
How Soylent and Oculus Could Fix the Prison System - edward
http://maneatingrobot.com/96/prison-reform-via-soylent-and-oculus/
======
ealexhudson
For an article about "lateral thinking" and "going back to first principles",
the basic tenet of locking people in a room hasn't really been questioned -
this whole thing is thinking within the box, almost literally.

Geofencing, tagging and monitoring all play a role today in people serving
time in the community: the only reason we don't go further is society's need
for safety. If behaviour analysis could reliably predict someone going off the
rails, if biochemical analysis could measure an addict's ability to kick their
drug of choice, etc. etc. then you don't need the box in the first place.

~~~
bluejekyll
Agree. And there's lots of research to show this:

[https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=1225...](https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=122570)

I have an idea, maybe totally crazy, but what if we forced the communities
that sentence someone to bear the entire cost for incarcerating the
individuals. This would force those communities to rethink where they are
allocating money because they would not be able to afford to imprison so many
people.

Basically, lock 'em up and throw away the key wouldn't be an option. On top of
that, it might encourage pushing money to the deeper root issues which is fair
education opportunities for everyon, and sustainable living situations that
allow children to thrive.

Back to this article, no matter how awesome, I don't think VR can out perform
real human interaction, but it might actually be better than the current
situation.

Edit: agree with the problem that this would punish the very community that
needs more help. But, what I want to figure out is, what should be the method
to discourage prison and encourage in-community rehabilitation? (Under the
assumption that this is both more cost and rehab effective, and less
disruptive to already stressed families)

~~~
bfstein
So poor communities--where crime is naturally higher in the first place--
should be less well-equipped to incarcerate their own bad actors? I don't
think that logic holds.

~~~
bluejekyll
Perhaps it would look that way initially, but wouldn't we then be forced to
really confront the issue?

I'm open to other ideas, but right now the way I see it is there is no
negative impact on the courts today when they sentence people. There is
nothing for one the judge to think about the total cost to the community when
putting people in jail for 20 years.

------
muglug
While the author links approvingly to this article[1] which shows that
treating prisoners like humans is pretty effective at rehabilitating them, he
nevertheless proposes treating them like doped-up battery chickens.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-
pri...](http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-
inmates-treated-like-people)

------
caseysoftware
This reminds me of this post from a couple weeks ago called

"The Reductive Seduction of Other People’s Problems" -

Key quote: "The “reductive seduction” is not malicious, but it can be
reckless. For two reasons. First, it’s dangerous for the people whose problems
you’ve mistakenly diagnosed as easily solvable. There is real fallout when
well-intentioned people attempt to solve problems without acknowledging the
underlying complexity."

[The second reason isn't immediately applicable here.]

Ref:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10884840](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10884840)

~~~
shalmanese
Chesterton's Fence:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is
one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a
paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say,
for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more
modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of
this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer
will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let
you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me
that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

------
FLGMwt
I like how the author makes a casual reference to The Matrix without calling
out that his plan is a literal implementation of it.

~~~
dennisgorelik
What do you have against The Matrix?

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I think this is the funniest thing I've read in quite a while.

We have reached peak Hacker News.

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voyou
Well, this I suppose this is a "Silicon Valley style solution," in that it's
handwaving bullshit written by someone with absolutely no knowledge of what
they're talking about.

~~~
yaykyle
Right? Complete lack of empathy in this 'article'.

~~~
walterbell
On the corporate side, these two products may not want to be associated with
this "market". Wearable biosensors are already creeping towards surveillance
and vendors won't want to further spook citizens.

~~~
BEEdwards
There is a better than even chance that the GPS tracking device in their
pocket was manufactured by or gets service from a company that works directly
and openly with the government on matters of intelligence.

You think companies really care about the perception, when people don't?

~~~
Aelinsaar
They manifestly do, they want control over that perception. It's just that
they believe they can still control that through marketing.

------
tptacek
This is satire, right?

~~~
mattzito
If not satire, it neatly summarizes why some people hate silicon valley so
much.

~~~
thatcat
while claiming to reduce solitary confinement but actually making it universal
as a growth strategy for overpriced nutrient solution is pretty absurd; the
question is: is it less absurd than the current strategy?

~~~
Qwertious
The problem isn't technical, it's political - nobody gives a shit about the
prisoners, and therefore nobody is punishing poor behaviour of the people in
charge of prisons. Lowering costs won't do anything other than increase the
profit margins of the private prison companies, who will then proceed to
figure out ways to cheap out on _soylent_ instead of cheaping out on
traditional food.

------
blatherard
What's great is that the soylent-oculus-isolation pods could be reused for
other purposes, such as

    
    
      * Mental institutions
      * Homeless shelters
      * Public schools
    

No more need to deal with the risks of humans interacting with other humans in
meatspace. Awesome.

------
wglb
With respect to _But whether it’s The SoyOculus method or some other, a first
principles approach to American incarceration is definitely overdue._ , I
don't think this is it. The article doesn't seem to consider why people go to
prison in the first place, and it is not a convincing argument that food and
VR will keep them from returning once they are out.

