• 516052 (unregistered)

    Since when was this a site for political activism?

    I am not opposed to the occasional discussion veering into the political. But this is flat out activism. And it has nothing to do with the purpose of this site. It does not even have the cover story of a tech WTF.

    It's a betrayal plain and simple.

  • FT (unregistered)

    Why is this here

  • 516052.1 (unregistered) in reply to 516052

    ++

  • (nodebb) in reply to 516052

    I'm fine with it. I already knew that US prisons were unfit for their intended purpose, now I see one more piece of evidence to support that conclusion.

    I could live in a bubble in which reality never intrudes. But that wouldn't actually be good for me.

    If you want to live in a Matrix-like illusion you're welcome to, but you don't get to complain when you see the glitches as the real world intrudes.

    Thanks for this article Ellis. Much appreciated.

  • Bob (unregistered) in reply to 516052

    +1 on the first comment. This article felt out of place.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to philipstorry

    That's not the point.

    The point is that people do not come here to read political propaganda. And especially not political propaganda about a topic that frankly does not concern the 95.7% of the worlds population that lives outside of the united states.

    And yes, we do on occasion have discussions on politics here in the comments. And I will still continue to do so. But that is different. When we have the occasional discussion like that in the comments that is just one thread among many. The rest of the people here who do not want to read it and do not enjoy it still have the entirety of the rest of the comments AND the actual article to enjoy. Which is what makes it acceptable.

    In this case there is no article to enjoy. There is no rest of the comment section to have fun in. There is only propaganda. And propaganda about something that most of us have absolutely no reason to care about at that.

  • Anon (unregistered)

    Prison abolition is stupidity on a level I can’t really fathom. I don’t come here for brain dead political content. I’ll be removing this site from my RSS feeds and never reading again!

    It would be funny if the comments get censored.

  • (nodebb) in reply to 516052

    And propaganda about something that most of us have absolutely no reason to care about at that.

    I would say that the rest of us do have a reason to care about that: "what if my not-the-USA country sees this and thinks it's a good idea?" That's the reason.

    And it's worth noting the implication that the USA, supposedly the "home of the free" and "leader of the free world", seems poised to lead the rest of us into a pit of surveillance and slavery (forced labour in prisons). Think about that for a moment...

  • Click (unregistered)

    The site is called the Daily WTF and of all the articles I've read here, this is the one that really made me think WTF.

  • Fikitus (unregistered)

    Thoughts:

    • While the topic is worthy of debate and prison operations should be improved and focused on societal reinsertion (depending on the crime), prisons SHOULD NOT be abolished. The main point is isolating the criminal from the rest of society, right beside punishment fitting the crime. What would society do with criminals then, slap on the wrist, stern scolding and go to your room without dessert?
    • Inmate labor IS NOT slavery: they should be earning their keep and even earning money for their families. Heck: labor, along with training should even be part of the societal reinsertion!
    • WTF is this article doing in thedailywtf? This IS NOT an activism website but a semi-humorous IT anecdotes website. It is as including cooking recipes in the phone book (remember those?) or medical advise in technical specs.

    Don't repeat. You are on probation now.

  • Fikitus (unregistered)

    Thoughts:

    • While the topic is worthy of debate and prison operations should be improved and focused on societal reinsertion (depending on the crime), prisons SHOULD NOT be abolished. The main point is isolating the criminal from the rest of society, right beside punishment fitting the crime. What would society do with criminals then, slap on the wrist, stern scolding and go to your room without dessert?
    • Inmate labor IS NOT slavery: they should be earning their keep and even earning money for their families. Heck: labor, along with training should even be part of the societal reinsertion!
    • WTF is this article doing in thedailywtf? This IS NOT an activism website but a semi-humorous IT anecdotes website. It is as including cooking recipes in the phone book (remember those?) or medical advise in technical specs.

    Don't repeat. You are on probation now.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    I would say that the rest of us do have a reason to care about that: "what if my not-the-USA country sees this and thinks it's a good idea?" That's the reason.

