Firstly, the article in classic Silicon Valley style comes off as "Hey, the disruptive cavalry's here, shut up, step aside, and we'll fix all your problems!". I

Firstly, the article in classic Silicon Valley style comes off as "Hey, the disruptive cavalry's here, shut up, step aside, and we'll fix all your problems!". It doesn't talk of this as an incremental improvement over what we currently have that can be reasonably implemented. It proposes this as a flat solution, and seems to be talking in a vacuum as if this is the only/best solution. And it's not a practical solution either. The cell space ideas sound good (I don't know, not an expert), but they're something that could have been implemented without SV and haven't so far, because it's costly. You may argue that the Soylent/Oculus solution saves money which can be put into here, but realistically that money will just go into increasing the profit margins. This is one of the core problems with prisons today; that profit-based motives or corruption lead to any money that could be used for improvement going into the pockets of those who run the prisons. The article mentions this but falls short of designing the scheme to protect itself from this. Would we get a Nordic solution anytime soon? No. But neither will this solution work, for basically the same reasons. So I fail to see how this is an improvement. Explaining what's wrong with it? Here: It talks of a dehumanizing and shitty breakfast of oatmeal and bread, and proceeds to suggest an even more dehumanizing breakfast of goop. Note that most prison lunches still have variety, even if the food is crap. You take that away too. It talks of eliminating prison yards and replacing them with Oculus as if these people shouldn't care if they actually get to see the real sun. It takes a system that treats people like shit, and suggests treating them even worse as a solution.