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Most people who commit crimes are
poor.
Frequently, this poverty is due to a lack
of
basic life skills such as time management
(setting an alarm to get up on time for
work) and money management
(budgeting). Create a computer game
similar to The Sims for people lacking
basic life skills.
Start their Sim off with a
minimum wage job and one-room
apartment. As they progress -- show up
to the job on-time, perform simple tasks
-- they get raises and become eligible
for
more interesting, higher paying jobs. The
salary they earn could to be spent on
rent,
food and other items in the Sim world.
More money will get them better
apartments, cars, clothing, etc. They will
have to budget appropriately or their Sim
suffers the consequences. If they don't
budget properly they might lose their
apartment and, eventually, their job until
they end-up in Sim prison. At that point,
they lose and have to start over. Deploy
the game clients and server on a closed
network within the prison or even a VPN
among several prisons. The game could
also be useful outside of prison for teens
in at-risk neighborhoods.
[link]
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//Most people who commit crimes are
poor.// You mean, Most people who
commit crimes, AND GET CAUGHT, are
poor. I don't like how you are
stereotyping poor people. I'm poor. My
wife works full time as an elementary
teacher, I work part-time as a musician
(and I get paid pretty good for the
hours I work), and i'm looking for a full-
time job to go with it. All this money
coming in you would think that we
would be alleviated from our poverty. |
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$600,000 median price for a 3 bedroom
house here. $1000/month renting a 1
bedroom appt. No, I don't live in a city,
it's out in the countryside. +10% for all
goods. Milk is $6 / gallon. I live in a
12' x 18' converted carport, no
bathroom or kitchen. |
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If I had my way I would arrest all the
prospecters for unnecessarily creating
poverty. |
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Don't pin it totally on poverty. Most of
us are just victims. Try looking into
how many people in prisons have
dislexia, you might be surpised. |
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I'm not stereotyping poor people. There
is a big difference between saying "most
people who commit crimes are poor"
and saying "most poor people commit
crimes." I said the former. You read the
latter. Similarly, I didn't say "no non-
poor people commit crimes." |
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There is a lot or research linking
poverty and crime. (Search
scholar.google.com for "poverty crime").
It's really not controversial. |
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I've talked to people who work in low-
income areas who say that most kids
coming out (or dropping out) of high
school can't keep a job simply because
that don't have an alarm clock and don't
understand the importance of showing
up on time. It's a basic skill that most
people teach their 8 year olds. |
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Sometimes people do what they do so they can survive in the real world. That being said, no stupid video game will teach somebody how to live a better life, just as no matter how much TEKKEN I play I won't become a world champion fighter. |
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I admit many of us americans do take
for granted our freedoms. I, having
lived in a 3rd world country for a couple
of years, do understand that we have it
good, and yet we are arrogant and don't
like to pay our taxes (does anybody?).
Poverty is more than an economic
condition, it is a state of mind where
hopelessness is common and
frustration is everyday. |
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I actually thought that this idea was to
teach prisoners computer skills that
they have missed out on when in
prison. This would make much more
sense. |
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I can't say what the best way to
rehabilitate prisoners are, but what I
don't agree on that is happening in the
USA is the privatization of prisons.
Meaning, that before the obligation of
rehabilitating inmates comes: Money. |
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I would hope that the USA take the
simple advice of: An ounce of
prevention is worth a pound of cure. |
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I like it. If you made it sufficiently 'immersive' it might have a positive effect. It might also be more effective if coupled with other educational programs within the prison. |
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A twisted use of this would be to tie success in the game to early parole (of course this would advantage the smart and unrepentant criminal as much as the 'ready to participate in society constructively' criminal). |
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//I don't like how you are stereotyping poor people.//
I don't like how he's stereotyping people who commit crimes. |
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Ian, was that deadpan humour or are you genuinely advocating communism? |
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Ian - I'm just having trouble understanding what your anno meant. |
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And I agree entirely about business. I've been telling people for 20 years that business is much more about cooperation than about competition. And that "what the market will bear" is an incomplete pricing model. |
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This is an excellent idea that deserves much better then the criticism and negative votes it got. If it is made accessible enough, it would have a beneficial effect and be able to show people a glimpse of a different world and some steps toward that world. |
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//I can't speak for our European counterparts// |
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Don't worry, Europeans are spoiled too. |
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//Start their Sim off with a minimum wage
job and one-room apartment.// Life's not
this fair in some places. Working full-time
and minimum wage would pay for rent and
that's about it. After rent, minimum-
wagers are left with about $150 for the
month for food, transportation and
clothing, or whatever else people need,
not including healthcare. Maybe you could
start them off in a studio, that might save
them $150 a month. |
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//to prosper, you do so by arranging the fixed quota of prosperity there is in the world so that you get more of a share of it than others.//
If you really believe this, you're missing something fairly fundamental. |
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The entire sentence is "Most assumptions are based on a feudal paradigm whereby to succeed, others have to fail in comparison - to prosper, you do so by arranging the fixed quota of prosperity there is in the world so that you get more of a share of it than others." followed by "This kind of adversary approach to personal economics is surely flawed, counter-intuitively wrong, and fully outmoded for our modern networked lifestyle."
I wasn't challenging you, I was wondering whether *anyone* really believes that; I should have said "If one really believes this, one is missing something fairly fundamental." My apologies for the misrepresentation. |
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