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By isolating the veracity of the charges from what we do next, we then get to the question: Is there such a severe crime that we would never want a given person to EVER appear in open society again? In other words, is a sentence of "life in prison with no chance of parole, pardon, or...

Bee: You listed four issues for prison: Punishment, Rehabilitation, Deterrent, and Retribution Granted, the punishment element removes the offender from society, but the real punishment is suspension of civil liberties. I see the separate factor that you also isolate the person from society...

Giraffes are shades of yellow and brown, just FYI.

Jon, I hear you. But until we know how the brain actually works, we can't rewire damaged brains. Ideally we could fix them, but in reality today, we cannot. Therefore, your question - while perfectly valid - deals with non-extant options. I would just as soon spend my limited brainpower on...

Waterboarding and electric shock and a few other techniques were used but the intel just wasn't that good. Maybe you get one nugget out of 10 or 20 sessions, but you do better if you can convince the person through logic and reason that they should tell you what you want to know. As to why...

In a zero-sum game, you can't have a win-win situation if I recall correctly. You can have a win/lose or a stalemate. In a non-zero-sum game you can have a win-win situation. In the subject of the thread, the win-win case is that the thugs finally realize that if they don't change their ways...

Bootcamps have worked in the past, but you have to do it while the kids are young and still somewhat malleable. Catch them too late and the bootcamp doesn't help much.

The point isn't only what I feel but what society feels. In the USA, prisoners lose liberty and voting rights (though oddly enough, I believe they still have the right to vote for President.) And "prisoners" is a generic term. I think that if we are going to take away from them the means to...

Bee - I made it clear that in considering the death penalty, you HAD to have certainty. In a sense, you might consider my post a hidden case of reductio ad absurdam since it is absolutely absurd to have certainty in most things of this world. Yet in the abstract the question still has merit...

You left out one more aspect of prisons: Isolation. Society wants to remove its most disruptive and unruly members from its midst. When a person is behind bars, they are not out on the streets where they can perpetrate more mayhem. You put wild animals in a zoo. Not because you want them...

Let's start with a simple fact. There IS no right to life. There is only the right to strive to live. Look at the way Nature works. You live if and only if you CAN live. You have whatever mental and physical gifts that were granted by Nature. You can learn (since learning is one of the...

Jon - regarding your game-theory comment. There is also the risk/reward concept to consider. Let's reduce it to the minimum example that you yourself brought up. If you nuke me, I will nuke you. And the threat is thus "Mutually Assured Destruction." Appropriate that the acronym is MAD...

This issue is one that is actually being debated, even if only indirectly, in the USA. The Black Lives Matter movement is frequented by people who want JUSTICE (usually spoken 10 to 20 decibels louder than anything else they say). But the same group turns a blind eye to the black-on-black...

Jon - totally color-blind or a specific combination (like red-green)?

"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to." - Mark Twain

The circumstantial evidence is damning but the inability to actually find the murder weapons complicated matters tremendously. He had motive and opportunity, and he had a collection of Japanese swords of various types that would have easily inflicted the wounds actually found on the victims...

I interpret "purposeful living striving for excellence" to mean - give yourself a cause, a purpose, a goal. Then do it well. I have NO DOUBT that many people who are volunteers in some charitable organization are living this kind of life.

I've never seen him otherwise.

"You just occasionally need a bit of a talking to" Wifey takes care of that. Trust me! (But actually, I noted that it was an "overlap" posting and you were referring to Jon.)

Patience and Flexibility were lower than I anticipated. Otherwise, not really.