4 ms·

It's a very incomplete comparison. What have the Uighurs done to merit their imprisonment?

vkou 6y ago
Do you really want to shift this conversation to whether or not forced labor is justifiable if the people subjected to it are deserving of their imprisonment? I didn't realize that basic humanity like 'don't enslave people' is contingent on what those people have, or have not done.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I mean, imprisonment itself is a pretty severe restriction. If you're proposing that even deserving criminals should be treated as well as you and I, I don't have a tremendously convincing refutation, other than to note that it implies much more radical changes than simply ending prison labor.
  - vkou 6y ago
    Prison labor creates perverse incentives to create more prisoners. We've all seen how that played out in the USSR.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- darkerside 6y ago
  The conversation is about the treatment of Uighurs in China, and the US reaction to it, no? If anything, I'm reacting to an attempted derailment of the conversation by comparing it to the (flawed) prison system of another country. Of all the problems to fix with the US prison system, forced labor is so far down the list anyway. And yes, I do believe in consequences for actions, as do most people over the age of 25.
  - XMPPwocky 6y ago
    "I do believe in consequences for actions, as do most people over the age of 25." Of course- there can be no well-considered arguments for things like prison abolition. No, even considering the idea of such a thing means you're too naive. When people break the rules, they need to have consequences- and, of course, those consequences must be "being locked in a cell". Nothing else is possible. Don't show me the data- don't show me the recidivism rates- don't show me the thinking. That's all just crazy. Grow up. Nothing can ever meaningfully change. We must only fine-tune our existing system- the structure, the heart of it all, is unquestionable, absolute, no less so that the divine right of kings. Can't you see that? After all of human history, we've finally figured things out. Don't question it. Moloch is powerful hungry, after all. We need to do what we've always done. Everybody agrees on that. Better things are childish fantasies. Don't dare question the hegemony, kid. Be realistic, we say, closing our eyes, developing new adaptive noise cancellation to blot out the sounds of the child in the basement, God have mercy we need to be realis But maybe in a few years we'll, say, legalize weed. Would definitely keep a lot of non-violent people out of jail, and that's definitely something. Maybe by 2050 we'll have cut inmate labor by 10%. I think that's a fair compromise.
    - darkerside 6y ago
      My views are a lot more nuanced than the straw man you put together here. I don't disagree with some of the things you've said. I was simply declaiming the false equivalency between incarceration of convicted criminals and the persecution of a purple based ENTIRELY on ethnicity. I get the the justice system is tilted in a similar way. It's a combination of personal and systemic racism. But matching people into concentration camps on trains is qualitatively different, and we can't lose sight of that.

vkou 6y ago

Do you really want to shift this conversation to whether or not forced labor is justifiable if the people subjected to it are deserving of their imprisonment? I didn't realize that basic humanity like 'don't enslave people' is contingent on what those people have, or have not done.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I mean, imprisonment itself is a pretty severe restriction. If you're proposing that even deserving criminals should be treated as well as you and I, I don't have a tremendously convincing refutation, other than to note that it implies much more radical changes than simply ending prison labor.
- vkou 6y ago
  Prison labor creates perverse incentives to create more prisoners. We've all seen how that played out in the USSR.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
darkerside 6y ago
The conversation is about the treatment of Uighurs in China, and the US reaction to it, no? If anything, I'm reacting to an attempted derailment of the conversation by comparing it to the (flawed) prison system of another country. Of all the problems to fix with the US prison system, forced labor is so far down the list anyway. And yes, I do believe in consequences for actions, as do most people over the age of 25.
- XMPPwocky 6y ago
  "I do believe in consequences for actions, as do most people over the age of 25." Of course- there can be no well-considered arguments for things like prison abolition. No, even considering the idea of such a thing means you're too naive. When people break the rules, they need to have consequences- and, of course, those consequences must be "being locked in a cell". Nothing else is possible. Don't show me the data- don't show me the recidivism rates- don't show me the thinking. That's all just crazy. Grow up. Nothing can ever meaningfully change. We must only fine-tune our existing system- the structure, the heart of it all, is unquestionable, absolute, no less so that the divine right of kings. Can't you see that? After all of human history, we've finally figured things out. Don't question it. Moloch is powerful hungry, after all. We need to do what we've always done. Everybody agrees on that. Better things are childish fantasies. Don't dare question the hegemony, kid. Be realistic, we say, closing our eyes, developing new adaptive noise cancellation to blot out the sounds of the child in the basement, God have mercy we need to be realis But maybe in a few years we'll, say, legalize weed. Would definitely keep a lot of non-violent people out of jail, and that's definitely something. Maybe by 2050 we'll have cut inmate labor by 10%. I think that's a fair compromise.
  - darkerside 6y ago
    My views are a lot more nuanced than the straw man you put together here. I don't disagree with some of the things you've said. I was simply declaiming the false equivalency between incarceration of convicted criminals and the persecution of a purple based ENTIRELY on ethnicity. I get the the justice system is tilted in a similar way. It's a combination of personal and systemic racism. But matching people into concentration camps on trains is qualitatively different, and we can't lose sight of that.