
An S.O.S. in a Saks Bag - danielpal
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/currency/2014/06/an-sos-in-a-saks-bag.html
======
jdietrich
I don't intend to defend the human rights record of China, but I do question
the outright opposition to the use of labour as a means of punishment and/or
rehabilitation.

Here in the UK, we have a criminal justice system that isn't without fault,
but is one of the best in the world. We make extensive use of "forced labour",
both in the community and in prison. British prisoners are required to
participate in work or training activities, or face the withdrawal of
privileges - fewer visits and phone calls, less free association time and so
on. There is no significant history of corruption or malpractice in the use of
prison labour here and there is broad consensus that requiring prisoners to
engage in productive activity improves prison discipline and aids
rehabilitation.

From my perspective, it seems that the issue is clearly of degree rather than
of type. The issue is of broader prison welfare, not the specific issue of
prison labour. To castigate the Chinese penal system as "modern day slavery"
us fundamentally unhelpful. The article has a tone that borders on hysteria,
with no real global context or reference to the use of prison labour outside
China.

There are clearly major human rights issues in the Chinese penal system, but I
think we should specifically address those issues directly. The use of torture
and capital punishment is considered unambiguously wrong in the developed
world, and the abolition of these practices in China, the US and the Middle
East is of utmost priority. Frankly, I think that the article is a covertly
ideological attack on China, part of a broader trend of commentary that seeks
to dismiss Chinese industrial growth as merely the result of the oppression of
labour rather than of good governance and well-managed economic development.

~~~
wil421
>but I do question the outright opposition to the use of labour as a means of
punishment and/or rehabilitation.

I question this as well. But I dont think anyone should be forced or required
to work. If you want to sit and rot in a jail cell so be it but if you want to
work then you should be allowed to. Even if you dont get a _normal_ wage.

>British prisoners are required to participate in work or training activities,
or face the withdrawal of privileges - fewer visits and phone calls, less free
association time and so on.

This is where the US differs, they treat most prisoners like dogs at the
pound. I dont think the US prison system is rehabilitating anyone and its
probably the reason we have so many repeat offenders. We arent leaving them
better off than when they came in. In fact most of the time they are in a much
worse position when they leave.

Now we are outsourcing all of our prisons to corporate prisons run by 3rd
parties who treat the prisoners even worse.

------
firstOrder
I wonder if the bags manufactured in US prisons ever have notes slipped into
them. You don't have to go to Saks, you can buy them online -

[http://www.iaprisonind.com/store/c/31-Plastic-
Bags.aspx](http://www.iaprisonind.com/store/c/31-Plastic-Bags.aspx)
[http://www.iaprisonind.com/store/c/77-Miscellany.aspx](http://www.iaprisonind.com/store/c/77-Miscellany.aspx)

Oh yaa, he says he's not guilty. I'm sure it would be hard to find a prisoner
in a US prison who says he's not guilty.

In fact some judges in the US freelance in sending innocent people to jail, in
exchange for the kickbacks they get -
[http://articles.philly.com/2014-02-05/news/47009400_1_ciavar...](http://articles.philly.com/2014-02-05/news/47009400_1_ciavarella-
and-conahan-ciavarella-jr-philadelphia-based-juvenile-law-center)

Americans just love moralizing and pointing their fingers at other countries
for the exact same things they do.

~~~
logicallee
your argument ("Americans just love moralizing and pointing their fingers at
other countries for the exact same things they do") is called "tu quoque" and
it's a logical fallacy.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque)

It does not detract from, or even relate to, the subject of the article in any
way.

\--

EDIT: Following downvote, to make it clearer:

1\. yes we should not have slave labor in America either, and yes some people
are wrongfully imprisoned, and yes we use prison labor. The legal process is
probably better in the United States than in China, but that does not mean the
American legal process should not be improved. None of this has anything to do
with the subject of the article, and does not excuse it in any way. Besides,
the New Yorker is a private magazine - the article could be Chinese just as
easily, and you would not have to change any of the language in it.

2.

Oh, except for the fact that there is freedom of speech to publish it in the
United States (even if the subject of it were American prison labor) whereas
it's doubtful if the Chinese are even allowed to _read_ the present New Yorker
article, let alone publish it if they had written it themselves. In America,
the New Yorker, I, you, or anyone are free to publish a similar article on
American prison labor.

Here are a few:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=american+prison+labor+site%3...](https://www.google.com/search?q=american+prison+labor+site%3Anewyorker.com)

~~~
nkurz
_it 's doubtful if the Chinese are even allowed to read the present New Yorker
article, let alone publish it if they had written it themselves._

I'd be interested to hear from those with more direct experience whether this
guess is true. Is this article accessible in China? Would a Mandarin
translation be censored? Would a native equivalent be publishable? And
culturally, is there embarrassment at using prison labor?

