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I wish we heard more stories like these. It might dissuade people from getting involved in drugs in the first place.
by adnam 9y ago
I wish we heard more stories like these. It might dissuade people from getting involved in drugs in the first place.
- fhood 9y agoNo, it probably will not dissuade people all that effectively. That logic is part of the problem.
- adnam 9y agoWell if nothing can be done to dissuade people from criminality we might as well not bother having a criminal justice system and put up with it.
- fhood 9y agoThe best way to dissuade people from criminal behaviors (in my opinion) is to make the impetus for the behaviors less attractive.
- adnam 9y agoThe best way to stop people doing bad things they want to do is the fear of certain and severe punishment. "Getting involved" is not something that you do by "mistake", you have to want to do it first. The only "mistake" is believing you won't get caught, presumable because so few do.
- fhood 9y agoI genuinely feel that that is not an ethical approach, nor is it any more effective than removing the temptation/ ability to commit certain crimes. In some cases, I agree, severe punishment needs to be codified into the law, but that represents a tiny minority of crimes committed in the US.
- adnam 9y agoI think it's quite ethical, because it removes the burden from law-abiding people. There's also evidence to show that punishment works as a deterrent when applied as uniformly as possible, hence saving people from falling into the misery of criminality.
- DanBC 9y ago> The best way to stop people doing bad things they want to do is the fear of certain and severe punishment. There is no evidence that's true. People still take drugs in countries with the death penalty.
- adnam 9y agoThere's plenty of evidence that tough sentencing reduces crime - do your own research. Of course, some people are so selfish and impulsive not much will deter them, but at least they're off the streets where they can make life miserable for the rest of us.
- bovermyer 9y agoYour first statement there belies the fact that you know nothing about psychology. I'd suggest going to your local library and reading up on reward and punishment as it relates to behavioral design in a society.
- adnam 9y agoIt's always so exciting to have my knowledge of Psychology called into question by a "DevOps engineer" in Minneapolis.
- bovermyer 9y agoSee! You can read! Go find that library.
- KingMob 9y agoI have a master's in psychology from Columbia, and I happen to agree that you're ignorant.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoI do happen know the technical term for this particular bullshit argument you're throwing out: ad hominem, with a light sprinkling of appeal to authority, since you're implying he has none due to his job title.
- pavel_lishin 9y agoI forget the technical term for the bullshit argument you're throwing out - "if we can't have X, then clearly you support the polar opposite of X!" Moving on, the actual reasonable conclusion here is to be smarter about what we deem a criminal act or not. Why is getting caught smoking a joint something that can ruin your career for a decade, while drinking a beer on the sidewalk is a wrist-slap?
- joeblubaugh 9y agoOr maybe it ought to convince us that we shouldn't make it so hard for people with minor criminal records to get back into society?
- milesvp 9y agoThat is the absolute wrong takeaway here. It's about being overly harshly punished for mistakes in their youths. I've heard very similar stories from public defenders that have nothing to do with drugs, but with common punishment escalations that are hard to avoid when you're poor, and people surely can't avoid being poor. Minor fine goes unpaid because this month the electric bill is more important. Leads to more fines. Leads to license suspencion. Leads to driving while license suspended. Leads to license suspension. Leads to driving while license suspended. Leads to felony jail time. Don't get me wrong, there are choices made at each stage of escalation, and often all that's needed is to show up to court, dressed in your sunday best and respectfully explain situation to the judge, and the chain can be broken, but being poor leads to a lot of suboptimal decisions that could make it difficult or impossible to deal with any of this until there is no choice, and a felony conviction often ends up as the escalation that can't be putoff any longer.
- anthonybsd 9y agoYou realize that you can acquire a criminal record for something as innocuous as urinating on your own private property right?
- RBBronson123 9y agoYour comment is very insightful. I was in prison with lots of folks who: 1. Dealt pot. Now widely decriminalized. 2. Cheated on their taxes. I don't know a business person who doesn't fudge their T&E. 3. DWI/Drunk driving. Who among us hasn't driven, having had that extra glass of wine. Morality is frequently not as black-and-white as we'd wish it conveniently be. We are human. We screw up. There should be ramifications for our transgressions. But a life sentence! That's the punishment, effectively, that's meted out. How evolved does that make us, as a society?
- dang 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14911995 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14911995 and marked it off-topic.
- adnam 9y agoHow is this off-topic? Do you mean "off message"?
- dang 9y ago'Dissuading people from using drugs in the first place' is pretty far from the topic of a job board for felons. There's a connection, but it's a generic one. We've learned that generic tangents aren't good for discussion here. This is standard HN moderation. When a subthread veers away from the original topic and also toward something more generic or ideological, we moderate the subthread as off topic. That caveat is important, since off-topic tangents can also be whimsical and sometimes more interesting than the original discussion. But on HN, 'generic' and 'interesting' are incompatible, and the generic stuff tends to take over the concrete if you let it (+10x when the material is flammable). Therefore we don't let it.
- adnam 9y agoThank you for the explanation. Since I have your attention momentarily, would it be possible to delete my entire HN history from the beginning of time? Posts and comments.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- KingMob 9y agoHN doesn't usually get trolls, so they probably don't have a category for it. But you're welcome here if you can argue your point instead of throwing out one-liners.
- adnam 9y ago