You're joking, I assume, but this is an important point, actually. Many of us find the internet invaluable to our personal development, education, education of others, and our participation in the global society. These are exactly the things we should be encouraging prisoners to consider, as opposed to a limited, dysfunctional life of crime in a ghetto etc.
My real point here is that almost *anything* would be better for society than locking these people up together where they can learn from each other
Agreed. But we don't need to resort to "anything". There are real, proven solutions to criminal behaviour. To me, crime seems to be a symptom of a large society where people do not know their neighbours, or where neighbours become dysfunctional enemies because of lack of education etc., lack of opportunies, squalor, etc., instead of true neighbours.
If we look at smaller societies, we see what needs to be done to correct this. In a small village, people all know each other. They all rely on each other, even if one might be lazy or another might be a little aggressive. They learn to respect each others' space, and to provide it. They notice when friends need help, and they pitch in. And, most importantly, but not independent of these other things, they become angry and offended when individuals go against the community's interests.
The key here is that social benefits are withdrawn for individuals who do not participate in society. But it is rarely a case of locking them up, or suspending their internet access. Instead, what happens is that people seem HURT and become less open to friendship etc. with the perpetrator.
The upshot of all this is that people will respond to even the slightest offended tone in their neighbour's voice -- if they are already used to a friendly tone. But our society does not nurture friendly contact between neighbours, much less all the other things that bond people together.
How can we possibly expect people to care about the loss of social privileges, when they have none to begin with? My conclusion is that most crimes are crimes committed by society upon its citizens, rather than crimes by citizens.
When they are in prison they shouldn't be allowed access to the internet because they are criminals and they would abuse it
I wonder if you're aware of the experiments that were done, wherein people where randomly divided into guards and prisoners, to see what would happen? What did happen is that a system of them-vs-us developed, and the two groups became hostile to one another, even though there was no actual distinction between them.
This experiment is well known, but we do not seem to be learning from it. My take on it is that we should not talk of how "prisoners" behave, but rather treat them as individuals. We should not hoard them together into cells with other "prisoners" and expect them to stand out as examples of worthwhile "outside"ers.
Instead, I think we must give them the opportunities to be upstanding citizens by treating them AS citizens, with simply more strict monitoring and enforcement of existing laws for citizens.
Of course, there is the matter of what they have done, and how to compensate victims and wider society, but experiments and actual programmes around the world seem to show that the best approach there is to again treat them as a member of society, putting them into a situation where they feel true peer pressure and responsibility to the people they hurt etc. From this, a natural apology and a need to make amends often comes over time.
As far as internet access goes, I see every reason to provide prisoners with internet access. As the largest and fastest library in existence, the Internet gives prisoners the possibility of learning that they may have grown up without. It is one very real option to undo what has made them criminals to begin with, if used wisely. Again, they should have the same options as other citizens, but simply with stricter monitoring.
After all, prison is about keeping criminals off the streets and reforming them, isn't it? The purpose of prison should not be to punish, imho.
Please don't refer to RMS as a fanatic. Sure, he has some ideas that are difficult for many to accept, but they are well thought out, valid arguments. Take them or leave them.
They're trying to see how mental processes are shaped by the technology, not just whether it's being used much, or what it's being used for.
This is important, because education, ideally, is not about teaching facts or processes: it's about teaching how to find or establish facts, and how to invent and evaluate processes. For example: originally, universities where democratic forums for debate, rather than top-down lectures and tests.
Unfortunately, mainstream education has really lost sight of that goal, but I guess it's still well enough acknowledged that they notice when kids are losing abilities at a significant rate. I suspect that happens a lot, when computers are used incorrectly as a way of handing out tests or having kids scan a page for meaningless facts.
Well, in fairness, I never said that I didn't find the grandparent funny. Still, people don't usually comment about not knowing what something means unless it's at least partly true that they don't.
It's depressing that a few posts here seem to suggest that philanthropy isn't a well known word among slashdotters. Philanthropy is quite prevalent in the Free Software and Open Source communities, so people should really know what they're involved with, if they want to explain it to others.
