by Max Barry

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[quote="Odin";p="37548978"][u]Thalassia About as Democratic as Palpatine's Republic[/u] Tldr; Thalassia turned into a blatant dictatorship. - Odin / Bormiar Citizen of Thalassia (for how long? :blink: ) Former Acting Minister of Security of Thalassia[/quote]

Apparently Thalassia has become an oligarchical dictatorship now

Lura wrote:and a population of only 3.

And I'm pretty sure at least one of those 3 is a puppet. Rarely have I seen a large nation with a national animal that isn't frolicking freely/soaring majestically/the nation's favourite main course, etc.

Gaianists wrote:When I say "abolish prisons" I think of "instead of having prisons that isolate people from the world let's provide them rehabilitation and reintegrate them into society". Of course the game didn't think the same way, I guess. I asked the question from my perspective but I hear both of you. I am quite the idealist myself.

I didn't realise you were talking about an issue, I thought you were being philosophical! Sometimes NS is a bit like Fallout 4 - you think you understand what's going to happen when you choose an option and then the opposite happens!

I absolutely see where you're coming from, though. Where you would replace prisons with rehabilitation facilities, I would have prisons become rehabilitation facilities in all but name - but both options sound good to me. In your case abolishing prisons would be a good thing but in my case it wouldn't, which I think is why I misunderstood you.

In any case we should start a pressure group :D

Forrester wrote:Instead of closing embassies with regions forest has a long history with perhaps we shouldn't have opened a new one with New West Indies, despite amalgamation with other regions the embassy instigator Funky Goats already organized two other failed embassies with Forest. Three strikes and your out?

If you consider reestablishing relations after a Founder CTE'd a failed embassy...

Gaianists wrote:When I say "abolish prisons" I think of "instead of having prisons that isolate people from the world let's provide them rehabilitation and reintegrate them into society". Of course the game didn't think the same way, I guess. I asked the question from my perspective but I hear both of you. I am quite the idealist myself.

I agree that prisons that focus on for-profit deterrence rather than rehabilitation cause severe societal issues (especially with how many criminals are repeat offenders because they can barely re-integrate into society.) What would be done with serious offenders (serial killers, rapists, that sort of thing) that show no sign of being able to be released back into society?

Lousykitty wrote:I agree that prisons that focus on for-profit deterrence rather than rehabilitation cause severe societal issues (especially with how many criminals are repeat offenders because they can barely re-integrate into society.) What would be done with serious offenders (serial killers, rapists, that sort of thing) that show no sign of being able to be released back into society?

That's a very common and very valid argument when it comes to prison reform debates. I think sometimes rehabilitation takes more than a lifetime (not in a religious sense!) - like you say, some people could spend their whole life in rehabilitation and would never be fit to be released into society. On the other hand, serial killers and rapists can and have been reformed in the past, and I don't think you can deny these people rehabilitation arbitrarily. Maybe it will take 80 years, but in my books it's still the right thing to do. I think even if someone spends their whole life in rehabilitation and is never released, it's still better than just putting them away somewhere to rot until they die.

But like I said, I'm just a stupid idealist! I guess I think that the best measure of a society is how they treat their worst.

Terrabod wrote:That's a very common and very valid argument when it comes to prison reform debates. I think sometimes rehabilitation takes more than a lifetime (not in a religious sense!) - like you say, some people could spend their whole life in rehabilitation and would never be fit to be released into society. On the other hand, serial killers and rapists can and have been reformed in the past, and I don't think you can deny these people rehabilitation arbitrarily. Maybe it will take 80 years, but in my books it's still the right thing to do. I think even if someone spends their whole life in rehabilitation and is never released, it's still better than just putting them away somewhere to rot until they die.

But like I said, I'm just a stupid idealist! I guess I think that the best measure of a society is how they treat their worst.

I agree with your last part and you make good points, but I imagine in countries where rehabilitation isn't already law, Joe Q. Taxpayer isn't going to be happy with the idea of his tax dollars being used to keep what is considered a menace to society alive and comfortable.

Lousykitty wrote:I agree with your last part and you make good points, but I imagine in countries where rehabilitation isn't already law, Joe Q. Taxpayer isn't going to be happy with the idea of his tax dollars being used to keep what is considered a menace to society alive and comfortable.

Yeah people in some countries cough cough aren't even happy having their tax dollars used to keep good people alive and comfortable.

But I'm not judging.

Evergreen conifer wrote:If you consider reestablishing relations after a Founder CTE'd a failed embassy...

No worries it's just me, I would have preferred to see Conifer refounded instead of The New Conifer West Evergreen Indies.

Forrester wrote:No worries it's just me, I would have preferred to see Conifer refounded instead of The New Conifer West Evergreen Indies.

EC was the refounding and it simply did not work out.

