a pretty good look at the data for annarmchaor data consumer, though primary sources are readily available. The correlation in the data is a researcher's wet dream, and most notably it is a well established causal relationship that has been established through clinical testing in animal models: lead exposure to most mammals is causal to the outcome of social insensitivity. So we have a correlation in the presence of a known causative effect.

The question is, can hitting someone cure them of the effects of childhood lead exposure? If I had this exposure, I would want to know that my violent urges were the result of brain damage, and in turn to develop strategies for mitigating the results, up to and including being segregated if I could not control my impulses.

Also, as I may point out to DZ, Norway absolutely shows the same effect. So NYAH!

 

[Bomb#20]

That is a snipped quote taken out of context which thereby distorts its meaning.

Not at all. You meant your students; you'd recently put your inclination to casually judge other people's intelligence on full display; and what, we're supposed to believe that you just turn it off with your students? You do not have plausible deniability.

I offered it as a possible alternative. There are also other possible alternatives.

No doubt. And in the event that you present one of those other possible alternatives, hopefully it will be a good enough theory to not elicit a "Good theory." retort.

 

[Bomb#20]

Of course, nobody here suggesting the end of retributive justice is suggesting "leniency" with regards to what was done in the US anyway. We are suggesting aggressive rehabilitation, that incarceration become indefinite and the bar for ending it being that they are considered rehabilitated rather than "suitably punished".

So, life imprisonment just for getting in a bar fight, provided some government official with a psychology degree labels a convict "not yet rehabilitated". And yet somehow retributionists are supposed to be the barbarians.

There are difficulties in doing this in America. Those difficulties are, well, mostly people like Bomb and AM who have been brought up slavering for revenge rather than better utility of outcomes. What that tells me though is that Dr Z Bomb, AM and any other revengist need more is to be put at the pointy end of a public information and propaganda campaign that depopularizes the idea.

Yes, if there's anything that's going to rehabilitate us and make us safe to be around decent folk it's yet another lecture from our betters. You know where penitentiaries actually came from? It was 19th-century Quaker prison-reformers' notion that if you locked up a criminal alone with nothing to do but read and nothing to read but the Bible, he'd convert -- become penitent -- and being a Christian would make him no longer a threat.

Why do you write such nonsensical drivel about people you've never met? I have not been brought up "slavering for revenge"; you have no reason to believe AM has either. You just made that up about us because you're making the same mistake as those Quaker religious chauvinists: you're mistaking your own faith-based dogma for proven fact. The actual reason I agree with retribution is the same reason I agree with all manner of other opinions the common people take for granted and the enlightened sophisticated people typically disagree with and like to consider themselves better than the rest of us for thinking: it's because the arguments the enlightened sophisticated people offer for their superior opinion are uniformly abysmal. I'm a professional logician; I can spot a lame argument a mile off.

Upthread, I asked you a question:

You have a "revenge boner". A lot of people do. In this case "revenge boner" is a pejorative description of the desire to consummate revenge and experience a drive relief. It is a pejorative for any aroused emotional drive.
...
You need a goal to get there, and then select the path from (situation) to (goal) that has the best outcome.

How do you imagine you are forming your opinions as to what "rational humans should" do, and what things "aren't good enough", and which is "the best outcome", other than by "aroused emotional drive"?

<crickets>

 

[ruby sparks]

Would you still try it? Really? Because there is no "taking the bread" if you are there with me. There is only Kai Bai Bo and taking your random chance or staring at a lump of inedible mud. I am not the one dooming us, you are the one attempting to doom me, assuming I win the (randomized) game. I'm just doing the extent of work necessary to defend my rights.

Act 1, scene 1. A jungle. Two starving men, Ruby & Jarhyn, enter stage left, and encounter a piece of bread lying on the ground.

Jarhyn: Let's toss a coin for it.

(Ruby eats bread).

Jarhyn: (sighs) I think you missed my whole point.

