The purpose of prison ought to be reconciliation and rehabilitation, not revenge or forced contrition. Many prisoners do feel remorse for their crimes, but unfortunately recidivism is so high (in America) because our socioeconomic and judicial systems are tooled to undermine a parolee’s attempts to reintegrate into society, setting them up for failure.
Only in extreme circumstances, i.e. truly sociopathic criminals, should sentences that remove all hope of reintegration or release be issued. True sociopaths are incapable of feeling remorse, no matter how long or under whatever conditions they are kept. They do understand the weight and impact their crimes had on their victims, but they do not care. No amount of coercion will change that. In these fringe cases, I’d argue that giving them the choice between lifelong sequestration or self-inflicted suicide is ostensibly the best solution for everyone.
I’ll take “Hyperbolic & Catastrophic Exaggerations” for $400, Alex.
I’m pretty sure you’re reply is tongue-in-cheek, but that did get me thinking how long it would take to actually destroy the Moon by mining.
Let’s say we used mass drivers to launch 1000kg of material from the Moon to the Earth every second, non stop, until the Moon was completely dismantled. The moon has a mass somewhere around 7.35×1022 kilograms. Dividing the Moon’s mass by the rate of removal, we get Time=7.35×1019seconds. Divide that by 35,536,000 seconds in a year, and it would take us about 2.33 trillion years to dismantle the moon.
Considering how the Earth only has, maybe, a billion years until the Sun’s natural life cycle makes life on Earth impossible, I’d wager that we’re good. Drill baby, drill.