    You are working off many far fetched assumptions there. First being that they would. And second that this is a bad thing. And both are a stretch. After all, of all the stupid, idiotic and evil things we in the civilized world have copied the americans, and there are many, their criminal justice and prison system is not one of them.

    And even if we were to import this particular custom I fail to see the harm. Prison, after all, is not a place where you send good honest people for a well earned vacation. Quite the opposite.

    And it's worth noting the implication that the USA, supposedly the "home of the free" and "leader of the free world", seems poised to lead the rest of us into a pit of surveillance and slavery (forced labour in prisons). Think about that for a moment... Everyone with a shred of brain sees america as what it is, just another evil empire driving us toward a capitalist dystopia where the average man is enslaved to the capitalist overlords.

    "America does evil thing" is about as newsworthy as "water is wet". It's just one of those things that you no longer even care about because they are the default law of nature.

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    Also, sorry for the quote tags being messed up. I do not know how that happened. I must be slipping with age.

  • no (unregistered) in reply to 516052

    in europe, we hear every single day about the right looking to the US for oppressive policies to copy. some are funded by the likes of the heritage foundation, others are useful idiots who are merely influenced by them.

    learning what prisons look like in the US gives us examples of how things can go wrong and can be motivating to fight for a more just society. when someone starts floating ideas that go after the already few rights prisoners have, we can call these ideas out as utterly unacceptable. being informed allows us to recognize and shut down attempts at shifting the overton window to allow for discussion of inhumane and harmful policies, even beyond the topic of prisons. preventing the status quo from slipping into something even worse requires constant vigilance.

    learning about how prisoners are treated should motivate people to fight for prison abolition.
    we should not get to close our eyes at cruelty only because it is happening on the other side of an ocean.

  • no (unregistered) in reply to 516052
    After all, of all the stupid, idiotic and evil things we in the civilized world have copied the americans, and there are many, their criminal justice and prison system is not one of them.

    i do not see how a system where violence is routine, where the state takes turns at inflicting cruelty upon vulnerable people and at turning a blind eye to these people then inflicting cruelty upon each other, can be considered anything but evil.

    how can you advocate for a scheme where the well‐being of so many people is secondary to taking out society’s anger out on them? where society designates an out‐group whom it is okay to treat as lesser? where things like v-coding exist not only as terms, but actual practices happening on a daily basis? where so many people suffer for someone to make a profit?

    do you really believe it possible to justify such treatment of someone just because they are labeled a “criminal”?

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    And what will you do with evil people if you abolish prisons? Kill them? Deport them to Australia? Ask them politely to stop being mean?

    Prisons exist as a place for society to dump those who have proven them self to be harmful to it and keep them in a place where they can not cause harm to the rest of us without having to suffer the guilt that comes with more permanent solutions. They are, in short, the recycle bin of society. You can not abolish them without replacing them with something else that does the same job.

  • no (unregistered)

    it is no longer possible to pretend like technology is non‐political. every system has its impact on the world and it’s about time we as engineers took responsibility for the things we take part in building. working on something like this should not be able to be treated like any other tech job and described as merely a living.

  • Lothar (unregistered)

    I'm surprised to see that people are surprised that people in jail are essentially treated like slaves. That's what the 13th amendment is saying: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to no

    A good blacksmith cares not if the axe he crafts is used to chop through wood or necks, only that it is sharp.

  • Darren (unregistered) in reply to Fikitus

    While I do agree that training for prisoners should be part of their rehabilitation, I also think that forced prison labour is essentially slavery and they shouldn't be forced to pay for their keep.

    If someone has committed acts that society (in the wider sense) has judged to be so wrong that said person needs to be removed from society for a period of time, then you cannot ask them to pay for the privilege of being removed. Forcing them to work for their keep is indebted servitude.

    What we see in the US prison system are all the reasons why running prisons as a for-profit enterprise is such a terrible idea. It becomes solely about filling the beds and punishing people. It completely missed the rehabilitation part of the social contract. Without rehabilitation (in whatever form), you're never going to stop recidivism. You just create a revolving door of people going to prison, leaving prison, going back to prison, leaving prison...

