> As a society, we approve of jail being the mechanism to "forgive" a person's crime.
That's not what 99% society believes. The vast majority of regular people (go on the street and talk to any random person, I guarantee you this is what they'll say) will say that life-time ostracizing is actually part of the sentence. They honestly believe that once you commit a felony, anything bad that happens to you for the rest of your life is fair game. They pretty much believe that the official jail sentence is only the beginning, and that even in jail if you get killed it's pretty fair because you were already one of those criminal-types anyway, so oh well no big loss. I've met so many people in jail who were hardened into a life of crime because of the us-vs-them attitude they've been faced with since young adults and even as teenagers, simply because they made one mistake early on, and now they're labeled and discriminated against even by judges and their own lawyers, let alone citizens. People want there to be rehabilitation and re-entry into society, and there are programs out there, but none of them are actually effective (trust me), and the vast majority of society don't want them to be effective. So everything is status quo.
Thanks for the advice. It may come down to working at a factory and moving my family to the slums so we can afford to live. In fact that's looking more and more likely. We have only enough money for April, and based on my calls today there's pretty much no chance I'll get a job and a paycheck before May.
You're thinking under the assumption that there's no corruption in the judicial system, and also that every judge and jury and attorney intend to act for the good of every individual person, rather than for some other agenda. That's the kind of naivety I had too. That's not how the world works. The world is a horrifyingly evil place.
I posted about my situation and difficulty finding a job on another social media website, and a commenter wrote "Those lists exist for a reason. You made your bed now sleep in it." That's literally what the public thinks they're for, as a permanent form of discrimination and condemnation to prevent people like me from having a job or a good life. It's meant to keep us down all our lives.
If that's what the voting public thinks it's for, then for all practical purposes, that's sure as hell what it's actually for.
Their hope is that maybe they'll be able to change the future for the better by making an example of someone, even if they have to be excessive, cruel, or unjust toward that person. They're justifying the means by the hoped end.
The US criminal system isn't meant to rehabilitate, and a corrections officer told me that directly once (after I asked for a Bible and he said no).
It's only meant to provide the public with a false sense of security. "Another scumbag has been locked up, key's been thrown away, you're all safe once again. Enjoy the rest of your evening."
But it's okay because people are easily forgettable. If you have 100 people on a block, and 1 is taken away unjustly, you still have 99 who can quickly forget about that 1, provided they're distracted with enough beer, books, movies and memes.
I know C#, learned it over winter break a few years ago, but have not used it for 3+ years in a professional setting. That's the issue. Even if I try to make hobby apps with it, nobody will hire me for a job using it. Unless I look for entry-level jobs, but even then a recent college grad is a better choice than me.
Since November I have applied at every type of job: silicon valley start-ups with just a few people, software consulting firms with a dozen or two dozen consultants, and large corporations like GS. Initially GS told me the felony wouldn't be an issue, made me an offer, and dragged me along for about 4 weeks after that, reassuring me the job was a sure thing. Only this morning they changed their mind out of nowhere. Otherwise I wouldn't have wasted so much time with them, as I was up-front with them early on.
I've been applying since November and I've run out of money and time, April is the last month we can afford, and interview processes can last weeks. There's like a 5% chance I'll get a job during this time which is why I came here for help. I did get several good pointers from people and am going to follow them. But my programming knowledge is between junior and intermediate despite my experience, since somehow I end up always getting hired by companies that want to do things the weird way instead of the normal way, so I barely have any experience doing any programming the "normal" way. You know, I've always said I want to quit the programming field and just work in a factory, maybe this is my chance.
It is a misdemeanor, but a second offense turns it into a felony automatically. My lawyer could not get it back down to a misdemeanor. I am utterly and completely screwed.
I do have a small portfolio website (can't show it here because it'll give away my name and the harassment will start) and it was mentioned in a few interviews, but it's not really good enough to show off for independent consulting.
Oh, also I should mention, my crime was in 4 major local newspapers, and those online news articles are the first 4 results of googling my name. So it's not really something I can hide, at all.
For that I would need references (I have none), a good portfolio (I have none), or the ability to start off making almost no money (my family would starve).
A few months ago one posted here on HN, explaining how most of her clients were men who threw away their actual families to chase after fast-paced careers (like start-ups), and often wanted to just talk and have her role-play being a wife (including sex). I have no idea how many people here on HN fall into that category, but her clients didn't sound like they were finding that fulfillment in her services that they seem to ultimately be seeking after in life.
The physical nature of human beings: a single penis fits into a single vagina, and that's how babies are made. It takes exactly two people for this to work. Sex can be done in other ways but this is the magic formula for sex to make a baby, and making babies seems to be the primary purpose of sex within nature. And my name isn't meant to be tasteful, it's meant to be honest. I committed the crime of public indecency and am a sex offender for life.
> Childless millennial software developers (or otherwise generally technical) are in a better position to understand puberty in the modern internet driven landscape than someone who went through it 30 years ago, though. That's a relevant perspective here. . .no?
