I don't understand why Texas voters support such inhumane conditions. All these "Christians" who support this kind of cruel punishment need to have a "come to Jesus" moment, literally.
There is so much nuance with this. On the one hand, Texas has hot enough days where it is inhumane/dangerous to not have A/C. But also plenty of days that are hot, but bearable. There are plenty of citizens not in prison that live without AC and make due with fans. HVAC systems are ridiculusly expensive. $1.5 billion is about $10K a person. Too bad they can't just give each prisoner a window unit for $200 a piece.
Fans have no cooling effect once the ambient temperature exceeds human body temperature, so "making do with fans" is literally making do with nothing.
Those citizens "making do" generally have freedom of movement, free access to cool water, air-conditioned businesses or vehicles, and are not locked down in a concrete facility.
Please take 5 seconds to fact check yourself with a very quick query against your information source of choice.
Over ~95 degrees, a fan blowing on a human acts as a convection oven, increasing body temperature while dehydrating the body.
This is greatly exacerbated in extreme heat.
CDC guidance is to avoid using a fan in extreme heat conditions unless it is combined with a cooling source and careful hydration. Once again, not exactly an option in a Texas prison.
> $1.5 billion is about $10K a person. Too bad they can't just give each prisoner a window unit for $200 a piece.
The former almost certainly includes other installation part, utility, and labor costs. Even if you could give everyone a $200 window unit, you'd need to deliver, install, upgrade utilities, maintain them, etc.
>I don't understand why Texas voters support such inhumane conditions.
I'm in Texas. I'm a little confused as to why you think I should care. For those wrongly convicted, I don't want them to get air-conditioning in prison... and for those correctly convicted, I'm not especially worried about making them more comfortable.
The entire point of punishment is the cruelty. It doesn't really work without it... it's unclear if you're quibbling over the amount of cruelty, or if you think that there exists some sort of cruelty-free punishment that the rest of us just haven't heard of.
Rehabilitation has never really been the point of the US prison or even correctional system at all.
The fact you can serve your time, earnestly work on rehabilitating yourself, jump through all the hoops, etc. but still be under the economic death sentence more or less summarizes how people feel about it.
It’s basically NIMBY applied to the justice system. Everyone loves to pretend they want rehabilitation but also wants someone else to do it. This shows up in hiring, apartment leasing, social benefits, etc.
>Everyone loves to pretend they want rehabilitation but also wants someone else to do it.
People on the left love to pretend this, perhaps. Those of us on the right make no such pretense. It's about punishment, sequestration, and deterrence in that order. Rehabilitation doesn't even enter our minds.
Why do you pretend? It wouldn't surprise anyone if you were to just be honest and that you don't care about rehabilitation either, it's rather that you don't want a justice system at all. We all know that already. There's no reason to hide it.
And here I was thinking that prisons should be about keeping people who can't operate in society without damaging society away from society. I mean, even better would be to find a way to help them operate in society, but apparently we're not even all at the baseline.
Then that's what they should have written. Leaving it ambiguous gives us the opportunity to take someone who says cruelty is the point at their word, though. They want people to suffer, they are a sadist.
I think there's a basic floor for how we should treat other people, regardless of the circumstances. Things like access to food and water, shelter, etc.
I'm going to disagree that the point of prison (as punishment) is cruelty. It absolutely can work without it, but I'll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can't be rehabilitated effectively.
>I'm going to disagree that the point of prison (as punishment) is cruelty. It absolutely can work without it,
This is an absurd claim. How does punishment work without cruelty? Remember, that I allow for people to disagree on the quantity of cruelty (supposing that can be quantified)... so you're proposing cruelty-free punishment. This misses the entire point of what punishment is. Perhaps your reading comprehension is faulty, and you confuse the word with "rehabilitation". I see that alot.
>but I'll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can't be rehabilitated effectively.
Hah! I hadn't even read that sentence yet when I wrote the above! Damn I'm good. Rehabilitation is science fiction. No one has even ever proposed a theory on how or why it's supposed to happen, let alone engineered a method to induce it to occur. On reddit, these conversations are often hilarious, but maybe here on Hackernews it will be glorious. Why do you think you need to do to cause a violent criminal to rehabilitate? If the method is performed diligently, what percentage of violent criminals rehabilitate, and what sort of timeline are we talking? Why do the failures (and let's be honest, there are failures in every manufacturing process) fail? Can these be sorted out beforehand?
But at the end of the day, there is still a big problem. Justice is what society promises to the victims so that they will refrain from revenge; the state must carry out the revenge for them. It does so for several reasons: to discourage eternal feuds, to ensure that the correct culprit is targeted, and to avoid normally nonviolent people from growing accustomed to violence. To satisfy their monkey need for vengeance in the most civilized manner possible. If you fail to satisfy it, then these people are obligated to do it themselves. Rehabilitation alone can't substitute, even if it were possible. For the lesser criminals, incarceration suffices. For those more depraved, we don't want them rehabilitated. It serves no need at all.
My mother spanked me when I misbehaved. She caused real pain as punishment.
It was never cruel.
Punishment and cruelty are not equivalent.
Please note, I am not in favor of spanking children, and never spanked mine.
Now as to your final point, that justice is the state taking revenge on behalf of the victims. I replied to you above that I see the validity of this, and for the same reasons you give (discourage eternal feuds). And for those same reasons Justice is restraint. At most equivalent harm, no more than an eye for an eye.
I think it was your anger that made you say these ethics we both share are bullshit rules designed to hurt your family.
Now in the current case, for that point to stand, we need to ensure that the prisoners have in fact harmed identifiable others. Google tells me "Roughly 40% of inmates in Texas prisons are incarcerated for non-violent offenses". Thus 40% of the time, there is no cause for vengeance.
And where prison is vengeance, if it is just, it needs to be restrained. Not cruel. Not unusual. Just as punishment is not cruelty, justice is not cruelty.
For other readers, as I mentioned above, while I see a valid ethical stance behind NoMoreNicksLeft's anger and hurt, I do not share it. I seek mercy, and as for Justice, "Justice is mine sayeth the Lord"-- in other words, I leave it to God. I find it sick that the US, the "land of the free" has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Look, I've had bad interactions with bonafide unredeemable unrehabilitable psychopaths, and I'd like to see such people locked up for life. But I do not wish them cruelty beyond the innate cruelty of life behind bars.