(Jarhyn collapses from hunger and exhaustion. Ruby, despite feeling some remorse, goes in search of more bread).

 

[laughing dog]

That is a snipped quote taken out of context which thereby distorts its meaning.

Not at all. You meant your students

Yes, it was specific to that situation. Taking it out of context does distort its meaning, regardless of your own beliefs. Your defense is laughable.

you'd recently put your inclination to casually judge other people's intelligence on full display; and what, we're supposed to believe that you just turn it off with your students? You do not have plausible deniability.

Of course, I could just have it off and it was turned on by your howler of an observation.

You are entitled to your false conclusions and beliefs. Your disbelief reflects as much on you as it does on the truth of my statement. It is intellectually honest to state "I do not believe that". It is disingenuous to snip a response and use it out of context to support or express one's belief. I am surprised you are unable to understand that.

No doubt. And in the event that you present one of those other possible alternatives, hopefully it will be a good enough theory to not elicit a "Good theory." retort.

I know people who think capital punishment is a kindness to the criminal because they feel life imprisonment is a worse alternative. And, I know someone who thinks capital punishment in an ideal world is less onerous on the taxpayer. The point was and is that your handwaved claim is nothing more than that - you have no real evidence to support your assumption.

 

[Jarhyn]

So, life imprisonment just for getting in a bar fight, provided some government official with a psychology degree labels a convict "not yet rehabilitated". And yet somehow retributionists are supposed to be the barbarians.


Yes, if there's anything that's going to rehabilitate us and make us safe to be around decent folk it's yet another lecture from our betters. You know where penitentiaries actually came from? It was 19th-century Quaker prison-reformers' notion that if you locked up a criminal alone with nothing to do but read and nothing to read but the Bible, he'd convert -- become penitent -- and being a Christian would make him no longer a threat.

Why do you write such nonsensical drivel about people you've never met? I have not been brought up "slavering for revenge"; you have no reason to believe AM has either. You just made that up about us because you're making the same mistake as those Quaker religious chauvinists: you're mistaking your own faith-based dogma for proven fact. The actual reason I agree with retribution is the same reason I agree with all manner of other opinions the common people take for granted and the enlightened sophisticated people typically disagree with and like to consider themselves better than the rest of us for thinking: it's because the arguments the enlightened sophisticated people offer for their superior opinion are uniformly abysmal. I'm a professional logician; I can spot a lame argument a mile off.

Upthread, I asked you a question:

You have a "revenge boner". A lot of people do. In this case "revenge boner" is a pejorative description of the desire to consummate revenge and experience a drive relief. It is a pejorative for any aroused emotional drive.
...
You need a goal to get there, and then select the path from (situation) to (goal) that has the best outcome.

How do you imagine you are forming your opinions as to what "rational humans should" do, and what things "aren't good enough", and which is "the best outcome", other than by "aroused emotional drive"?

<crickets>

Look at the Norse model. Incarceration there is potentially indefinite. I don't see anyone calling Norwegians monsters. Maybe reevaluate your position.

At any rate I answered your inane questions in my discussions targeted at RS, with respect to what is the best outcome. Perhaps you should go back and actually read some of those posts, but the gist of it is that there is a metagoal that can be defined such that "maximizing the ability to pursue the goals you wish to pursue" wherein goals that are unilaterally/mutually exclusive get rejected (ie "Gary wants to kill Bob; Bob has goals that require being alive", Gary's goal is invalidated), where a certain probability of damage at a certain extent to the metagoal is deemed acceptable through social consensus, and where the disposition of limited resources is agreed on through some mechanism of allocation.

In this way it is not about what I, personally, want. Instead it is about determining the limit of which of my wants are justifiable generally, in the context of what others want; thus if I want to kill (someone, but any someone), I can only do it when (sum total of goals of given someone = to die by [Jarhyn,...]'s hand).

Punishing is by definition harming the goals of others, as a goal in and of itself, agnostic to other effects. It is trivially evil.

