What’s wrong with using movies or novels as starting points for the discussion? No one’s claiming that it’s true, after all. Where is the lie, where is the rationalist sin? Science fiction represents the author’s attempt to visualize the future; why not take advantage of the thinking that’s already been done on our behalf, instead of starting over?
Not every misstep in the precise dance of rationality consists of outright belief in a falsehood; there are subtler ways to go wrong.
That starting point of the discussion we are having is fiction: it is a proposal for a reform of the penitentiary system, the reform that does not exist and is unlikely to come to pass, at least in the near future.
And in this particular case the movie is but a finger pointing to something. Since it is non-obvious to at least some, I’ll spell it out: under the proposed reform jails have strong incentives to not let the released inmates re-offend. At the same time jails have a great deal of control over what happens to inmates in their custody. One easy way to prevent future criminal activity is to cripple people in some way.
Hey, wasn’t there a movie about a troublesome guy who got a lobotomy? :-P
“I try to avoid the logical fallacy of generalization from fictional evidence.”
Yes, and..?
Did I assert something and said “This surely must be true, for that is how things happened in the Korova Milk Bar”?
That starting point of the discussion we are having is fiction: it is a proposal for a reform of the penitentiary system, the reform that does not exist and is unlikely to come to pass, at least in the near future.
And in this particular case the movie is but a finger pointing to something. Since it is non-obvious to at least some, I’ll spell it out: under the proposed reform jails have strong incentives to not let the released inmates re-offend. At the same time jails have a great deal of control over what happens to inmates in their custody. One easy way to prevent future criminal activity is to cripple people in some way.
Hey, wasn’t there a movie about a troublesome guy who got a lobotomy? :-P