Hacker News Reader

Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

> Hans Reiser would likely never kill another person in his life if he was free.

Why not? He killed one already for no good reason. His high IQ just means he has less of an excuse. It doesn't make him a better person.

View on HN

I'm sick of the apologia for these unforgivable criminals. By all means separate them from each other based on circumstances, for their own good, but if you murder people you're unfit to live in society, full stop.

The GP's point, I think, is that "unfit to live in society" doesn't mean "must live in some sort of hell-hole." Prison can just be another, slightly worse society. Like penal colonies were, before we stopped doing those.

That's fair, perhaps I misread it.

I thought the point was that we should look at IQ in determining punishment and risk of recidivism. Which is a deeply misguided idea.

I can see how you got that, but it's not at all how I read it. I don't think whataretensors is proposing that Hans Resier's abilities should lessen his punishment, but rather that we should allow him to continue using his abilities during his incarceration, and possibly contribute to society instead of being dead weight.

>I thought the point was that we should look at IQ in determining punishment and risk of recidivism

That was not my point. My point was the system does not differentiate among people.

If you murder 'people' or murder a person? What about manslaughter? Is that full stop too?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com