The point the GP was making is that the US has a higher percentage of it's population living in sparsely populated regions.
Yes, things like that happen when one country owns 16% of the earth's surface. America is young though; maybe it'll break into smaller countries with different directions someday. Those red vs. blue maps spring to mind;) Lots of new micronations springing up in sparse areas could be cool:)
There's no way they'll make the same mistake twice.
Why not? Folks like them keep suing their customers, proving their greed, lying, and generally making people hate them time after time. They were very short-sighted about their previous "protection", which indicates to me that they have little time for the opinion of their "techie" staff. I bet this'll be equally flawed, and figured out soon enough.
As I understand it, the UK has a policy that specifically mentions Free Software and Open Source, saying that should be considered equally alongside other options. But years after this policy was put in place, I've actually heard of contractors who were *ideal* for a job being told that they said all the right things in their tender, "except for one word: 'Microsoft'". This, because they said that they were keeping abreast of Open Source technologies, since the government had a policy on it!
Oh, it seems I did, with the word "need". Bad choice of words though. I just meant to say that they seem to underestimate the scale of the problem. They should either commit more resources to supporting other platforms, or open source it to solve the resource problem for them.
Well, actually, in this case, yes. Acrobat Reader is just that: a READER. It's doesn't hurt them to release it. In fact, it would bolster sales of their actual product: Acrobat. But more importantly, it's supposed to be a cross-platform format, and if they want to support that, they need to make an open, cross-platform reader.
Linux is more than just Linux/x86 on one or two distros, and open source is the easiest way to provide products for all of Linux. So they still have a long way to go before they've even done what this article suggests: releasing a Linux version of Reader.
Well, yes, proper restrictions on domains would be good. But... you can buy a domain as long as you already own one? What kind of policy is that? Seriously. The point is to keep domains from being abused, not to limit their use to people who have already bought one.
I can't imagine any reason for such a rule except to double the sales of.pro domains because people will have to buy a third-level domain first.
lol, that bad, huh? I'll apologise in their stead then. It does have it's bad days, I suppose. Most of the sane people avoid sundays, for example. Sundays can be very surreal;)
Anyway, this thread has me considering a switch to ubuntu myself, so I don't entirely disagree that debian could be better. Generally, I find the support and flexibility quite good, though. I've had trouble finding a simple debian->ubuntu installation howto so far.
Well, there are a few nuts on #debian, but plenty of us help people day-in, day-out on there. If individual people on IRC are being asshats, that's what/ignore is for. Then, phrase your question in a way that allows people to help, and you'll get it.
I'm not at all fond of violence, but if they're planning to do it, then... hopefully some time after the armour plating, or at least a well-developed running ability with good suspension;)
Agreed; well said. Also, people have been imagining since (at least) the dawn of industrialisation that machines would give us more leisure time. Instead, they have driven us to compete more and more, so that we now work all sorts of ungodly hours. Some people are even losing the distinction between working and not working, with taking their work home, being contactable at all hours of the night, etc.
By contrast, the average citizen in a tribal culture works for only a few hours a day. And we think we're helping ourselves with all these cool "labour saving devices":(
This whole article is nothing but wishful thinking from some guy in a lab anyway. Sure, we'll have robots that build houses some day, but not because there's an eight-feet modified shelf filler in a lab somewhere.
Building a house involves a LOT more than piling up bricks and cement. You have:
plans to understand and interpret
foundations to dig
different kinds of brick and inner and outer layers of brick
different patterns of brick, and the obvious need to handle corners, curves, and interconnections between different walls
flooding of foundations and other weather issues to cope with
flooring
plumbing
window sills and other huge non-standard "bricks" that this machine couldn't cope with
silent communication while around others can lead to a whole new set of problems all it's own... Especially when it's apparent that you're communicating, but not what you're saying.
Yes, sitting on the train using this tech. will make it apparent that you're a geek and a poser, and so it'll never reach mainstream popularity.
What someone needs to invent is a culture where useful things are actually acceptable...:)
Yep, storage has never existed before, but it does now. In order to deal with this new threat, we must forget everything we've ever learned about the laws of computing.