Of course, there can be better standards to whether some person gets released than "some guy says 'good enough'" or not. It's already a solved problem particularly within the Norse model, so why should I give a shit as to what you think about it? It works, it works better than our model, and that's all that really matters

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Did I say illegal beatings? No, I didn't. And yet you waste time objecting on that basis and then go on to explain how what I said was actually correct. You did the same thing when I said your is already had an ought in it, before accepting that it pretty much did. Hair-splitting. This sort of thing is why I am a bit sceptical about some of your convoluted 'precision'.

No, you said beatings, which are illegal in prison, and you said that in response to a post considering prison violence. In that context, it looked like prison beatings, which again are illegal.

And I do not waste time objecting on that particular basis. I just point out I did not defend those.

But if you meant legalizing prison beatings, I'm not in favor. One reason is this: prison is a just punishment. If you want prison+beatings to be just, you need to reduce the prison time significantly (and make the beatings weaker than with no prison, but that aside). And then, the perpetrator is on the streets much sooner. While both would be just punishments, prison only seems better.

And what you call "hair-splitting" is actually being extra careful, given the repeated and gross misrepresentations of my views. But then I get a reply like this, so I have to spend time considering legalization of prison beatings.

Now, if you did not mean legalizing prison beatings, and by "beatings" you just meant those I was actually talking about, then you should not have said "Though I suppose Angra comes closest when he says beatings may be appropriate in certain cases.", in reply to a post about prison violence and prison rape.


I have to go; I will get to the rest of your points later.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Okay, so here's a brief post in self-defense againt laughing dog's repeated personal attacks.

That is a real howler.

You've got the sign wrong.

Of course, I could just have it off and it was turned on by your howler of an observation.

Seriously, will you ever stop attacking me? Or do you actually have a belief I'm probably at least 4 standard deviations below average? And even if you are so ridiculously deluded, it's still an attack to put it that way. If a person has such a very, very low intelligence, it is still an attack to go around making fun of them with comments like "You've got the sign wrong". You should not laugh at me for having low intelligence, even if you are called "laughing dog".

Now, I didn't want to say anything about my intelligence. I'm not comfortable having to fight back attacks like this. And I don't like doing tests generally, so also generally I have avoided them. But once I did an intelligence test - Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices. It was in the early 2000s, so I might be less intelligent now that I'm older; also I don't remember the details of the conditions, but I did get all of the answers right. So, obviously I'm not four standard deviations below average. You believe I'm lying? Whatever. Just stop attacking me.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I agree with laughing dog.

Your IQ is above the mean minus 4 standard deviations.

No, that doesn't mean what you thought. It means I reject certainty you are a genius. You might be. You also might be an idiot. Or average intellect. Or some gradation in between.

So, basically, it's a rejection of your friend Bomb#20's certainty that you are a genius as it is not an established fact, nor do I necessarily agree with how much weight we put into IQ test results as a means to measure inherent intellectual potential.

But due to your ability to login to the forum and present arguments, we can surely say your IQ is not LESS THAN 4 stdevs below the mean. That case would be changing more than the sign...it'd also be changing the equality from >= to <=....not something laughing dog proposed.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Retribution is built-in morality. It's a feature, not a bug - when the retribution is just, that is.

Except it is criminals applying the retribution. That isn't justice. It isn't like the victim or family of the victim is getting a cut. Nor is there any system where said retribution is distributed.

It is merely lawlessness we pretend is retribution. Heh... they'll get their's in prison... just like the guy who is in prison for some minor crime.

Let me quote the post of mine that you quoted above, but in full.

Retribution is built-in morality. It's a feature, not a bug - when the retribution is just, that is.

The behavior the jokes are about - i.e., prison rape - is not just retribution for the crimes of the inmates. In fact, it is not even unjust retribution for those crimes - it is not retribution at all, as the rapists do not rape the victims in order to punish them for the crimes for which they were sent to prison.