As someone in Texas, who also donates large sums of money every year to the Innocence Project, I kind of understand their position even though I think they have written it poorly. I want anyone wrongfully convicted freed and compensated, and I want our justice system to be better at ascertaining guilt rather than using plea deals improperly to imprison people wrongly. I also want our prisons to be places where we take every reasonable action to preserve the lives of the prisoners, including for sure having air-conditioning.
But I also fully understand the point of prison is /punishment/, which is why it's such a severe injustice when someone is punished when they have not committed the crime. Prison is not supposed to be pleasant and comfortable, and we should take every action to preserver prisoner's lives specifically in order to ensure that they can serve their complete sentences, upon the assumption of fair adjudication. Without clear, just, punishment within society, we will revert to vigilantism and chaos.
The core ethical/moral complexity here to me is not about treatment of prisoners, its about how people become prisoners in the first place in the state of Texas. In Texas we have a long history of racist practices in policing, in the courts, and the use of coercive plea deal structures that have resulted in many people being wrongfully convicted. As long as that situation stands, it would be clearer to argue that nobody should be imprisoned at all, but that's also not a reasonable argument. As long people are being imprisoned, we should ensure they are rightfully convicted and understand that prison is a punishment, and that we should preserve prisoner's lives and health so that they can experience whatever just punishment has been meted out by society for the harm they have caused through their choices and actions.
At the same time prison shouldn't be deadly. 85F versus 110F is the difference between uncomfortable and death.
>Without clear, just, punishment within society, we will revert to vigilantism and chaos.
The problem is this doesn't really seem to have any relation to the punishment. In the US we love to think that beating someone to a pulp has a strong effect on their future actions that lead to the beating but redactivism rates do not show any strong correlations here at all. Things like education, living conditions, and wealth are far more correlated.
> At the same time prison shouldn't be deadly. 85F versus 110F is the difference between uncomfortable and death.
Fully agreed. There absolutely should be air conditioning in prisons in Texas. We need to preserve prisoners lives and health using all reasonable means so that they can receive their just punishment via their sentence.
Of note, however, there are /schools/ in Texas that lack working air conditioning due to mismanagement and underfunding, which I find a far more egregious and wrong circumstance.
> The problem is this doesn't really seem to have any relation to the punishment. In the US we love to think that beating someone to a pulp has a strong effect on their future actions that lead to the beating but redactivism rates do not show any strong correlations here at all. Things like education, living conditions, and wealth are far more correlated.
Agreed, punishment does not help with recidivism rates. You're making a rehabilitation argument. That argument might even be reasonable. That is not why prison in the US exists or how they are operated. They are a form of punishment, that is their purpose in our society.
> But I also fully understand the point of prison is /punishment/... Prison is not supposed to be pleasant and comfortable...
I appreciate the thoughtfulness with which you present your view, and also see it's validity-- that one purpose of prison is for the government to take a measured and limited 'revenge' for the victims of harm. Where the alternative is blood feuds.
Thus prison should not be comfortable, for those rightfully convicted of crimes involving harm TO OTHERS.
But by this same line, that the government's actions should be measured and limited. Prison should not be cruel, nor should the punishments be unusual.
> But by this same line, that the government's actions should be measured and limited. Prison should not be cruel, nor should the punishments be unusual.
Fully agreed, which is why I make the point that air conditioning isn't a question, of course a prison in Texas should have air conditioning. The 8th Amendment makes this pretty clear, that cruel and unusual punishments are disallowed, as they should be. The punishment is and should be the prison sentence itself.
1. Even correct convictions can later be found to be wrong. Death is irreversible and financially restituting someone's death can never benefit one wrongfully killed.
2. Unless death is the sentence, a sentence should not result in death. If you don't closely control and monitor when the state can do something, it increases the risk of misuse of that power by the state.
3. If cruelty and punishment really worked, crime would decrease over time, not increase.
4. The AC can be set to 75. That's not luxury but won't kill anyone with heatstroke.
> For those wrongly convicted, I don't want them to get air-conditioning in prison
What a remarkable thing to write. Even knowing that some innocent people are there, you want them to suffer the risk of death and severe harm from heat.
That's a pretty messed up morality. I don't even know where to start on this one.
How do you align this with "to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Its also messed up ethics.
The purpose of having the government administer punishment for crime is to prevent vendetta. And from the first time this ever came up it came up as the government saying justice should be balanced. "eye for an eye" == "Punishment fits the crime"
>How do you align this with "to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
I'm an atheist. There is no god nor gods. But if I had to have a god, I don't think I'd choose one of the abrahamic ones. There are many to choose from who aren't big on mercy.
>Its also messed up ethics.
I don't accept your ethical framework. It's a system of bullshit rules made up by people who care for me not even a little to put me and my family at a disadvantage against a civilization that doesn't even want to go on living.
>The purpose of having the government administer punishment for crime is to prevent vendetta.
Then you're doing it wrong. It can only prevent vendetta if the victims feel as if they receive justice... if those who do wrong are punished. If you remove the punishment/cruelty from the equation, they will simply do that part themselves. Unless you're hoping to emasculate and disarm them so thoroughly that they have no hope of doing so... but I guess that was the ethics stuff you were talking about above.
Ok, so as an athiest, could you do what is right, love mercy, and walk humbly with your beliefs?
Your comment on which god you might choose suggest you are not a fan of mercy. Have you ever made a mistake and wished for mercy for yourself? Have you ever received forgiveness that maybe you didn't think was deserved, if even only from you family?
I can agree with you that justice calls for punishment in response to a harm, and thus harming the person who caused the first harm. And if one considers any intentional harm to another as cruelty, then yes, "the purpose of punishment is cruelty". However, justice also limits the cruelty. The earliest example is "an eye for an eye"-- because the prior system was "a death for an eye" or "I burn your village for an eye", and Hammurabi saw that this lead to endless blood feuds. Vendetta, i.e. you hurt me so now I cause you and your family as much pain as I possibly can, that is not justice.
In fact, I was taking your side in this argument. Many others talk about prison as rehabilitation and keeping society safe, totally dropping the psychological need of the victim for some sense of vengeance. And while I agree with those others, and prefer to leave the vengeance to God rather than to the prison system, I took your side and legitimized the victims need for vengeance.
I am sorry that you have such anger that you saw this as bullshit rules from someone who doesn't care for you and wants to disadvantage you.
Just because these people don't worship or believe the same things as your sect of christianity does not stop them from believing in the teachings of Christ. They just don't agree with you while holding positions of power.
Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.
Just because people don't follow the teachings of Christ doesn't mean they don't believe in the teachings of Christ? Hey, what did Jesus have to say about hypocrites?
> Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.
Which goes to show you the state of Christianity today. Pretty sad.
Yup! I was raised evangelical and the pastors would brush away this passage as not being translated accurately where they would twist it to justify why you needed to give more money to the church because in the next life you'd be rewarded with riches.
You don't get to decide who is and isn't a "true" Christian when all it takes is to believe in Jesus' death and resurrection, which even the Prosperity Gospel Christians and Christian Nationalists do.
God does. Judging by their actions and the hate they show towards their neighbors, I get to draw the conclusion they’re not following Jesus Christ’s teachings or the Bible.
It's because Texas is the OG of human suffering. Texas gave up territory than end slavery: This is why Oklahoma looks so weird (the "panhandle"). After the so-called Missouri compromise, in order to remain a slave-state, Texas gave up that piece of land. Also, Texas declared independence not once, but twice, to remain a slave state. First, from Mexico: "Many Anglo-American settlers were from the southern United States and brought enslaved workers, using legal loopholes like indentured servitude to bypass Mexican restrictions against slavery. They feared Mexico would abolish the practice entirely". And then, famously, of course, fighting to remain independent during the Civil War.
Your point is valid, but it is worth noting that the panhandle territory was a notoriously inhospitable place to try and exist (for European settlers at least, who called it "no mans land"), so it wasn't like Texas was giving up a gem, none of the surrounding states wanted it.
Texas ceded said land to another state, what they viewed as another nation, such that they could keep the practice of human ownership alive and well. The quality of the land is immaterial to this statement, let alone noteworthy
"TDCJ has acknowledged that at least 23 people died from heat-related causes in its facilities between 1998 and 2012 — a likely underestimate, Pitman wrote in his order last year. Inmate advocates say at least 10 additional deaths between 2022 and 2025 can be attributed to the high temperatures, including three people whose autopsy reports reference heat as a possible contributing factor."
We have a situation where about ~1000x as many people are dying in Europe as in Texas prisons. For ideological reasons, people prefer to focus on the Texas prison deaths. I'd call that propaganda.
Imagine a working-class European who needs to work in a building without A/C, and live in an apartment without A/C. The landlord/owners' association/municipality is de facto blocking A/C installation. How, exactly, is the situation so different?
Tens of thousands of Europeans are dying. But at least they are "voluntary" deaths--if you use the word "voluntary" sufficiently creatively.
>We have a situation where about ~1000x as many people are dying in Europe as in Texas prisons.
Right, because Europe has much higher population than Texas prisons. In fact, many more people are dying by heat exhaustion in Texas prisons per capita than in Europe.
Not entirely sure what European A/C regulations you’re referring to. Europe doesn’t have A/C because historically it’s not been needed, and when you have cities that are hundreds of years old, often filled with buildings that are designed to passively keep cool, it’s a right pain in the arse to retrofit everything.
As a result Europe doesn’t culturally expect A/C every where, and has been slow to adopt it. But obviously climate change is forcing many to reconsider those cultural norms.
>...In the Swiss canton of Geneva, installing an air conditioner requires an exceptional permit demonstrating “real need” (such as a doctor’s certificate). During the recent energy crisis, Spain and Italy barred public buildings from cooling below 27°C—hot enough to dull your cognitive powers by 5 percent. In the midst of the current deadly heat wave, my own city of Ghent is officially advising people to “avoid air-conditioners”.
>The resistance is baked into European regulation. In many countries a conventional air conditioner lowers your building’s energy rating. The result is entirely predictable: owners and landlords decline to install units, or rip out the ones they have. Those left without built-in cooling fall back on drafty, inefficient portables that can scarcely make a dent in the temperature. I own one myself—a wheezing box with a fat hose shoved through a rickety fabric covering the window. It is the thermodynamic equivalent of mopping the floor with the tap running, but that’s simply the direction in which Europe’s regulations have nudged me.
Being incarcerated and having very little control over every aspect of your life IS punishment. The violence, sexual violence and extreme conditions are not necessary.
It should be the understanding of a society that no human being is just 'bad'. A human being became 'bad' by a definiton of a society due to circumstances like upbringing, environment etc. and a society which failed you.
Prison is the removal of you from society due to impatibility of current values and should help you become 'better'.
Be happy that you had good/avg parents, the mental strength to help yourself, money, luck, body strength, whatever it was which allowed you to comment on HN instead of being in a prison.
Please do define free will, and try to do so in a way that a) gives people actual agency (define that while you're at it, and b) compatible with the available evidence of how the universe works.
No, I don't know it. In fact, I don't think there's any kind of evidence to suggest "free choice" is even possible for any kind of definition of "free choice" that doesn't make a mockery of the idea it is "free".
I'm still waiting for a definition that could even suggest otherwise. I know I won't get one, because nobody I have this discussion with is ever capable of coming up with one.
If you can't even define the terms, why do you imagine I should "know" it to be true?
Is your entire line of thinking about crime and punishment not entirely dependent upon laws and punishments, as they exist right now, being perfectly just?
Because otherwise, “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them” is a bit Javert from Les Mis.
> "People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong."[0]
Broader Context:
In response to a commentary on how 'good and bad' can be complicated:
> "It's always someone else's fault."[1]
Broader-broader Context:
Prison is punishment, etc.
So, a reasonable chain of thought here and paraphrase of what you've said is:
"people know right from wrong" -> we're in the context of crime and punishment, so this is operating as a substitute for "they know what's legal and illegal". If it's not, it doesn't belong here, because at this point we should all know that legality != morality.
"and they chose wrong" -> therefore they chose the consequences - they chose punishment. The colloquial way of saying that is "they get what's coming to them".
So, while those weren't your words, was that your implicit statement? And if not, what is the implicit statement?
I ask because the people in those cells are real, and 23 of them died of heat.
Not sure I am following your point. You commented that people have choices, good and bad. I presented you with a story where a good boy was watering his mother's yard and he was thrown in prison (28 yrs) for a murder he did not commit. I guess the only choice to be made was the corrupt police employees?
I think you and I will go around and around in circles on this. I wish you well.
For a site populated by people that deal with complex technical systems on a daily basis, the idea that systems also exist and shape our outcomes in every day life seems to frequently be a foreign concept.