Turbeaux wrote:EC was the refounding and it simply did not work out.

I realise that

NWI is not a continuation of conifer/EC. it was simply agreed between the EC and NWI governments that all EC nations could gain NWI citizenship automatically when they entered.
The NWI has it’s own history and government documents.

Terrabod wrote:Yeah people in some countries cough cough aren't even happy having their tax dollars used to keep good people alive and comfortable.

But I'm not judging.

america bad, europe literal utopia where nothing goes wrong. give me 5000 likes.

Myordas wrote:This website contains all the cichlids in Lake Malawi.

http://malawi.si/Malawi/index.html

Thank you for continuing your Cichlid facts and info. I missed them. You should know, I likely never would have known about them if it weren't for your posts, and now I hold a special place in my heart for those fish...

Nattily dressed anarchists on bicycles

Hey Forest. So, I'd go hit some nearby trails IRL, but instead I'm sitting around inside waiting for the humidity and temperature to fall somewhere below "instant death" levels. Fortunately, I've somewhat slaked my cabin fever by picking up a copy of Firewatch during this weekend's Steam sale.

Although it's

it will feel like a walking/dating simulator at first, but it does develop a reasonably engaging if somewhat simple mystery plot eventually. I doubt real-life firewatchers spend much time playing Sherlock Holmes, and solving the mystery is mostly a matter of completing "go to X and find Y"-type missions, but there is a good treatise on existential isolation as an essential aspect of the human condition in there. I liked it.
, I found the map-reading/orienteering gameplay mechanism especially engaging, especially with the "show location on map" option turned off. The game also has weather and time-of-day mechanisms (especially in free roam mode) that can make things interesting. I suspect that even with the relatively small game world, if translated to real life, I'd have ended up a pile of sun-bleached (and/or fire scorched) bones more than once.

Anyway, anyone know of any more games/simulators featuring orienteering/navigation more prominently? I've found Virtual-O on Steam, but it's Early Access.

Lousykitty wrote:america bad, europe literal utopia where nothing goes wrong. give me 5000 likes.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here.....I can make some guesses but I rather go and ask.

Nattily dressed anarchists on bicycles wrote:Hey Forest

Anyway, anyone know of any more games/simulators featuring orienteering/navigation more prominently? I've found Virtual-O on Steam, but it's Early Access.

I can recommend this piece of software although it provides more of an "experience". It has no goals, no narrative and no progression.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/587580/Nature_Treks_VR/

Effazio, Atsvea, Lord Dominator, Palos heights, and 5 othersTurbeaux, Outer Bele Levy Epies, Terrabod, Nattily dressed anarchists on bicycles, and Middle Barael

Nattily dressed anarchists on bicycles

Ownzone wrote:

I can recommend this piece of software although it provides more of an "experience". It has no goals, no narrative and no progression.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/587580/Nature_Treks_VR/

I'm watching the demo videos, and I'm reminded of Universe Sandbox and that I've not crashed a major gas planet into anything recently.

"...create and shape your own world..."

._.

[sounds of increasing Jupiter's delta-V to relativistic levels]

Lousykitty wrote:I agree that prisons that focus on for-profit deterrence rather than rehabilitation cause severe societal issues (especially with how many criminals are repeat offenders because they can barely re-integrate into society.) What would be done with serious offenders (serial killers, rapists, that sort of thing) that show no sign of being able to be released back into society?

Serial killers are rare but forensic psychiatry can study their minds and prove valuable information. In my opinion it isn't worth giving up on them to be honest. Obviously they can't fully be released back into society until the experts are sure of the rehabilitation's success but psychic wards (or wherever they get rehabilitation) shouldn't isolate them from society and should be humane. But as I said, I am an idealist.

Terrabod wrote:I didn't realise you were talking about an issue, I thought you were being philosophical! Sometimes NS is a bit like Fallout 4 - you think you understand what's going to happen when you choose an option and then the opposite happens!

I absolutely see where you're coming from, though. Where you would replace prisons with rehabilitation facilities, I would have prisons become rehabilitation facilities in all but name - but both options sound good to me. In your case abolishing prisons would be a good thing but in my case it wouldn't, which I think is why I misunderstood you.

In any case we should start a pressure group :D

Same reason why I hate Fallout 4 lmao. Just tell me what am I saying, I can't read the game's intentions.

Lousykitty wrote:america bad, europe literal utopia where nothing goes wrong. give me 5000 likes.

America does have the worst incarceration rate per 100,000 people in the world (655), with the next countries being El Salvador (590), Turkmenistan (552), the US Virgin Islands (542) and Thailand (531). Of the NATO founding members the countries with the highest incarceration rate per 100,000 people after the US are the UK (with 145) and Portugal (139). The US is home to about 5% of the world's population but 25% of the world's prisoners.