  • Darren (unregistered) in reply to 516052

    Your viewpoint seems to be that once-a-criminal then always-a-criminal, and that those who engage in criminal activity are somehow lesser people, underserving of the benefits of existing within society, A real them-and-us approach.

    Prison is there to serve two (main) purposes. The first is punishment, through the deprival of liberty. They're no longer able to live within the wider society.

    The second - which so many seem to miss - is that of rehabilitation. If you don't help prisoners to change their life - be that through education, training, mental heath support, whatever - then you're just setting them up to fail when they're released. If you change nothing, then nothing changes. You keep people on the cycle of criminality and prison. The only one to benefit from that is the for-profit prison system, it provides absolute zero benefit to society.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to Darren

    Personally I am fine with making them earn their keep. In fact, I consider it a good and necessary thing.

    After all, why should we, the honest law abiding people who did no wrong be forced to pay to clothe, feed and support an evil criminal? If a villain endangers us all why should we be forced to pay our hard earned tax money just so that we can undo the threat he poses? Why should that burden of safety fall upon the victim and not he who is the cause of the evil to begin with?

    But there is a huge difference between a prisoner covering his own keep and a system where private companies actively use them for profit. At that point your incentive structure changes to something other than law and order. No argument there.

    But that does not mean you should abolish prisons.

  • Meir (unregistered) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic

    How about being free to travel on public transit without being knifed or pushed into the tracks or randomly punched by someone who has 30 priors?

  • (nodebb) in reply to 516052

    Since when was this a site for political activism?

    You should definitely demand your money back.

    Addendum 2026-10-13 10:50: I'm half-joking. I understand your preference to see little or no political stuff here, but a once-in-some-years event does not mean the site is changing its focus, and this is technology-related.

  • Troy Roberts (unregistered)

    "Abolish Prisons" is much like "Defund the Police". It is a truly bad bit of political labeling. In both cases what we really need is reform. When you compare the US prison system to say the German prison system, the US has a much higher recidivism rate. The difference is that Germany focuses on reform and treating the prisoners like human beings.

    If nothing else, we should make it illegal for the government to use commercial prisons. There is no argument that paying a commercial entity to run prisons is cheaper or more human. "Private" commercial prisons on the whole are abusive and should be abolished.

  • Terry Merop (unregistered)

    The digitized files that I receive have names censored out of them;

    You can thank all the gang/mob hits organized by those in prison over the decades for things like this.

    AI to judge what's kosher and what isn't.

    I have not been able to find any evidence that AI is being used, but even if it is, controlling information flowing in and out of prison is nothing really new, and exploring new ways to do that is fine. AI has many many issues, we all know, but it can also be very useful and is improving all the time.

    @Steve_The_Cynic

    I would say that the rest of us do have a reason to care about that: "what if my not-the-USA country sees this and thinks it's a good idea?" That's the reason.

    The problem is those of you abroad are being told a heavily biased, and frankly, completely dishonest version of what's actually going on, so you're not forming an opinion on good clean facts, but based on information intentionally tainted to cause as much outrage as possible when the reality is a very different picture.

    Prison isn't a hotel. The vast majority of people there did something do deserve it. Wanting to abolish prisons is just another far out there bonkers band wagon tagline that is part of a movement that has gotten seriously out of hand and will be absolutely devastating anywhere it actually manages to get implemented in.

  • (nodebb) in reply to 516052

    Well, you escalated from "political activism" to "political propaganda". If anyone here's eager to bring politics to the site, it seems to be you.

    Personally I'm a little perplexed as to how treating other people with decency and compassion is a bad thing, much less how it's political activism.

    You've gone fully political in your replies, and it's pretty obvious to me that there's little point in discussing this as you're not going to change your political views any more than you're liking having them challenged.

    Tempting though it is to respond to your political points, none of which I agree with, I'll instead point out one simple thing: If you don't like it, you can stop reading it.