That sounds like you were shaped by your upbringing. And honor itself is subjective and shaped by the social context it exists in. I don't believe killing to maintain honor is moral and there are millions of people out there who do because of the context they exist in. Likewise, I do not think it is honorable to make prisoners suffer (such as from excessive heat) when it's something in your control while others do because they were raised to believe that once you have wronged, your own worth as a human is diminished.
As humans, we have the capacity to hold multiple concepts like honor and contextual awareness at the same time when adjudicating a crime. Someone who stole to feed their family when they were in a dire situation should not be given the same sentence as someone who stole for personal gain. Our ability to acknowledge complex situations and deal with them also separates us from animals.
Meanwhile in this thread, everyone is getting worked up about how evil Texas Christians supposedly are, as though a red flag was waved in front of a bull.
Put your ideas into action in this thread instead of getting self-righteous about people who (a) may or may not even exist, (b) mostly aren't reading this thread even if they do exist.
Well, letting the humanist rehabilitation part aside, there is that social aspect of a sanctioning instance to prisons. Expectations of sanctions do drive human behavior.
I'm not against the idea of the society taking control over the life of one of its own (lets be fair, our planet is small, we are too interconnected) we can't just put people somewere else.
But cruelty shouldn't be part of this. Help and rehabiliation
Society as a whole is not wholly responsible. Some people are taught and some are just bad - bad brains, bad choices, bad intents. I've never had to teach a toddler what to do when another child takes their toy. Somethings are just innate. Some can be helped and should be, others cannot. Taking away an individual's responsibility removes dignity and gets in the way of healing. We don't have to give into the fallacy of choosing one or the other - both society and the individual can be responsible for their actions.
But yes, we have been devaluing human life and dignity, or if you prefer the Image of God, across all of society. The conditions of these prisons should not exist even if this is purely punitive, which I do not believe it should be. Victims deserve justice, but criminals deserve the right to pay the price and come out "clean". We should want to make society whole, to bring them back into the fold as full members, but too often we don't want to pay the cost.
Society or our villages before a planet full of 8 billion people were responsible.
Everyone of us was born to a mother and father. And yo utell me if someone isn't born 'right' we should do what? Kill them? I think Hitler tried that. Not really sure were you are going with this.
Do you really believe our society is really trying to help people? We are sitting in front of our television, watch reality tv and do other shit. We have more than enough capacity to help others. We just don't. This doesn't make it fair in any sense for every human being we brought into existens.
If all it took to ensure a good outcome was to create good circumstances, we'd have fixed society in the prehistoic era. People would have figured it out and asked the good parents to raise all the kids one generation, and problem solved.
Instead what you see is parents with five successful kids, and one that keeps ending up in prison, and no one can really explain how it went wrong.
Norway actually used to have prisons modelled built on the so-called Philadelphia model [1] with strict isolation. Unsurprisingly it didn't work very well.
It was also one of the prisons that eventually helped drive public opinion away from US-style prisons as punishment because of how extreme it was (recognised also in a 1/3 reduction in sentences if you served there...). It was closed in 1970, around the time when the Nordic movements towards criminal custody reform started really gaining traction.
Given that the American prison system is performing as badly as it is, even if you ignore any concern for the prisoners, the US system is immoral even purely on the basis of the harm it does to society through the high reoffending rates.
Just out of college I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I took a job at a prison near Phoenix AZ. It was outdoors, the cells had no AC. In a 10 hour shift in 115 (46c) degree weather I would go through 1.5 gallons (5.6 liters) of water. Every single day at least one inmate would pass out from the heat. At least they got heat for the winter.
Thankfully I left all that behind a long time ago. Though I just checked and they still don’t have AC.
There is a fairly famous quote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
No I worked at a state run prison. All I know about the private ones is 1. The staff get paid less, and 2. They mostly only get “good” inmates. That was over a decade ago so idk if the 2nd part is still true.
Not really. The precolonial southwest was fairly densely populated, with some areas exceeding their modern density. Population density grew sparser for various reasons after the mid-14th century until Spanish colonialism created some dramatic demographic changes. The southwest remained a pretty lawless place on the frontiers of empires where armed conflict was commonplace for the next few hundred years, until after the turn of the 20th century. Would you want to move into a civil war even if it had AC?
AC was coincidentally invented as all of this was clearing up, but it wouldn't become ubiquitous until decades later after the major cities had been established with large populations. And even then, I'd blame cheap accessibility of long distance transportation more than AC for the modern state.
May we teach our children the only thing that truly matters is how we regard the dignity of people.
I find most successful Americans I meet are so self-obsessed they are left with an incredibly low capacity for empathy for those in lower classes than them. Wild how they think they are so different than Nazis.
>incredibly low capacity for empathy for those in lower classes than them
"The European Commission’s headquarters was forced to shut down its air-conditioning system on Friday due to the heat wave.
Staff working at the Berlaymont building received a text at midday, reading: “BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day.”
The 13-story building is home to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, her 26 commissioners and about 3,000 staff. Von der Leyen works on the 13th floor, and most of her commissioners’ offices are housed on floors eight or above."
So. 1/3 of the prisons in Texas have A/C. Meanwhile, in Europe, the bottom 7 floors (the ones with the "lower" workers) of the building where freakin Ursula von der Leyen works, get the A/C turned off.
US billionaires are highly overrepresented in philanthropic giving, by the way. The US has about 30% of global billionaires and about 75% of Giving Pledge signatories.
I suspect the reason what I wrote is hard for you to read, and elicits that reaction in you to find some story that might contradict my statement, is because people need to think of themselves as good people. It's too much of a cognitive dissonance and shameful to think otherwise.
I'm more curious personally about the legal side here. Setting aside the actual object level issue (I personally support A/C for prisons), it seems to open up a lot of interesting questions to me:
* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before the invention of A/C (obviously not)
* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before A/C became widespread and affordable for regular people? (probably not)
* what is the main reason why this wasn't an issue 50 years ago and is now? Climate change? People being on average more sensitive to heat than they used to be? Better legal recognition of prisoner suffering? Broadening of 8th amendment protections in the court system? Changing public morals, i.e. "evolving standards of decency"? Ubiquity of A/C in ordinary Texans' day to day life? The random chance of this particular case getting sent to this particular judge?
* Is it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C now, when not all non-imprisoned Texans have A/C (and if so, does that imply that A/C is being codified here as basic human right, and is that really constitutionally tenable? How is it possible for a judge to order that something is a constitutional right for prisoners, but an optional private luxury for non prisoners?)