Slashdot Mirror
You're joking, I assume, but this is an important point, actually. Many of us find the internet invaluable to our personal development, education, education of others, and our participation in the global society. These are exactly the things we should be encouraging prisoners to consider, as opposed to a limited, dysfunctional life of crime in a ghetto etc.
Agreed. But we don't need to resort to "anything". There are real, proven solutions to criminal behaviour. To me, crime seems to be a symptom of a large society where people do not know their neighbours, or where neighbours become dysfunctional enemies because of lack of education etc., lack of opportunies, squalor, etc., instead of true neighbours.
If we look at smaller societies, we see what needs to be done to correct this. In a small village, people all know each other. They all rely on each other, even if one might be lazy or another might be a little aggressive. They learn to respect each others' space, and to provide it. They notice when friends need help, and they pitch in. And, most importantly, but not independent of these other things, they become angry and offended when individuals go against the community's interests.
The key here is that social benefits are withdrawn for individuals who do not participate in society. But it is rarely a case of locking them up, or suspending their internet access. Instead, what happens is that people seem HURT and become less open to friendship etc. with the perpetrator.
The upshot of all this is that people will respond to even the slightest offended tone in their neighbour's voice -- if they are already used to a friendly tone. But our society does not nurture friendly contact between neighbours, much less all the other things that bond people together.
How can we possibly expect people to care about the loss of social privileges, when they have none to begin with? My conclusion is that most crimes are crimes committed by society upon its citizens, rather than crimes by citizens.
I wonder if you're aware of the experiments that were done, wherein people where randomly divided into guards and prisoners, to see what would happen? What did happen is that a system of them-vs-us developed, and the two groups became hostile to one another, even though there was no actual distinction between them.
This experiment is well known, but we do not seem to be learning from it. My take on it is that we should not talk of how "prisoners" behave, but rather treat them as individuals. We should not hoard them together into cells with other "prisoners" and expect them to stand out as examples of worthwhile "outside"ers.
Instead, I think we must give them the opportunities to be upstanding citizens by treating them AS citizens, with simply more strict monitoring and enforcement of existing laws for citizens.
Of course, there is the matter of what they have done, and how to compensate victims and wider society, but experiments and actual programmes around the world seem to show that the best approach there is to again treat them as a member of society, putting them into a situation where they feel true peer pressure and responsibility to the people they hurt etc. From this, a natural apology and a need to make amends often comes over time.
As far as internet access goes, I see every reason to provide prisoners with internet access. As the largest and fastest library in existence, the Internet gives prisoners the possibility of learning that they may have grown up without. It is one very real option to undo what has made them criminals to begin with, if used wisely. Again, they should have the same options as other citizens, but simply with stricter monitoring.
After all, prison is about keeping criminals off the streets and reforming them, isn't it? The purpose of prison should not be to punish, imho.
OK, maybe it wasn't that funny, but come on... hardly a troll :/
Please don't refer to RMS as a fanatic. Sure, he has some ideas that are difficult for many to accept, but they are well thought out, valid arguments. Take them or leave them.
They're trying to see how mental processes are shaped by the technology, not just whether it's being used much, or what it's being used for.
This is important, because education, ideally, is not about teaching facts or processes: it's about teaching how to find or establish facts, and how to invent and evaluate processes. For example: originally, universities where democratic forums for debate, rather than top-down lectures and tests.
Unfortunately, mainstream education has really lost sight of that goal, but I guess it's still well enough acknowledged that they notice when kids are losing abilities at a significant rate. I suspect that happens a lot, when computers are used incorrectly as a way of handing out tests or having kids scan a page for meaningless facts.
Well, in fairness, I never said that I didn't find the grandparent funny. Still, people don't usually comment about not knowing what something means unless it's at least partly true that they don't.
It's depressing that a few posts here seem to suggest that philanthropy isn't a well known word among slashdotters. Philanthropy is quite prevalent in the Free Software and Open Source communities, so people should really know what they're involved with, if they want to explain it to others.
Personally, I'm hoping they'll take out Bill Gates first ;)
Download first. Then you can keep pressing rewind.