    It's free to do so, it saves you time, and best of all it applies to all websites and even print media. You just skip that one article/item/page.

    You'll feel better for it.

  • Tim (unregistered)

    +1 vote for keeping politics out of this site. it's not like we don't have enough other places to go for this kind of discussion.

  • Vilu (unregistered) in reply to philipstorry

    I agree that this is out of place. I'm not necessarily opposed to activism in general but this has nothing to do with the rest of the content posted in TDWTF, and is not particularly tactful either.

    Just to reply to this:

    If you don't like it, you can stop reading it.

    I think it's absolutely fine for readers to signal that they don't like a piece of content on a website that they otherwise like. At least this gives feedback to people who run said website.

  • Terry Merop (unregistered) in reply to philipstorry

    It was the article itself that went fully political, based on a tainted view due to a personal connection. It is something that just had no business whatsoever on a site like this, no matter how you feel about the subject matter.

  • Jacob (unregistered)

    This is one of the few sites where I don't have to worry about political activism. Please don't let that end. And starting with abolish prisons? That's next level. I literally checked if it were April 1st. Of all the things you could get political about, you choose an outrageous absolute that isn't on the radar of 90% of anybody. That's . . . a choice...

  • (nodebb)

    I find it interesting that this article that "doesn't belong here" has triggered more comments and discussion by this time of day (it's about 1600 UTC) than any in a long time. Something seems to have engaged the readers here, even if it's enraged some of them.

    @Anon: You may already have removed this from your RSS, but I'll address you anyway. You're saying that one article out of, what? Hundreds?--is enough to make you never read this site again. Fine. Your choice. Seems like a bit of an overreaction to me, though.

    @516052: "Betrayal"? Of whom? And when you say that most of us have no reason to care about the subject, you're betraying your own self-centeredness. I could draw all sorts of parallels with U.S. politics, but I won't. Either you and other readers will see them or not, and pointing them out will make no difference to either group.

    @philipstorry: Well said, throughout.

    I for one appreciate the article and, while I don't agree with all of the comments, I appreciate the time taken to write them. With that, though, I'm out of time to spend on this. Reply to this comment, ignore it, whatever. I'm going to go back to packing to move across the country.

  • Jonathan (unregistered)

    Thanks, Ellis, for making me aware of this. And for suggesting possible actions to take!

    (Incidentally, if you can write " tainted view due to a personal connection", you're sick.)

  • EmptyJay (unregistered)

    This isn't a "WTF?"

    I already skip her posts, and this will just add another reason to close the window when I see her picture. I'm not going to remove the RSS feed, just be ever vigilant for the author.

    "Abolish prisons" is utter bullshit like "defund the police".

  • Joe (unregistered)

    Wow. Abolish prisons? So you have compassion for violent criminals but not for the families of their NEXT innocent victims? I get that there are some people in prison unjustly, but to suggest that nobody should be in prison without a viable alternative is insane, IMO. I don't think that's a particularly political take on the matter.

  • Patrick Henry (unregistered) in reply to Fikitus

    Agreed with this. I understand the point that while letters should be read to make sure they aren't doing or planning something bad, they shouldn't block things out that are harmless.

    But abolishing prisons is stupid. We have plenty of evidence over the last 5 years that reducing the prison population has only made us less safe. Because criminals know they won't be punished. Its also clear that "restorative and community-based justice" does not work.

    Locking criminals up works. They generally are not people who made a single mistake, but ones that keep making bad decisions and hurting people. I'm going to continue to support locking criminals up more and longer.

    Also, this point is 100% WTF. This is supposed to be about bad tech decisions, not advocating for whatever politics you want. I'd say the same thing if the post WAS about locking up criminals harder. This is not the place for it.

  • Fizzlecist (unregistered) in reply to Tim

    Absolutely. Whether I agree or disagree with a political topic, this isn't the forum for it

  • Ex-Java Dev (unregistered)

    Any site that does not restrict political discussion ultimately becomes primarily political discussion. See every social media site to date, notably Linked-In.