* Is A/C the only option, or might other, cheaper cooling methods be allowed, if the core of the complaint is reducing preventable heat-related injuries and deaths? Hypothetically (not a real proposal obviously), if instead the prison put hotel-style ice machines in every cell, would this solve the issue or is the judge's decision very specifically about A/C?
QuercusMax | 8 hours ago
francisofascii | 7 hours ago
jknoepfler | 7 hours ago
Those citizens "making do" generally have freedom of movement, free access to cool water, air-conditioned businesses or vehicles, and are not locked down in a concrete facility.
There is a absolutely no nuance to this.
kube-system | 6 hours ago
Sweat is a wet-bulb cooling process which always cools below ambient for any humidity less than 100%.
jknoepfler | 6 hours ago
Over ~95 degrees, a fan blowing on a human acts as a convection oven, increasing body temperature while dehydrating the body.
This is greatly exacerbated in extreme heat.
CDC guidance is to avoid using a fan in extreme heat conditions unless it is combined with a cooling source and careful hydration. Once again, not exactly an option in a Texas prison.
8note | 5 hours ago
ambient and body temperature arent coupled items there
have you never used a convection oven?
sixothree | an hour ago
realo | 7 hours ago
Yeah. A one-shot investment of 10k$ per prisoner to avoid more manslaughter cases is peanuts, really.
kube-system | 6 hours ago
The former almost certainly includes other installation part, utility, and labor costs. Even if you could give everyone a $200 window unit, you'd need to deliver, install, upgrade utilities, maintain them, etc.
NoMoreNicksLeft | 7 hours ago
I'm in Texas. I'm a little confused as to why you think I should care. For those wrongly convicted, I don't want them to get air-conditioning in prison... and for those correctly convicted, I'm not especially worried about making them more comfortable.
The entire point of punishment is the cruelty. It doesn't really work without it... it's unclear if you're quibbling over the amount of cruelty, or if you think that there exists some sort of cruelty-free punishment that the rest of us just haven't heard of.
dwaltrip | 7 hours ago
iAMkenough | 7 hours ago
Why even waste your money on for-profit prisons if you want the prisoners to die?
phil21 | 7 hours ago
The fact you can serve your time, earnestly work on rehabilitating yourself, jump through all the hoops, etc. but still be under the economic death sentence more or less summarizes how people feel about it.
It’s basically NIMBY applied to the justice system. Everyone loves to pretend they want rehabilitation but also wants someone else to do it. This shows up in hiring, apartment leasing, social benefits, etc.
NoMoreNicksLeft | 6 hours ago
People on the left love to pretend this, perhaps. Those of us on the right make no such pretense. It's about punishment, sequestration, and deterrence in that order. Rehabilitation doesn't even enter our minds.
Why do you pretend? It wouldn't surprise anyone if you were to just be honest and that you don't care about rehabilitation either, it's rather that you don't want a justice system at all. We all know that already. There's no reason to hide it.
gumby271 | 7 hours ago
iAMkenough | 4 hours ago
v64 | 7 hours ago
ericd | 7 hours ago
platinumrad | 7 hours ago
???
pixl97 | 7 hours ago
"Run from me, I will hurt you and I will enjoy it"
Which is insanely ironic, that's the exact same kind of person he'd throw in jail.
BeetleB | 7 hours ago
Jtsummers | 7 hours ago
blargey | 6 hours ago
peezd | 7 hours ago
I think there's a basic floor for how we should treat other people, regardless of the circumstances. Things like access to food and water, shelter, etc.
I'm going to disagree that the point of prison (as punishment) is cruelty. It absolutely can work without it, but I'll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can't be rehabilitated effectively.
NoMoreNicksLeft | 7 hours ago
This is an absurd claim. How does punishment work without cruelty? Remember, that I allow for people to disagree on the quantity of cruelty (supposing that can be quantified)... so you're proposing cruelty-free punishment. This misses the entire point of what punishment is. Perhaps your reading comprehension is faulty, and you confuse the word with "rehabilitation". I see that alot.
>but I'll recognize this is nuanced and there are likely those that can't be rehabilitated effectively.
Hah! I hadn't even read that sentence yet when I wrote the above! Damn I'm good. Rehabilitation is science fiction. No one has even ever proposed a theory on how or why it's supposed to happen, let alone engineered a method to induce it to occur. On reddit, these conversations are often hilarious, but maybe here on Hackernews it will be glorious. Why do you think you need to do to cause a violent criminal to rehabilitate? If the method is performed diligently, what percentage of violent criminals rehabilitate, and what sort of timeline are we talking? Why do the failures (and let's be honest, there are failures in every manufacturing process) fail? Can these be sorted out beforehand?
But at the end of the day, there is still a big problem. Justice is what society promises to the victims so that they will refrain from revenge; the state must carry out the revenge for them. It does so for several reasons: to discourage eternal feuds, to ensure that the correct culprit is targeted, and to avoid normally nonviolent people from growing accustomed to violence. To satisfy their monkey need for vengeance in the most civilized manner possible. If you fail to satisfy it, then these people are obligated to do it themselves. Rehabilitation alone can't substitute, even if it were possible. For the lesser criminals, incarceration suffices. For those more depraved, we don't want them rehabilitated. It serves no need at all.
ds_opseeker | 4 hours ago
My mother spanked me when I misbehaved. She caused real pain as punishment.
It was never cruel.
Punishment and cruelty are not equivalent.
Please note, I am not in favor of spanking children, and never spanked mine.
Now as to your final point, that justice is the state taking revenge on behalf of the victims. I replied to you above that I see the validity of this, and for the same reasons you give (discourage eternal feuds). And for those same reasons Justice is restraint. At most equivalent harm, no more than an eye for an eye.
I think it was your anger that made you say these ethics we both share are bullshit rules designed to hurt your family.
Now in the current case, for that point to stand, we need to ensure that the prisoners have in fact harmed identifiable others. Google tells me "Roughly 40% of inmates in Texas prisons are incarcerated for non-violent offenses". Thus 40% of the time, there is no cause for vengeance.
And where prison is vengeance, if it is just, it needs to be restrained. Not cruel. Not unusual. Just as punishment is not cruelty, justice is not cruelty.