I'm a millennial software developer who went through this exact thing 15 years ago. So we're in the same boat, the only difference being I have kids. And poker is a whole different game when you're not playing for keeps.
We've never let them have free reign to screens, whether computer or TV or phone, because there's a whole host of other problems that come from that. So it's not like we're taking internet away from them and that they're used to it. We've been teaching each one, the other they get, how to use computers and the internet responsibly, and we've always supervised to make sure they're not accidentally running into something. But a search for some Magic the Gathering cards on eBay is what started this, when he accidentally saw an image of a nude woman in the results, and decided to google it behind our backs on the family computer (while my wife and the younger were in the same room!) and since he broke that level of trust with us, and showed a complete lack of understanding of the gravity of his actions, we had to take stronger measures against this disease in his mind that led him to put his younger siblings in danger of seeing something far more confusing and graphic than they're ready to at their ages.
This is a great reason to avoid giving smartphones to kids, and a big reason we haven't. It's important for them to not have to deal with things they aren't mentally, physically, or emotionally ready for yet. They need to be kids right now.
There is more to it, and it's hard to pinpoint cause and effect. He did have issues that existed before the pornography habit. But they worsened significantly since the month he started looking at pornography regularly. I do believe that his pornography habit has lowered his mental and emotional intelligence by a noticeable factor. I also look back at when I was his same age, and see my own struggles as very similar to his. So I could be mistaken with some of the internal presumptions I've made about him, but the external ones match up almost exactly.
The puritanical attitude is wrong. Sex is an amazing and great part of life, just like roller coasters or having 3 beers. Life is meant to be enjoyed. But over-doing it, or using something in a way it wasn't meant to be used, can ruin that joy. Nothing is wrong with sex within a healthy relationship. But nobody who goes to a hooker really believes afterwards that they found true happiness there.
We also avoid movies like Saw not only for our older children but even ourselves. Why fill out bellies with filthy water when there's plenty of fresh water all around us, free for the taking? Only people who convince themselves that there's no fresh water, or that it's not good enough for their belly, will look for filthy polluted water and convince themselves it's their only hope.
Why not both? Let your SO be the only one who pleases you on this level, physically, mentally and emotionally. Ignore those voices that try to tell you that you can't be happy without these old ways of pleasing yourself. Your relationship will improve 100x, I speak from experience.
Once he started doing it, everything in his life declined. He stopped having healthy relationships with his siblings and his friends at school. He started to be much more angry and even sometimes violent, and when we examine the situations in detail, we see that none of it is justified, and he's always the one saying everyone is out to get him when he is actually the one doing wrong. He's become a lot more arrogant and a lot more reserved at school and obnoxious at home. His grades at school declined sharply. He's developing a narcissistic personality, and won't participate in things that he doesn't personally see any value or benefit in, even when everyone around him tries to convince him it's a good or worthwhile activity. Overall he's declining in mental and emotional health.
I made that same exact argument in college to someone who was just trying to help me see how insane I was. Yes, it's slightly self-serving to love and find joy in love. But of all the forms of selfishness in existence, it's the most acceptable and least blamable one.
My oldest son recently developed a porn habit in secret, and the things we saw in his search history showed a clear progression from googling "boobs" and "nudity" to "pissing" and "bondage".
Pornography isn't even close to what it was 30 years ago when you for the most part only saw it in nudie mags that your dad had (or friend had who stole it from his dad). Today, kids have easy access to a wealth of horrifying and bastardized hard-core pornography.
But not only that, the ads and search results and images that show up for the more innocent things will lead them to the more awful things, because they're just readily visible and accessible right there.
To be honest the only solution we have found is twofold: to change our wifi password to disable internet on all devices (he was sneaking his Nintendo 3DS into the bathroom for 2 months to look at porn on it) and to proactively start teaching them that life is more than a constant quest for more and more intense pleasure, and that if you allow yourself to give into that base mentality, you are throwing away a good portion of your future that could be filled with meaningful real relationships and legitimately joyful times, in exchange for maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain until you die.
Love is the wanting good for another person even if it costs you personally. Porn teaches you to want pleasure for yourself, even if it costs someone else. That's not love, that's lust.
The chemicals released in your body and especially brain during orgasm build a closer connection and bond within you to the concepts and people you focused on during it. Pornography trains you to be selfish. Whereas having sex and both orgasming at the same time, focuses your mind on making your partner happy and that mutual self-giving becomes what you crave. Because it's based on love, that same mutual self-giving carries over into the rest of your life, and you find more happiness in giving gifts than receiving them, in doing more chores so they don't have to, etc. That's love.
Indecent exposure, even though it was without underlying sexual motivation, is very shameful and embarrassing to talk about, especially in an interview. And already a few Fortune 500 companies who wanted to move forward with me have decided not to for this reason, so it's more than shame, it seems like an automatic disqualification. It's very likely my career is over now. I guess if nothing else, my life can at least be a warning to others.