    Be suspicious of anyone trying to push the boundary, because they're the ones that want to corrupt and take over what you have. That's how many, many hobbies have been ruined.

  • Komodo Dragon (unregistered)

    Well... Bye.

  • A Human (unregistered)

    You can always tell when the comments section of TDWTF has gotten political because the article racks up more comments in half a day than other articles get in a week.
    50% of the comments are people arguing if politics should be allowed to be discussed on this site, and the other 90% were created in accordance with the following algorithm:

    try {
    if (
        clsClassInstanceFactory()
            .funGetInstance()
            .funGetNewInstanceForClass(clsBooleanComparisonBuilder.class)
            .funAddBooleanOne(this.vptPoliticalViews.funGetIsExtremist())
            .funAddBooleanTwo(clsPolticalViewpointExtremistRatingFactory.funGetRatingOfExtremist())
            .funBuild()
            .funCompare()
            .funGetResultAsBoolean()
    ) {
        this.vptPoliticalViews.funSetIsExtremist(clsPolticalViewpointExtremistRatingFactory.funGetRatingOfExtremist());
    } else {
        try {
            this.vptPoliticalViews.funSetIsExtremist(clsPolticalViewpointExtremistRatingFactory.funGetRatingOfExtremist());
        } catch (clsTriedToSetValueToItsCurrentValueException ignored) {}
    }
    
    String.format(
        "%\n\n%s %s",
        cmtPreviousCommentIDisagreeWith.funAsQuote().toString(),
        clsInsultFactoryFactory
            .funGetInstance()
            .funGetFactoryForViewpoint(this.vptPoliticalViews.funGetOpposite())
            .funGetInsult(cmtPreviousCommentIDisagreeWith.funGetAuthor().toString())
            .toString(),
        this
            .vptPoliticalViews
            .funCreatePropagandaBuilder()
            .funAddContext(cmtPreviousCommentIDisagreeWith.funGetContext())
            .funAddRefuteOpposingPoint(cmtPreviousCommentIDisagreeWith.toString())
            .funBuild()
            .toString()
    );
} catch (Throwable tblTheExceptionThatWasThrown) {
    throw tblTheExceptionThatWasThrown;
}
  • CommanderJavik (unregistered)

    In my cycle we used to throw people who posted offtopic articles out of airlocks.

  • 516052 (unregistered) in reply to Ex-Java Dev

    You know what... you are bloody right. I didn't think about things that way before. I figured it was fine if we talked politics in the comments as long as the site it self remained apolitical. But right now I see the error of my ways. We opened the back door to things like this.

  • Fred (unregistered)

    People complaining about "the site going political" are political without even realizing it. And that, in my very humble opinion, is funny as fuck.

    "But Fred, how are we political if we advocate for TheDailWTF to remain apolitical?" I hear you ask (you might not have asked this at all, but that's the beauty of typing this comment. I can decide for you what you ask and what you don't ask)

    Well, you are saying "political things have no place here, I do not want to read them", and thus you are dictating what goes and what goes not onto TheDailyWTF. This is political. To be fair to you, though: It's really really hard to be "apolitcal". Even the decision to NOT buy those tasty looking oranges from South Africa is political.

    "But it doesn't concern 95.7% of the worlds population that lives outside of the united states."

    See, this is what we used to call "transfer of learning" back in the days. You can read the article and start thinking about the current state in your own country.

    Also, and again this is just my very own very humble (and propably very stupid) opinion: When, if not now, is the time to become political in the US, and the world? There is a time when it's too late.

  • Malte (unregistered) in reply to EmptyJay

    I always find it so funny when ppl say "I don't read it" and then reveal that they actually do. It is your very own free choice what you spend your time on (including writing a rage-induced comment against me next, ofc). Nobody has an advantage or disadvantage from you reading this site, feel free to read if you enjoy it on average, feel free to skip what you don't enjoy.

    Personally, I'm absolutely fine with occasional personal content. That's what happens when one writes a blog. And I support Ellis' points from the article. Mostly this is about human decency (or at least strategic kindness, being nice to your peers improves the chance that they are nice to you) and not all that political. Life is full of mutual advantages.