So, in short: I disagree about retribution. But I agree that prison rape is evil, and is not what they deserve.

 

[laughing dog]

O
I will you ever stop attacking me?... Or do you actually have a belief I'm probably at least 4 standard deviations below average?

I was making fun of bomb#20's observation. Sorry, I offended you - that was not my intent.

BTW - IMO, it takes a pretty thin skin to think disputing whether someone is 3 standard deviations above the mean as an attack.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Look, the point is, when you say you think beatings are ok if there is no alternative but not ok if there is, or that rape of a rapist is not a just retribution, or whether this or that is just, permissible, or acceptable, or whatever words you choose to deploy, you are in the end just telling us what Angra's personal call on the matter is (and maybe that of others who would agree with you).

One of the things that would be good would be that my words were not misrepresented. If you and others kept replying that that is just my personal call on the matter, but at least did not represent my position as something very different from what it is, that would be good.

As to whether it is just my personal call, like everyone else, I make moral assessments. But I also offered evidence in this particular thread in the form of evidence about what the human moral sense says in the vast majority of cases. Bomb#20 did that too by the way, and better.

But you're not demonstrating an independent, real moral fact based on human intuitions as to which is better or more correct, or right, or permissible, or acceptable, etc.

If you take a look at the disagreement between people who oppose retribution and those who support it (in this thread and elsewhere), you will see that people on both sides believe they are correct, and claim or imply so. It is implicitly accepted in the context of the debate - even if they do not explicitly recognize it - that there is a fact of the matter as to which one is correct. In particular, evidence of that is abundant in the thread and others.
But for example:

The fact is, we can get better outcomes without revenge in the picture at all.

Note that he says "the fact is".

By all means have a moral framework, just don't kid yourself you've found actual, independent bedrock that makes you really, actually right and others really, actually mistaken. That's what's wrong with your whole approach, imo. By all means preface what you say with 'in my view'.

The people who oppose retribution do not always or generally preface what they say with 'in my view'. In general, when humans engage in moral debate, they do not preface their moral assessments with 'in my view', or any similar expressions. When you demand that I do that, I see two problems:

1. You are indicting the ordinary human practice of moral debate. It has been like this well since there are humans at least. It is like this generally in philosophy, when professional philosophers debate first-order ethics. It is like this in politics, as you can see all around today, purely for example both by rioters and those who support them as well as by those who oppose them, but furthermore, all around the globe and for different causes. Now there are some philosophers who disagree, as you can find for nearly any view. But if they - or you - believe that there is something improper in the entire framework, and that people are making some sort of epistemic error in believing that the practice is correct and that they have a reasonable chance of finding moral truth, the burden is on them.

2. Related to 1., for some reason you demand that I do this or that, but you do not not my opponents. You do not demand that they append "in my opinion" to their views. They too believe that they are actually correct and others mistaken.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I agree with laughing dog.

Your IQ is above the mean minus 4 standard deviations.

No, that is not what laughing dog said. Read the posts.

No, that doesn't mean what you thought.

Read the posts. He said what I said he said. Granted, he was almost certainly not being serious about the number. But he was mocking me, for not being smart enough, in his assessment. Now, as it happens, it is not morally wrong not to be smart. It is not morally wrong to be far below average, either. Mockery is not appropriate however you slice it.

So, basically, it's a rejection of your friend Bomb#20's certainty that you are a genius as it is not an established fact, nor do I necessarily agree with how much weight we put into IQ test results as a means to measure inherent intellectual potential.

A rejection would have been to say he does not have sufficient information to tell. That would have been okay. Instead, he mocked me repeatedly. That is not okay, and would not be so even if his statements minus the mockery were correct, and even if he believed all of them.

That case would be changing more than the sign...it'd also be changing the equality from >= to <=....not something laughing dog proposed.