And _We’d eliminate prison violence._ : exactly this proposal does this is
unclear.

Meanwhile, Soylent and Oculus have nice solid government contracts.

------
Ygg2
Is it me or is this solution extremely misguided?

First both are as far as I know unproven technologies with possibly
devastating side effects.

Second this essentially doesn't seem to fix correctional aspect, because
people that socialize using OR aren't really taught to socialize. They are
taught to socialize using OR.

~~~
Karunamon
_people that socialize using OR aren 't really taught to socialize_

As long as your mind can be convinced that you're really socializing, what's
the substantial difference? If it would be possible to use VR as treatment
for, say, social anxiety[1], there's no reason it wouldn't work here.

[1]:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15295148](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15295148)

~~~
Ygg2
Well, you aren't learning body language and eye movement for one. Plus you
only learn to socialize in context of having VR glasses on.

But even if all that was implemented... This seems like a cruel and unusual
solution.

------
desireco42
My jaw dropped. This is not a joke right? Wow! Empathy zero.

~~~
tomjen3
Empathy is pointless, the only relevant question is: would you rather spend
time in the authors prison or an average standard us prison? If you, like me,
would prefer the authors prison then it doesn't matter why he made it that
way, whether it is because he belongs to an obscure sect that only allows
prisons designed that way, or because he cares about prisoners.

~~~
throwaway2048
There exist more than two possibilities

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dfield
I tried switching to Soylent and I would consider this inhumane treatment for
prisoners.

~~~
acbart
Out of curiosity, have you tried the 2.0 liquid version? It's much better than
v1. I only use it when I need to get a meal on the run, though. I can totally
see how people could dislike the taste in this version.

------
Karunamon
This comment thread...

There's a lot of bashing the author for perceived lack of empathy and precious
little explaining exactly what's wrong with the ideas presented.

The idea here is improving prison and reducing its costs, not perfecting it.
You _will not_ have a Nordic-style prison system in the USA in your lifetime.
Too many people that vote have too few fucks to give about people they're
conditioned to not give fucks about. It's a people problem, and the author
even touched on it - any positives you make to improving the system will be
slagged on by the ignorant as being soft on evil people.

So, given that we're operating in a framework that requires prison sucking,
how about we start by making it suck a little less and cost a little less?

~~~
Manishearth
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.

~~~
Karunamon
I don't agree with your conclusions, but seriously, _thank you_ for at least
detailing what you feel is wrong with it in a way that can be discussed,
instead of just posting throwaway "Silicon valley, am I right?" crap.

------
watson
If there is one thing I fear more than prison it would be forced to "eat"
nothing but Soylent 24/7/365\. I really mean that.

~~~
givinguflac
You clearly have no freaking idea what you're talking about if you fear a
nutritional drink more than living in prison. Soylent is far better
tasting/for you than many of the meals one is fed in prison. Truly spoken like
someone who has no reference for a complete loss of freedom. I would drink
soylent for the rest of my life of it was that or prison.

~~~
qihqi
The lack of change is terrifying though. Eating sushi 24/7 is not pleasant
either.

------
ricardobeat
Repost from yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10997074](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10997074)

------
bobthechef
I"m sorry, but how does something like this get up-voted? Tech is saturated
with charlatans and wackadoodles. Get this man back to his padded room! And
keep the other 44 patients from using the internet to up vote his articles.

------
blisterpeanuts
What about sex? The author totally forgot about sex as a basic need. You can
throw all the white paste and Occular headsets you want at the incarcerated
population, but without the sex this plan will never fly.

~~~
FLGMwt
While rape is a huge issue, it's interesting that the author didn't touch on
consensual sex in the prison system. I presume the answer would be simulated
VR sex, but that, more than any of the other social replacements, would fail
to suffice with current technology.

Also, the author hadn't paid for the computer to run a Rift yet.

~~~
jarcane
_forced sex_

Rape. The word is rape.

~~~
FLGMwt
Whoa. Had to Google that. TIL there's a significant rhetorical distinction
between the two. Edited and thank you.

------
jarcane
I used a similar idea in a cyberpunk book I wrote once. You might know
cyberpunk as a _dystopian genre_.

Mostly I cribbed the idea though from Saint's Row IV.

This article is more ridiculous than a game with a _dubstep gun._

------
oroup
I'd say this qualifies as a dangerous idea. Horrifying at first blush but it
sticks in the brain. That the comments are almost universally negative tells
you something.

~~~
Qwertious
The problem is that this doesn't fundamentally change prison, it just takes
the two metrics of cost and violence, and analyzes ways to minimise them (by
reducing to a minimalist food system and isolating sources of violence from
eachother).

The comments being overwhelmingly negative are due to two reasons: 1. it's a
solution that doesn't fix the main problems in the prison system, and 2. it's
at the top of the freaking front page, indicating a lot of people are taking
it seriously.

People laugh at idiotic ideas that nobody take seriously. People take out
their pitchforks at idiotic ideas that everyone take seriously, because it's a
serious danger to them and everyone else.

------
chevett
also, intestinators