  • Rid (unregistered)

    Good article, thank you for talking about a WTF in your country

  • 516052 (unregistered)

    Is it so hard to understand why those of us that are not american do not want to have american politics shoved down our throat all the time? Or why we frankly could not give a dam about the fate of neerdowells in some far away land an ocean away?

    As the Polish would so lovely put it, "Not my circus, not my monkeys."

  • EmptyJay (unregistered) in reply to Malte

    OK. I briefly skimmed tiny portions of it. Sue me.

  • Tomman (unregistered) in reply to Jonathan

    (Incidentally, if you can write " tainted view due to a personal connection", you're sick.)

    Why? It is the very reason why victims cannot act as judge nor jury - personal feeling too often get in the way of sound judgement. You're allowed to feel what you feel, but if those feelings are based on a limited snapshot of information instead of being able to see the whole picture, then you're doing a disservices to those whom you push premature conclusions to.

    I'm not necessarily opposed to activism in general

    Activism is fine when it's based on well defined problems and based on actual factual evidence rather than high emotion rallying cried that many get caught up in without doing any proper research of their own instead of relying on news outlets with very poor ratings to be reliable sources of information.

    You're saying that one article out of, what? Hundreds?--is enough to make you never read this site again.

    Because it happening more and more often here, and some people do not appreciate have the rug pulled from under them.

    And when you say that most of us have no reason to care about the subject, you're betraying your own self-centeredness.

    This article should not have been posted to a tech site like this, it is completely off topic - the author clearly abused her position to use this site as he own personal podium, something happening way too often out there, to push a distorted view.

  • Imperium_Maius (unregistered)

    My first comment after five years of lurking, and I'm using it to ask everyone complaining about "politicisation": WTF!?

    I'm an engineer from New Zealand, watching what's happening in the US from the other side of the world. And frankly, I'm horrified. Both by the treatment of people in its prison system and by the willingness of fellow engineers to dismiss the ethical implications of the technology enabling it.

    For all our layers of abstraction, our work has real consequences for real people. We have a moral obligation to consider who we're building things for, why, and to what end.

    Simply "doing our jobs" apolitically is itself a political choice. We don't get to hide behind our IDEs and pretend the consequences are somebody else's responsibility.

    And this isn't just an American issue. At a time when people are increasingly concerned about the technologies we're building, we have a collective responsibility to protect our social licence to operate. We cannot expect public trust while refusing accountability.

    We don't have to agree about prisons, politics or ideology. But we do have to recognise that engineering doesn't happen in a moral vacuum.

    Professional responsibility doesn't end when the code compiles.

  • MangusPI (unregistered) in reply to Imperium_Maius

    I'm an engineer from New Zealand, watching what's happening in the US from the other side of the world.

    Please cite an actual source, as there is a LOT of bad information being propagated in international news.

    And frankly, I'm horrified. Both by the treatment of people in its prison system and by the willingness of fellow engineers to dismiss the ethical implications of the technology enabling it.

    First off, this totally the wrong place for this sort of discussion in the first place, there are actual appropriate places that and this is not one of them, no matter how you might feel. It is not different than if someone suddenly made a post DIY auto repair and upgrades and where to get the best parts for less money, etc. There just is no excuse for it and trying to guilt people into it is also another level of WTF when you know full well that it is completely off-topic and thus the wrong place for it.

    Second, the treatment of prisoners has been horribly overblown and over generalized to high heaven. As others have said, it is not a hotel, you are not going to get every luxury while in there, and those that you can get should not all expected to handled over for free. You are serving time for some serious wrong doing.

    And as others have said, so some actual serious research instead of swallowing all the blatant propaganda that is thrust out on the airwaves and Internet wholesale, as it is getting flat out ridiculous.

    Again, this is the wrong place for this. If you want to discuss it with other engineers, than organize a meet at a place where it's actually topical. Ellis Morning showed a gross lack of judgement and basic authorial discipline as she should have known better.

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