You are interpreting this in a clearly mistaken manner. It should be obvious to you what he meant (come on, seriously, you really want to object on even something this obvious? ). But I grant that he almost certainly did not mean the number seriously (he is not that deluded). Rather, that was just more sarcasm, in the general context of mockery. Still not okay, though.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

O
I will you ever stop attacking me?... Or do you actually have a belief I'm probably at least 4 standard deviations below average?

I was making fun of bomb#20's observation. Sorry, I offended you - that was not my intent.

Okay, accepted (ETA: while I reckon you should not have made fun of B20's observation, I accept you did not intend to offend me).

BTW - IMO, it takes a pretty thin skin to think disputing whether someone is 3 standard deviations above the mean as an attack.

I would not have considered it as such if you had said 'I do not have enough information to tell', or even 'In my assessment, that is not probable'. Or similar things. But the tone of what you said in those posts was very different. Anyway, if it's okay with you, let's get back to debating the substantive matters at hand?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

There are difficulties in doing this in America. Those difficulties are, well, mostly people like Bomb and AM who have been brought up slavering for revenge rather than better utility of outcomes. What that tells me though is that Dr Z Bomb, AM and any other revengist need more is to be put at the pointy end of a public information and propaganda campaign that depopularizes the idea.

First, you have no good reason to believe that either B20 or I was brought up "slavering for revenge". Moreover, I was brought up a Catholic. I am not a Catholic. I don't just believe what I was brought up to believe. And while I do not know what B20 was told when as a kid (and neither do you; you just made that up), obviously he thinks for himself.

Second, I'm not in America, as I already said. I'm not American. And I do not vote in America.

Third, one problem with your idea (apart from the fact that it is unjust) is that just as humans get color vision, or a sex drive, they get a moral sense, which includes the ability to make moral assessments, and also motivations. The motivation to do justice is part of the human psychological makeup. Ideology/religion can damage that, sure, but there is a limit to what you can do with indoctrination. You will not get rid of the human drive for justice, unless you get rid of humans, either by killing them, or changing them into something else. Genetic engineering would be much faster than selective breeding, but still difficult.
By the way, you do not have to believe me. Look at human behavior all over the world, today and historically.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

At any rate I answered your inane questions in my discussions targeted at RS, with respect to what is the best outcome. Perhaps you should go back and actually read some of those posts, but the gist of it is that there is a metagoal that can be defined such that "maximizing the ability to pursue the goals you wish to pursue" wherein goals that are unilaterally/mutually exclusive get rejected (ie "Gary wants to kill Bob; Bob has goals that require being alive", Gary's goal is invalidated), where a certain probability of damage at a certain extent to the metagoal is deemed acceptable through social consensus, and where the disposition of limited resources is agreed on through some mechanism of allocation.

In this way it is not about what I, personally, want. Instead it is about determining the limit of which of my wants are justifiable generally, in the context of what others want; thus if I want to kill (someone, but any someone), I can only do it when (sum total of goals of given someone = to die by [Jarhyn,...]'s hand).

You do realize that the "metagoal" is the metagoal of your choice?
Nearly all humans also have the goal that justice be done, and in particular, that perpetrators of serious offenses get punished for their crimes.

But let's leave that aside for a moment:

(ie "Gary wants to kill Bob; Bob has goals that require being alive", Gary's goal is invalidated)

Gary wants to incarcerate Bob indefinitely, until he is rehabilitated. But Bob has goals that require being free. Gary's goal is invalidated. But you said

We are suggesting aggressive rehabilitation, that incarceration become indefinite and the bar for ending it being that they are considered rehabilitated rather than "suitably punished".

Chances are all of the people being incarcerated have goals that require them being free.
Granted, those goals probably conflict with the goals of others. But that happens all the time, all around. Just one more example:

Donald has the goal of winning the election. Joe has the goal of winning the election. Goals are mutually exclusive, so they get invalidated.

Punishing is by definition harming the goals of others, as a goal in and of itself, agnostic to other effects. It is trivially evil.

