Unreal Prison Sentences

[linguist]

I used to watch the Highlander television series growing up, but I can't remember if it ever dealt with an immortal being sentenced to prison for several centuries.

You get locked up in 1502 and released in 2002: "All right, you're free to go!"

they never dealt with that as far as i know, but it would have been easy enough for an immortal to get out of prison by arranging his own "death." iirc, while they always came around (unless they lost their heads, of course), for a time after they were "killed" they actually appeared dead. it seems that duncan got out of more than one scrape by appearing dead to someone, then sneaking up on them later.

[Bloodsoul]

I used to watch the Highlander television series growing up, but I can't remember if it ever dealt with an immortal being sentenced to prison for several centuries.

You get locked up in 1502 and released in 2002: "All right, you're free to go!"

[Ginger Tea]

My take on reincarnation is like a giant Ground Hog Day, when I die I roll back to the day I was born, no real memories of the past (future) save for the odd feeling of dejavu.
History as we know it is still the same, I cannot change that, 1066 still happened, WWi&II, Watergate etc, 9/11 would be unpreventable from my past knowledge as even if I could remember it, it would come across as crackpot before hand and accomplace after the fact.
I only have controll of my own path and might stray from the previous incarnations life path at an early age or do every thing identiaclly untill im 60 and just cross the road earlier or later than I might have one other time, saving or ending my life from a car impact.

Light at the end of the tunnel?
Birth canal.

Edit:
I spoke about this before to people in pub's and some got it others partially and others lost their brains at the get go, "No I can not change history from before I was born, No I can not change world events as a five year old even if I remembered them."
"If my parents never met, well that would be thier time line affected not mine, mine relies on that sperm and that egg meeting, not the sperm from 2 days later cos neither were in the mood the day I was concieved."

I'm tempted to ask Captain Dickhead his beliefs on the subject, but I fear he will just parrot back to me my own thoughts that I shared with him years ago, I really should ask him first so not to give him ideas.

[HYHYBT]

Along those lines, concurrent sentencing, to me, makes particular sense in a case where multiple offenses happened at the same time in the same action.

[Kelmon]

I never saw the point of consecutive sentencing in the USA. After all, the ultimate goal of a prison sentence should IMHO not be revenge on the criminal, but rehabilitation. And i doubt you need twice the time to be rehabilitated from committing the same crime twice in a row compared to just once.

There is of course the issue of protecting the population from violent criminals, but i believe that should be handled separately from the actual sentence; for example: In my country, a murderer can be detained indefinitely (or at least until considered "safe"), even though he might only have been sentenced for 10-15 years.

[Skelly]

So, interesting philosophical question, which may be of particular interest to GK, who may actually have an opinion on reincarnation.

If we can eventually prove that people are reincarnated, and find who's reincarnated where, will we be likely to try to get their next incarnation for the same crime? He only served 62 years out of a 500 year sentence after all...

Reminds me of a piece of online fiction; The Salvation War: basically, God officially abandons mankind and tells Satan to come take us all, he's gotten increasingly butthurt about not being worshipped the way he feels he deserves. (This takes place in early 2008 IIRC).

The first army of hell, 400K of them march out through a portal...right into the desert or Iraq. Combined force of Americans, Brits, Russians, Iranians & Indians kill pretty much all of them, leaving less than 400 to march back. After that, humanity invades hell, bombs the shit out of a second army, throws in some sarin for good measure, bombs some more, and then kills Satan and install a turncoat demon as president of hell. Then they have to figure out a lot of things, including "What do we do with people who've been executed for murder, and then saved from hell? What do we do with someone sentenced to 400 years who's reborn in hell after dying after 50 years?"

[HYHYBT]

In looking for a different one, I found a cartoon on this as well. Pardon My Planet, August 25, 2008, but I cannot find a link to it online. Two cellmates talking, one of them grown, the other sitting on the top bunk, apparently only about a year old but smoking and speaking, says "Yeah, we all get religion in prison to help us get parole. Take my advice, don't choose one that believes in both karma and reincarnation, 'cause you just end up right back here."

[HYHYBT]

paying unpaid debts.




It really depends on what Reincarnation is. after all there are people who believed you are punished/rewarded for past lives by karma.

All the more reason not to make the reincarnated person serve a previous life's sentence: they're already paying for it.

[SkullKing]

What's the point of reincarnation if it doesn't mean getting a fresh start on life?

paying unpaid debts.




It really depends on what Reincarnation is. after all there are people who believed you are punished/rewarded for past lives by karma.

[telecom_goddess]

I'd think that dying would be the end of the punishment. While the reincarnated might be the same spirit/soul/ka/Essence/WTFever, they don't have the memory of what the offending life did.

Maybe they do and maybe they don't Some claim to remember past lives so who knows.

I really don't have an opinion on reincarnation ...I haven't had it proven to me one way or another so I don't know. I'd be more inclined to say it doesn't happen if pressed though.

As for the sentencing...I really don't understand the logic in any of it. What with parole and whatnot people don't serve their full time anyway. Plus people are always being released early due to budget cuts and over crowding. What's the point of having a sentence if you can't carry it the fuck out as it's stated?

[Zod]

I was actually thinking the same thing after I watched a rerun of SVU where the leader of a pedophile ring gets sentenced to 3000 years or so: 2 years for every image of child porn he had on his laptop.

Precedent perhaps? Had he been given a 'sane' sentence of 50 years : then that's about 12 days per picture : so if someone else later on gets arrested for having a dozen pictures, they would only get about 4 months. A fair legal system shouldn't give different sentences for identical crimes.

Concurrent sentencing always seemed strange to me : like the judge is rewarding people for commiting crimes in bulk.

[HYHYBT]

I don't know... but I do know the next, virtually certain step: sentencing people, not just to multiple, consecutive life sentences (as done now, expanded as above to future lives) but new sentencing taking that into account: multiple executions of the same person and eternal, no parole sentences where you keep going back every time you're reborn for as long as society lasts and retains the ability to find you.

It *would* happen that way... but it shouldn't. What's the point of reincarnation if it doesn't mean getting a fresh start on life?

[kibbles]

If reincarnation could be proven..I honestly do see some places in the States particularly that would try to get someone to finish their sentence in their next incarnation.

Where does everyone think would be the most likely state or country to exercise this practice if it was ever possible? *philosophically speaking of course*

[bex1218]

Or they can do a crime and and get a sentence to where A left off and so forth until its done with. That be interesting to hear about.

[Nekojin]

So, interesting philosophical question, which may be of particular interest to GK, who may actually have an opinion on reincarnation.

If we can eventually prove that people are reincarnated, and find who's reincarnated where, will we be likely to try to get their next incarnation for the same crime? He only served 62 years out of a 500 year sentence after all...

I'd think that dying would be the end of the punishment. While the reincarnated might be the same spirit/soul/ka/Essence/WTFever, they don't have the memory of what the offending life did.

Further, if reincarnation is real, it would suggest that karma is also real, and they're already in for a fucking hard life due to the sins of their previous life.

So, no, I'd say that even if reincarnation could be proven, and you could tie living person A to dead person B, A shouldn't be punished for B's crimes.