For other readers, as I mentioned above, while I see a valid ethical stance behind NoMoreNicksLeft's anger and hurt, I do not share it. I seek mercy, and as for Justice, "Justice is mine sayeth the Lord"-- in other words, I leave it to God. I find it sick that the US, the "land of the free" has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Look, I've had bad interactions with bonafide unredeemable unrehabilitable psychopaths, and I'd like to see such people locked up for life. But I do not wish them cruelty beyond the innate cruelty of life behind bars.
pixl97 | 7 hours ago
Maybe start here https://innocenceproject.org/ before you let everyone around here see how much of a sociopath you are.
tristor | 6 hours ago
But I also fully understand the point of prison is /punishment/, which is why it's such a severe injustice when someone is punished when they have not committed the crime. Prison is not supposed to be pleasant and comfortable, and we should take every action to preserver prisoner's lives specifically in order to ensure that they can serve their complete sentences, upon the assumption of fair adjudication. Without clear, just, punishment within society, we will revert to vigilantism and chaos.
The core ethical/moral complexity here to me is not about treatment of prisoners, its about how people become prisoners in the first place in the state of Texas. In Texas we have a long history of racist practices in policing, in the courts, and the use of coercive plea deal structures that have resulted in many people being wrongfully convicted. As long as that situation stands, it would be clearer to argue that nobody should be imprisoned at all, but that's also not a reasonable argument. As long people are being imprisoned, we should ensure they are rightfully convicted and understand that prison is a punishment, and that we should preserve prisoner's lives and health so that they can experience whatever just punishment has been meted out by society for the harm they have caused through their choices and actions.
pixl97 | 6 hours ago
>Without clear, just, punishment within society, we will revert to vigilantism and chaos.
The problem is this doesn't really seem to have any relation to the punishment. In the US we love to think that beating someone to a pulp has a strong effect on their future actions that lead to the beating but redactivism rates do not show any strong correlations here at all. Things like education, living conditions, and wealth are far more correlated.
tristor | 4 hours ago
Fully agreed. There absolutely should be air conditioning in prisons in Texas. We need to preserve prisoners lives and health using all reasonable means so that they can receive their just punishment via their sentence.
Of note, however, there are /schools/ in Texas that lack working air conditioning due to mismanagement and underfunding, which I find a far more egregious and wrong circumstance.
> The problem is this doesn't really seem to have any relation to the punishment. In the US we love to think that beating someone to a pulp has a strong effect on their future actions that lead to the beating but redactivism rates do not show any strong correlations here at all. Things like education, living conditions, and wealth are far more correlated.
Agreed, punishment does not help with recidivism rates. You're making a rehabilitation argument. That argument might even be reasonable. That is not why prison in the US exists or how they are operated. They are a form of punishment, that is their purpose in our society.
8note | 5 hours ago
the laws are written to make sure certain people are easy to press into forced labour
ds_opseeker | 4 hours ago
I appreciate the thoughtfulness with which you present your view, and also see it's validity-- that one purpose of prison is for the government to take a measured and limited 'revenge' for the victims of harm. Where the alternative is blood feuds.
Thus prison should not be comfortable, for those rightfully convicted of crimes involving harm TO OTHERS.
But by this same line, that the government's actions should be measured and limited. Prison should not be cruel, nor should the punishments be unusual.
tristor | 4 hours ago
Fully agreed, which is why I make the point that air conditioning isn't a question, of course a prison in Texas should have air conditioning. The 8th Amendment makes this pretty clear, that cruel and unusual punishments are disallowed, as they should be. The punishment is and should be the prison sentence itself.
gumby271 | 7 hours ago
Jesus fucking Christ
RiverCrochet | 7 hours ago
2. Unless death is the sentence, a sentence should not result in death. If you don't closely control and monitor when the state can do something, it increases the risk of misuse of that power by the state.
3. If cruelty and punishment really worked, crime would decrease over time, not increase.
4. The AC can be set to 75. That's not luxury but won't kill anyone with heatstroke.
Jtsummers | 7 hours ago
What a remarkable thing to write. Even knowing that some innocent people are there, you want them to suffer the risk of death and severe harm from heat.
nullstyle | 6 hours ago
ds_opseeker | 7 hours ago
That's a pretty messed up morality. I don't even know where to start on this one.
How do you align this with "to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."
Its also messed up ethics.
The purpose of having the government administer punishment for crime is to prevent vendetta. And from the first time this ever came up it came up as the government saying justice should be balanced. "eye for an eye" == "Punishment fits the crime"
NoMoreNicksLeft | 6 hours ago
I'm an atheist. There is no god nor gods. But if I had to have a god, I don't think I'd choose one of the abrahamic ones. There are many to choose from who aren't big on mercy.
>Its also messed up ethics.
I don't accept your ethical framework. It's a system of bullshit rules made up by people who care for me not even a little to put me and my family at a disadvantage against a civilization that doesn't even want to go on living.
>The purpose of having the government administer punishment for crime is to prevent vendetta.
Then you're doing it wrong. It can only prevent vendetta if the victims feel as if they receive justice... if those who do wrong are punished. If you remove the punishment/cruelty from the equation, they will simply do that part themselves. Unless you're hoping to emasculate and disarm them so thoroughly that they have no hope of doing so... but I guess that was the ethics stuff you were talking about above.
ds_opseeker | 4 hours ago
Your comment on which god you might choose suggest you are not a fan of mercy. Have you ever made a mistake and wished for mercy for yourself? Have you ever received forgiveness that maybe you didn't think was deserved, if even only from you family?
I can agree with you that justice calls for punishment in response to a harm, and thus harming the person who caused the first harm. And if one considers any intentional harm to another as cruelty, then yes, "the purpose of punishment is cruelty". However, justice also limits the cruelty. The earliest example is "an eye for an eye"-- because the prior system was "a death for an eye" or "I burn your village for an eye", and Hammurabi saw that this lead to endless blood feuds. Vendetta, i.e. you hurt me so now I cause you and your family as much pain as I possibly can, that is not justice.
In fact, I was taking your side in this argument. Many others talk about prison as rehabilitation and keeping society safe, totally dropping the psychological need of the victim for some sense of vengeance. And while I agree with those others, and prefer to leave the vengeance to God rather than to the prison system, I took your side and legitimized the victims need for vengeance.
I am sorry that you have such anger that you saw this as bullshit rules from someone who doesn't care for you and wants to disadvantage you.
throwawaysoxjje | 7 hours ago
Glemmlko | 6 hours ago
But hey, you don't seem to be very empathic about your luck in life.