Recidivism (rates of prisoners reoffending) is generally high in the US and Europe, although this is much harder to compare as follow-up studies use different time periods (some check on released prisoners after 2 months, some 2 years, some 10 years etc) and many countries don't collect this data or report the data differently. Norway has the world's lowest recidivism rate at ~20% after 5 years and the prison system there focuses on rehabilitation - whereas nations with prison systems that focus on punitive measures tend to have rates of 50-70% after 5 years.

Consider that the average cost of housing a prisoner in the US is ~$31,000 per prisoner per year. The price of reoffending is absurdly expensive. It is therefore actually much cheaper for taxpayers to pay for rehabilitation services when the resulting drop in recidivism is considered. For example, a US study in 2011 found that if the 41 states investigated lowered their recidivism rates by just 10% they would actually save taxpayers $635 million in the first year alone. California would free up $233 million for taxpayers; New York would save $42 million; and Texas would benefit from $34 million in savings.

So while at first I get that it sounds counterintuitive to spend extra money on services for bad people, it's economically beneficial in the long run. The big bonus in my opinion is that the lower rates of reoffending that result from prisoner rehabilitation would mean less people in prison at any one time. This in turn frees up resources such as psychologists and access to drug rehabilitation programmes for prisoners incarcerated for the more serious offences.

Northern Wood wrote:Thank you for continuing your Cichlid facts and info. I missed them. You should know, I likely never would have known about them if it weren't for your posts, and now I hold a special place in my heart for those fish...

I rarely post due to life problems and quara-q (I hate saying "quarantine" a lot). Cichlids might be the best fish type but looking for future evolutions might occur such as green colored body or more Diplotaxodon species.

Lousykitty wrote:america bad, europe literal utopia where nothing goes wrong. give me 5000 likes.

Kind of a lazy troll IMO. I am sure that you can either do better or take this kind of thing to the portions of the forums that is a cesspit.

Lousykitty wrote:america bad, europe literal utopia where nothing goes wrong. give me 5000 likes.

Both are bad. The European Union forces the countries in it to build things that are bad for the environment.

Turbeaux wrote:Kind of a lazy troll IMO. I am sure that you can either do better or take this kind of thing to the portions of the forums that is a cesspit.

I think their debate with Terrabod about "prisons" got heated or at least affected the response a bit. In my opinion the focus in prison should be on rehabilitation (vs punitive measures) and Terrabod has made a pretty strong case for it. However when it comes to serious offenders (serial killers, serial rapists, known terrorists) that have pleaded guilty AND show little remorse AND where the chance of reoffending after psychological analysis has been determined to be pretty high another thing comes in to play. Protecting society from these people should at that point be the top priority...rehabilitation and economical reasons distant seconds.

In the Netherlands we have 3 cases in recent years where serious offenders that were still young but known to have a high risk of reoffending were allowed to roam relatively free in low-security facilities while they were undergoing rehabilitation services. They either escaped or snuck out undetected and raped and killed several "new" people before they were caught again. Loads of "silent walks" and politicians proclaiming that this shouldn't have happened and that the victims were "unfortunate and at the wrong place at the wrong time" and that they will request a "thorough and deep investigation of what led to this tragedy". The cold, hard truth is simply that the system in place didn't work and that it failed to protect a number of "innocent" citizens from other citizens that had committed similar serious crimes in their past.....and those holes in the system are still there and as the mental health-care will receive further budget cuts or at least a lesser increase in budget than necessary (both quantity and quality wise) further enhanced by Corona we will see more of these cases emerging.

Turbeaux wrote:Kind of a lazy troll IMO. I am sure that you can either do better or take this kind of thing to the portions of the forums that is a cesspit.

Ownzone wrote:I think their debate with Terrabod about "prisons" got heated or at least affected the response a bit. In my opinion the focus in prison should be on rehabilitation (vs punitive measures) and Terrabod has made a pretty strong case for it.

I took it as a joke so no skin off my nose there (is that a real saying, Americans?).

While what you've said about those three individuals is really tragic, Ownzone, the stats I've seen about the prison system in the Netherlands makes it objectively one of the best in the world when the rates of violent crime, incarceration and recidivism are considered. As you say, though, if there's a problem that needs fixed, fix it. The system can always - always - be improved.

Nattily dressed anarchists on bicycles

Terrabod wrote:I didn't realise you were talking about an issue, I thought you were being philosophical! Sometimes NS is a bit like Fallout 4 - you think you understand what's going to happen when you choose an option and then the opposite happens!

[gives all clean water to homeless guy outside town]

[becomes level 30 Messiah]

[is gunned down by Talon Company]

[complains on Got Issues]

[is gunned down by Issue Moderator]

[sets world on fire]

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