~~~
icebraining
I don't have any more direct experience, but according to both greatfire.org
and websitepulse, the article is available behind the Great Firewall.

------
EdwardDiego
> Reëducation

While this is completely unrelated to the subject matter, I admire the New
Yorker's insistence on keeping the diaeresis alive.

~~~
Stratoscope
That, plus their insistence along with the rest of the New York media of
putting periods in anything that looks like it might be an acronym or
initialism, even when they are dead wrong and it isn't!

SOS is a case in point. SOS is just SOS. It is most definitely _not_ S.O.S.

SOS is a Morse Code prosign. Like all prosigns, it doesn't stand for the
individual letters. The letters are just a way of writing out the sound. SOS
definitely doesn't stand for "Save Our Ships" \- it was first introduced in
Germany!

In Morse code, the letter S is "dit dit dit" and the letter O is "dah dah
dah". When you send individual letters, you pause in between. So if you were
sending the individual letters S O S, or a word that happened to be spelled
"sos", you'd send "dit dit dit <pause> dah dah dah <pause> dit dit dit".

But that's not how you send SOS. You run it all together: "dit dit dit dah dah
dah dit dit dit".

The same is true for other prosigns such as AR which means "end of message".
The letter A is "dit dah" and the letter R is "dit dah dit". But you don't
send AR as "dit dah <pause> dit dah dit". It's "dit dah dit dah dit".

If someone sent me the individual letters A and R with the pause in between, I
wouldn't recognize it as an end of transmission. I'm listening for the entire
sound of "dit dah dit dah dit". It's really more like a big long "letter" of
its own.

Prosigns are customarily written with a bar above the letters to show that
they are connected without a pause. Of course, that's not always possible, but
they definitely are never written with dots between the letters.

Except in New York, where they love the periods no matter how wrong they are!

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOS)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosigns_for_Morse_code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosigns_for_Morse_code)

~~~
HCIdivision17
That was really informative! I have always wondered what makes those phrases
special, and how you're supposed to distinguish them from just the letters in
the same sequence. (I knew little about morse code other than the crude
letter-to-dit conversion, not about how to enunciate it.)

The idea that it's actually one large, composite letter makes a lot of sense
(just like certain letter sequences in strings like \n or \0).

------
VaedaStrike
Not wishing to at all detract from the egregious inhumanity of what is
portrayed, but a notable thought crossed my mind while reading this.
Programming has the potential, if we can get past the more superficial, and
avoid the dark and exploitative sides, seems to be the only real way to get to
a point where we can have a world with quality affordable consumer goods
without this kind of rape and murder in exchange for riches.

Doesn't that make you stop and think? Programming has that potential. Sure you
can exploit and rob and do horrible things with it as well, but what other
profession has the potential to let society have the potential of sustainable
affordable riches for all WITHOUT this kind of murder for gain (for that's
what it is, part of the life of others taken by force to obtain riches)

~~~
rayiner
What? Will programmers sew my T-Shirts for $5 a pop like kids in Hondorus?

~~~
tres
Probably not; however, their 3D printed robot in a kiosk probably would.

~~~
rayiner
Since when are 3D printers and robots built by programmers? And we already
have robots that sew garments. Honduran labor is cheaper. Are programmers
going to make those robots cheaper?

~~~
tres
Not sure how sincere you're being, but I'll explain: Robotics is expensive,
which is why people are still doing these tasks. 3D printing helps make
robotics ubiquitous. Think back to the golden era before the PC, or the days
of yore, when the only guys using a 'cell phone' were guys in limousines.

Now, I can go get a computer more powerful than a Cray for $200 & put it in my
pocket; not to mention that I can also talk to other people on it.

We're on the shoulders of giants right now, my friend. And in kind, work being
done today will give the programmer the capacity to replace cheap, forced
labor with cheaper robots.

~~~
rayiner
You've mentioned: 3D printed robots, cell phones, and powerful computers.
Programmers didn't build any of these things--other sorts of engineers did.
The OP asked: "but what other profession has the potential to let society have
the potential of sustainable affordable riches for all WITHOUT this kind of
murder for gain?" The answer is: lots of professions will have to work
together to make this possible.

The overarching issue is that OP's self-aggrandizing tech utopian gibberish
ignores the fact that giving masses of people access to cheap consumer goods
will require revolutions in many areas that have little to do with
programming. 3D printers are going to be of limited usefulness without
advances in materials science. Their reliance on plastics is going to become
untenable given the continuing increasing price of petroleum. Etc.

Outside engineering, it will require major advances in social and political
systems. Without such advances, 3d printers will put everyone out of work, and
all the benefits will go to those who own the means of producing those robots.
Moreover, 3D printed robots don't make metals and plastics out of thin air--
those have to be mined out of the ground and those deposits are often in
countries quite hostile to each other.