You could have been just the person in prison.
Btw. some religions believe in rebirth, you might become a prisoner.
Some believe in an infinite rebirth of universities, which will lead you to be in a prision in another reallity.
Even on a logically viewpoint it would be better for your 'other lives' to not be cruel to other human beings.
sippingabonedry | 6 hours ago
They don't want cruelty, just their livelihoods taken away.
iAMkenough | 7 hours ago
pixl97 | 7 hours ago
jastanton | 7 hours ago
iAMkenough | 4 hours ago
shimman | 6 hours ago
Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.
jst1fthsdys | 6 hours ago
> Prosperity gospel is a real thing too, also the fastest sect of christianity growing in the world.
Which goes to show you the state of Christianity today. Pretty sad.
iAMkenough | 4 hours ago
"If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_a_needle
shimman | 3 hours ago
It's a sick belief system.
krapp | 2 hours ago
iAMkenough | an hour ago
They choose to be evil.
dkural | 7 hours ago
ceroxylon | 7 hours ago
apercu | 7 hours ago
duplessitous | 6 hours ago
zamadatix | 7 hours ago
Wistar | 7 hours ago
0xDEAFBEAD | 7 hours ago
(from OP)
Meanwhile in Europe tens of thousands are dying: https://econofact.org/factbrief/fact-check-do-tens-of-thousa...
"European A/C regulations have been ruled cruel and unusual punishment by US district judge"
anigbrowl | 6 hours ago
0xDEAFBEAD | 6 hours ago
Imagine a working-class European who needs to work in a building without A/C, and live in an apartment without A/C. The landlord/owners' association/municipality is de facto blocking A/C installation. How, exactly, is the situation so different?
Tens of thousands of Europeans are dying. But at least they are "voluntary" deaths--if you use the word "voluntary" sufficiently creatively.
European prisons aren't so great either. There is little evidence they have more A/C than Texas prisons: https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2026-08-07/heatwa...
BobaFloutist | an hour ago
Right, because Europe has much higher population than Texas prisons. In fact, many more people are dying by heat exhaustion in Texas prisons per capita than in Europe.
avianlyric | 6 hours ago
As a result Europe doesn’t culturally expect A/C every where, and has been slow to adopt it. But obviously climate change is forcing many to reconsider those cultural norms.
Jtsummers | 6 hours ago
0xDEAFBEAD | 6 hours ago
>The resistance is baked into European regulation. In many countries a conventional air conditioner lowers your building’s energy rating. The result is entirely predictable: owners and landlords decline to install units, or rip out the ones they have. Those left without built-in cooling fall back on drafty, inefficient portables that can scarcely make a dent in the temperature. I own one myself—a wheezing box with a fat hose shoved through a rickety fabric covering the window. It is the thermodynamic equivalent of mopping the floor with the tap running, but that’s simply the direction in which Europe’s regulations have nudged me.
https://maartenboudry.substack.com/p/how-europe-became-the-w...
jimbo456 | 7 hours ago
nh23423fefe | 6 hours ago
boredatoms | 7 hours ago
mrits | 7 hours ago
apercu | 7 hours ago
Glemmlko | 7 hours ago
It should be the understanding of a society that no human being is just 'bad'. A human being became 'bad' by a definiton of a society due to circumstances like upbringing, environment etc. and a society which failed you.
Prison is the removal of you from society due to impatibility of current values and should help you become 'better'.
Be happy that you had good/avg parents, the mental strength to help yourself, money, luck, body strength, whatever it was which allowed you to comment on HN instead of being in a prison.
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
It's always someone else's fault.
Glemmlko | 6 hours ago
Some learn how to think critical, some don't. Some are intelligent, some are empathic, some don't understand the world very well.
Don't simplify this by a snarky and ignorant comment.
I'm not even against moving people out of our society, its fucked up enough that this is necessayr, but i'm against cruelty and i'm for helping.
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
It is simple. People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong.
vidarh | 6 hours ago
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
vidarh | 4 hours ago
WalterBright | 3 hours ago
vidarh | 2 hours ago
I'm still waiting for a definition that could even suggest otherwise. I know I won't get one, because nobody I have this discussion with is ever capable of coming up with one.
If you can't even define the terms, why do you imagine I should "know" it to be true?
t-writescode | 6 hours ago
And that’s ignoring all the laws people break on the regular.
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
Nor did I say that all laws are just.
I'm not your honey, either.
t-writescode | 5 hours ago
Because otherwise, “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them” is a bit Javert from Les Mis.
WalterBright | 3 hours ago
> “they knew the law and chose to break it, therefore they get what’s coming to them”
Please don't make up quotes and attribute them to me. That's called the strawman fallacy.
t-writescode | 3 hours ago
> "People have free will. Bad people know what right and wrong is, and they chose wrong."[0]
Broader Context: In response to a commentary on how 'good and bad' can be complicated:
> "It's always someone else's fault."[1]
Broader-broader Context: Prison is punishment, etc.
So, a reasonable chain of thought here and paraphrase of what you've said is: "people know right from wrong" -> we're in the context of crime and punishment, so this is operating as a substitute for "they know what's legal and illegal". If it's not, it doesn't belong here, because at this point we should all know that legality != morality.
"and they chose wrong" -> therefore they chose the consequences - they chose punishment. The colloquial way of saying that is "they get what's coming to them".
So, while those weren't your words, was that your implicit statement? And if not, what is the implicit statement?
I ask because the people in those cells are real, and 23 of them died of heat.
WalterBright | 2 hours ago
Recall that I wrote this to you:
"I did not say there was no injustice happening. Nor did I say that all laws are just."
zippyman55 | 3 hours ago
WalterBright | 2 hours ago
zippyman55 | 2 hours ago
Sparkle-san | 6 hours ago
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
Blaming society for one's own actions is dishonorable. You get to choose, and you are responsible for your choice.
scarecrowbob | 5 hours ago
WalterBright | 5 hours ago
8note | 5 hours ago
Sparkle-san | 2 hours ago
As humans, we have the capacity to hold multiple concepts like honor and contextual awareness at the same time when adjudicating a crime. Someone who stole to feed their family when they were in a dire situation should not be given the same sentence as someone who stole for personal gain. Our ability to acknowledge complex situations and deal with them also separates us from animals.
Glemmlko | 2 hours ago
Society is not that easy and just because your father said something, doesn't make it true.