The vast majority of humans do not see it as evil, including many philosophers (historically, most) so clearly it is not trivially evil. Or do you mean that you propose to assess what is evil by the procedure above? If so, then one way to test that procedure is to see whether it gives outcomes compatible with the human moral sense. It does not. But if you think that's not a way of testing it, then what is?

 

[Jarhyn]

O
I will you ever stop attacking me?... Or do you actually have a belief I'm probably at least 4 standard deviations below average?

I was making fun of bomb#20's observation. Sorry, I offended you - that was not my intent.

BTW - IMO, it takes a pretty thin skin to think disputing whether someone is 3 standard deviations above the mean as an attack.

Honestly, it's some serious Dunning-Krueger territory to ever bring up how smart you are(n't) in a conversation. Or to try to claim how smart someone else is. Just, never try to claim you or anyone else is particularly "smart". It's a bad look.

Smart speaks for itself.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

O
I will you ever stop attacking me?... Or do you actually have a belief I'm probably at least 4 standard deviations below average?

I was making fun of bomb#20's observation. Sorry, I offended you - that was not my intent.

BTW - IMO, it takes a pretty thin skin to think disputing whether someone is 3 standard deviations above the mean as an attack.

Honestly, it's some serious Dunning-Krueger territory to ever bring up how smart you are(n't) in a conversation. Or to try to claim how smart someone else is. Just, never try to claim you or anyone else is particularly "smart". It's a bad look.

Smart speaks for itself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

"the Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability"

That did not happen in this thread - not from B20, anyway.

And yes, smart - when not blinded by religion/ideology/anger/something else - speaks for itself, but religious/ideologue/angry often fails to listen.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It was tried in USA and didn't work for whatever reason.

I think you need to back that up a lot more than you have done so far. The suggestion that the USA engaged in such 'enlightened, soft-landing' policies and that they resulted in increased crime and greatly increased prison populations is genuinely new to me. On the face of it, it seems that the prison population rose dramatically during or after a time when they...what...weren't putting people in prison so readily, or for so long, or what?

I know nothing about the claims regarding lead poisoning.

Oh, look. I found my source itself available on the net. As you can see it's quite complicated with a variety of factors not easy to sum up in a short forum post.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/h/humfig...ilization-in-the-1960s?rgn=main;view=fulltext

edit: bottom line, we need social mechanics with which to whip violent young men into line early. Without it they will lead a life of crime. It's completely analogous to the social mechanics among chimpanzees. Chimpanzees can only afford one alpha male. So once one male is dominant, the rest of the flock conspire to whip the others in line. Bonobos are similar, but there the females conspire to also whip the alpha male in line. Just a bit less than the other males.

In the 1960'ies and the movement of free love we dismanteled these social mechanics, a part of that was the prison reforms. Which in USA went bad immediately. I put that down to the entrepenourial spirit of USA. The entire culture revolvs around getting a husstle and exploiting holes in the market, in a way we don't have in Europe. Here's it's generally frowned upon not to be obedient and do what it's expected of you. Especially in places like Scandinavia.

 

[ruby sparks]

As to whether it is just my personal call, like everyone else, I make moral assessments.

Sure, and on the face of it, that seems reasonable, but in other discussions, you go further. I get that you are not doing that here. You are not presenting the full extent of your arguments here, in this thread, not yet at least. I get that. But I have discussed with you before. To you, moral assessments are not personal calls, and if someone has one you don't agree with, they are factually wrong. Etc. That is how it works for you, because you claim the existence of independent, universal, real moral facts, and that you know what they are.

Even if the prevalence of retributive urges was as pronounced and widespread as you say (and I think you overstate and oversimplify a complex situation to at least some extent) it is still a jump to claiming universal, independent morally realist rightness for them. I have called it the naturalistic fallacy and getting an ought from an is, and you have quibbled about that with much of your usual hair-splitting precision, but in essence, it's effectively what it more or less is.