Why not? Folks like them keep suing their customers, proving their greed, lying, and generally making people hate them time after time. They were very short-sighted about their previous "protection", which indicates to me that they have little time for the opinion of their "techie" staff. I bet this'll be equally flawed, and figured out soon enough.
As I understand it, the UK has a policy that specifically mentions Free Software and Open Source, saying that should be considered equally alongside other options. But years after this policy was put in place, I've actually heard of contractors who were *ideal* for a job being told that they said all the right things in their tender, "except for one word: 'Microsoft'". This, because they said that they were keeping abreast of Open Source technologies, since the government had a policy on it!
Oh, it seems I did, with the word "need". Bad choice of words though. I just meant to say that they seem to underestimate the scale of the problem. They should either commit more resources to supporting other platforms, or open source it to solve the resource problem for them.
Yes, I never said "required".
Well, actually, in this case, yes. Acrobat Reader is just that: a READER. It's doesn't hurt them to release it. In fact, it would bolster sales of their actual product: Acrobat. But more importantly, it's supposed to be a cross-platform format, and if they want to support that, they need to make an open, cross-platform reader.
Linux is more than just Linux/x86 on one or two distros, and open source is the easiest way to provide products for all of Linux. So they still have a long way to go before they've even done what this article suggests: releasing a Linux version of Reader.
Well, yes, proper restrictions on domains would be good. But... you can buy a domain as long as you already own one? What kind of policy is that? Seriously. The point is to keep domains from being abused, not to limit their use to people who have already bought one.
I can't imagine any reason for such a rule except to double the sales of .pro domains because people will have to buy a third-level domain first.
lol, that bad, huh? I'll apologise in their stead then. It does have it's bad days, I suppose. Most of the sane people avoid sundays, for example. Sundays can be very surreal ;)
Anyway, this thread has me considering a switch to ubuntu myself, so I don't entirely disagree that debian could be better. Generally, I find the support and flexibility quite good, though. I've had trouble finding a simple debian->ubuntu installation howto so far.
Well, there are a few nuts on #debian, but plenty of us help people day-in, day-out on there. If individual people on IRC are being asshats, that's what /ignore is for. Then, phrase your question in a way that allows people to help, and you'll get it.
I'm not at all fond of violence, but if they're planning to do it, then... hopefully some time after the armour plating, or at least a well-developed running ability with good suspension ;)
Agreed; well said. Also, people have been imagining since (at least) the dawn of industrialisation that machines would give us more leisure time. Instead, they have driven us to compete more and more, so that we now work all sorts of ungodly hours. Some people are even losing the distinction between working and not working, with taking their work home, being contactable at all hours of the night, etc.
By contrast, the average citizen in a tribal culture works for only a few hours a day. And we think we're helping ourselves with all these cool "labour saving devices" :(
This whole article is nothing but wishful thinking from some guy in a lab anyway. Sure, we'll have robots that build houses some day, but not because there's an eight-feet modified shelf filler in a lab somewhere.
Building a house involves a LOT more than piling up bricks and cement. You have:
- plans to understand and interpret
- foundations to dig
- different kinds of brick and inner and outer layers of brick
- different patterns of brick, and the obvious need to handle corners, curves, and interconnections between different walls
- flooding of foundations and other weather issues to cope with
- flooring
- plumbing
- window sills and other huge non-standard "bricks" that this machine couldn't cope with
- reinforcements
- roofing: rafters, insulation, tiling/slating/felting/cladding/thatching/glazing
- window installation
- door hanging
- plastering
- joinery
- electrical wiring
- probably lots of other things I can't recall right now...
This "robot" is about as close to building a house as an electric drill is to being an automated carpenter.Yes, but that could be said of all .htm links ;)
Yes, sitting on the train using this tech. will make it apparent that you're a geek and a poser, and so it'll never reach mainstream popularity.
What someone needs to invent is a culture where useful things are actually acceptable... :)
Yep, storage has never existed before, but it does now. In order to deal with this new threat, we must forget everything we've ever learned about the laws of computing.