Honor is a concept and for sure a great character trait but if you don't get teached a concept like honor, you don't follow it.
schmookeeg | 6 hours ago
If he finds the experience improving, so much the better, but it is not my primary concern.
Glemmlko | 6 hours ago
Its easier eh?
But lets be clear, you will be on the reciving side or have been already anyway.
Or if never, you speak from a point of privilige...
0xDEAFBEAD | 6 hours ago
Meanwhile in this thread, everyone is getting worked up about how evil Texas Christians supposedly are, as though a red flag was waved in front of a bull.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...
Glemmlko | 6 hours ago
My comment is independent form the others.
0xDEAFBEAD | 6 hours ago
Glemmlko | 2 hours ago
Stop trying to assume things, if you don't want to take part in this discussion, don't.
But stop playing a game of fallacy
krapp | an hour ago
throwawayqqq11 | 6 hours ago
Glemmlko | 6 hours ago
But cruelty shouldn't be part of this. Help and rehabiliation
mike978 | 6 hours ago
But yes, we have been devaluing human life and dignity, or if you prefer the Image of God, across all of society. The conditions of these prisons should not exist even if this is purely punitive, which I do not believe it should be. Victims deserve justice, but criminals deserve the right to pay the price and come out "clean". We should want to make society whole, to bring them back into the fold as full members, but too often we don't want to pay the cost.
Glemmlko | 2 hours ago
Everyone of us was born to a mother and father. And yo utell me if someone isn't born 'right' we should do what? Kill them? I think Hitler tried that. Not really sure were you are going with this.
Do you really believe our society is really trying to help people? We are sitting in front of our television, watch reality tv and do other shit. We have more than enough capacity to help others. We just don't. This doesn't make it fair in any sense for every human being we brought into existens.
I don't get your point with the toddler.
nitwit005 | an hour ago
Instead what you see is parents with five successful kids, and one that keeps ending up in prison, and no one can really explain how it went wrong.
Georgelemental | 6 hours ago
janosik91 | 6 hours ago
And as you probably know, prisons in those two countries are not alike.
vidarh | 6 hours ago
It was also one of the prisons that eventually helped drive public opinion away from US-style prisons as punishment because of how extreme it was (recognised also in a 1/3 reduction in sentences if you served there...). It was closed in 1970, around the time when the Nordic movements towards criminal custody reform started really gaining traction.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botsfengselet but the Norwegian page is far more extensive: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botsfengselet
xyst | 6 hours ago
RunSet | 6 hours ago
That is a concept that eludes many.
vidarh | 6 hours ago
0xDEAFBEAD | 6 hours ago
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/recidivis...
I also think recidivism is too confounded by the prison population to tell us a lot about the quality of the prison itself.
vidarh | 4 hours ago
sippingabonedry | 6 hours ago
If it was better than the conditions they endured on the outside people would enticed to commit crimes.
Sparkle-san | 6 hours ago
sixothree | 2 hours ago
MichaelNolan | 7 hours ago
Thankfully I left all that behind a long time ago. Though I just checked and they still don’t have AC.
There is a fairly famous quote: “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons” - Fyodor Dostoevsky
throwawayqqq11 | 6 hours ago
MichaelNolan | 3 hours ago
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
BugsJustFindMe | 6 hours ago
cdmckay | 6 hours ago
WalterBright | 6 hours ago
SirFatty | 5 hours ago
zippyman55 | 3 hours ago
AlotOfReading | 18 minutes ago
AC was coincidentally invented as all of this was clearing up, but it wouldn't become ubiquitous until decades later after the major cities had been established with large populations. And even then, I'd blame cheap accessibility of long distance transportation more than AC for the modern state.
lasky | 6 hours ago
I find most successful Americans I meet are so self-obsessed they are left with an incredibly low capacity for empathy for those in lower classes than them. Wild how they think they are so different than Nazis.
0xDEAFBEAD | 6 hours ago
"The European Commission’s headquarters was forced to shut down its air-conditioning system on Friday due to the heat wave.
Staff working at the Berlaymont building received a text at midday, reading: “BERL — URGENT — Due to extreme weather conditions, forced shut down of air cooling system from floor 1 to 7 for the rest of the day.”
The 13-story building is home to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, her 26 commissioners and about 3,000 staff. Von der Leyen works on the 13th floor, and most of her commissioners’ offices are housed on floors eight or above."
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-commission-heatwave-hq-fo...
So. 1/3 of the prisons in Texas have A/C. Meanwhile, in Europe, the bottom 7 floors (the ones with the "lower" workers) of the building where freakin Ursula von der Leyen works, get the A/C turned off.
US billionaires are highly overrepresented in philanthropic giving, by the way. The US has about 30% of global billionaires and about 75% of Giving Pledge signatories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_charitabl...
I think your dehumanizing stereotypes say more about you than anyone else.
lasky | 20 minutes ago
What dehumanizing stereotype did you read?
I suspect the reason what I wrote is hard for you to read, and elicits that reaction in you to find some story that might contradict my statement, is because people need to think of themselves as good people. It's too much of a cognitive dissonance and shameful to think otherwise.
harpersealtako | 5 hours ago
* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before the invention of A/C (obviously not)
* was it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C before A/C became widespread and affordable for regular people? (probably not)
* what is the main reason why this wasn't an issue 50 years ago and is now? Climate change? People being on average more sensitive to heat than they used to be? Better legal recognition of prisoner suffering? Broadening of 8th amendment protections in the court system? Changing public morals, i.e. "evolving standards of decency"? Ubiquity of A/C in ordinary Texans' day to day life? The random chance of this particular case getting sent to this particular judge?
* Is it cruel and unusual punishment for Texas prisons to not have A/C now, when not all non-imprisoned Texans have A/C (and if so, does that imply that A/C is being codified here as basic human right, and is that really constitutionally tenable? How is it possible for a judge to order that something is a constitutional right for prisoners, but an optional private luxury for non prisoners?)
* Is A/C the only option, or might other, cheaper cooling methods be allowed, if the core of the complaint is reducing preventable heat-related injuries and deaths? Hypothetically (not a real proposal obviously), if instead the prison put hotel-style ice machines in every cell, would this solve the issue or is the judge's decision very specifically about A/C?
cucumber3732842 | 2 hours ago
Way down at the bottom is a dead comment: "Texan here, schools are managed locally, prisons are managed at the state level"