

The Internet of Kafkaesque Things - CapitalistCartr
https://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/internet-kafkaesque-things

======
aaronbrethorst
FTA:

    
    
        Just one example: a federal judge haunted by a
        55-year-sentence he was forced to give a 24-year-old
        convicted of three marijuana sales.
    

And from a link in the sentence above[1]:

    
    
        "I do think about Angelos,” said Paul Cassell,
        a now-retired federal judge in the Utah circuit.
        “I sometimes drive near the prison where he’s held,
        and I think, ‘Gosh he shouldn’t be there.
        Certainly not as long as I had to send him there.
        ... That wasn’t the right thing to do.
        The system forced me to do it.”
    

Notably, this is the same system he remained a part of for a few more years,
until finally quitting in 2007 because of low judicial pay[2], as opposed to,
y'know, making a principled stand against unjust minimum sentencing
requirements.

Cassell also mentions that Angelos' incarceration puts a significant burden on
taxpayers:

    
    
        “I thought the sentence was utterly unjust to
        Weldon Angelos, but also unjust to the taxpayer”
    

And yet, he's still a proponent of capital punishment[3], which costs
taxpayers even more than imprisonment for life[4].

[1] [http://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-judge-regrets-55-year-
marij...](http://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-judge-regrets-55-year-marijuana-
sentence/story?id=28869467)

[2] [http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/21/judge-paul-cassell-
resig...](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/09/21/judge-paul-cassell-resigning/)

[3]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150107005109/http://www.reuter...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150107005109/http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-
andrew-lawsuit-dershowitz-idUSKBN0KF0DH20150106)

[4] [http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-
penalty](http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/costs-death-penalty)

~~~
Kalium
> as opposed to, y'know, making a principled stand against unjust minimum
> sentencing requirements.

While occasionally highly effective, it should be remembered that falling on
your sword is not generally an effective way to make a significant difference
in a large system.

What do you think the judge should have done, bearing in mind that resigning
in protest would almost certainly have resulted in little but his replacement?

~~~
aaronbrethorst
A Bush 43 appointee and former Scalia clerk resigning in protest over what he
sees as unjust sentencing, and perhaps working for the ACLU, like Steve
Schmidt did on same-sex marriage would have sent a powerful message and also
perhaps done some good by virtue of having a clearly very skilled legal
practitioner working to change laws he found wrong.

~~~
Kalium
It would have sent a very powerful message to those already listening and
looking to agree with it. It would not have sent a meaningful message to most,
who would have never encountered this hypothetical message.

~~~
e12e
That is generally the nature of "powerful messages". If you're advocating
change, most of that time will be spent talking to people that don't, won't
listen. If not, change would already have happened.

~~~
Kalium
That's not the nature of activism, friend. If you're spending most of your
time talking to people who don't or won't listen, it's because you aren't
communicating effectively. People listen when you communicate effectively.

That said, do not ever confuse people listening for people agreeing. They are
very different things. Just because someone honestly listens to you does not
mean they will come to agree with you.

Also, people listen when you are willing to listen to them. Too many
"conversations" are thinly veiled preaching.

------
panic
_Bureaucracies are constituted by humans, however, and not all humans cower in
the illusory shelter of objective process. As a result, bureaucracies often
have something that computers do not: logical escape valves. When the
inevitable cases arise that break the logic of the bureaucratic machine, these
escape valves can provide crucial relief from its heartless and implacable
nature. Every voicemail system needs the option to press zero. Escape valves
may take the form of appeals processes, or higher-level administrators who are
empowered to make exceptions to the rules, or evolved cultural practices
within an organization. Sometimes they might consist of nothing more than
individual clerks who have the freedom to fix dumb results by breaking the
rules. In some cases this is perceived as a failure—after all, making an
exception to a rule in order to treat an individual fairly diminishes the
qualities of predictability and control that make a bureaucratic machine so
valuable to those at the top. And these pockets of discretion can also leave
room for bad results such as racial discrimination. But overall they rescue
bureaucracies from being completely mindless, in a way that computers cannot
be (at least yet)._

I wonder what the best way to add an "escape valve" like this to a computer
system would be. A chat box where you can talk to a human who has
administrative power over the computer system? A way to write freeform text
that someone will read later?

~~~
rkuykendall-com
> A way to write freeform text that someone will read later?

I find including your email address prominently on the website works this way.
Even though there is a bug tracker and forums, the "Send me an email" link on
one of my webapps has been fantastic. Talking with people can uncover bugs and
solve simple problems you otherwise would have missed. But normally, you just
get to talk to someone using your website, which is even better!

------
noonespecial
I didn't like much about _Elysium_ but found the parole "officer" depicted to
be both eerie and prescient.

