None of what you list will make this proposal feasible.
This seems non-obvious to me (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it).
What’s needed to make the proposal feasible is that VR is seen as a plausible substitue for in-person interaction, and that the cost of VR for every prisoner is less than the cost of the correspending physical actions. All of what I mentioned in the post goes towards those two things.
VR is seen as a plausible substitue for in-person interaction
Not “seen”, but “is”. Do you think photorealistic VR can be a full and complete substitute for human interaction? Is it a problem that can be solved by pushing more pixels through the goggles?
Don’t forget that your prison population isn’t particularly smart, tends to have mental health issues, and you would like them to adequately function in the real world after release.
I mean, if a buerecrat thinks that VR is as good as normal social interaction for prisoners, and they think that it’s cheaper, and they think that they’ll get public support for this, they’ll implement it as a policy. It doesn’t matter whether VR is actually as good as normal social interaction, only the perception of it.
So are you arguing that it’s a good idea, or are you just arguing that this passes the very low threshold of being an idea that some idiot will try once?
This seems non-obvious to me (obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have said it).
What’s needed to make the proposal feasible is that VR is seen as a plausible substitue for in-person interaction, and that the cost of VR for every prisoner is less than the cost of the correspending physical actions. All of what I mentioned in the post goes towards those two things.
Not “seen”, but “is”. Do you think photorealistic VR can be a full and complete substitute for human interaction? Is it a problem that can be solved by pushing more pixels through the goggles?
Don’t forget that your prison population isn’t particularly smart, tends to have mental health issues, and you would like them to adequately function in the real world after release.
Why? All that it takes for policy change is perception, not reality.
What do you mean?
I mean, if a buerecrat thinks that VR is as good as normal social interaction for prisoners, and they think that it’s cheaper, and they think that they’ll get public support for this, they’ll implement it as a policy. It doesn’t matter whether VR is actually as good as normal social interaction, only the perception of it.
So are you arguing that it’s a good idea, or are you just arguing that this passes the very low threshold of being an idea that some idiot will try once?
The latter.
The former I wouldn’t rule out, but we don’t really have enough data on VR’s psychological effects right now to know either way.