Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: Crime (Re: Perot ?
From: howell@astrosun.TN.CORNELL.EDU (Colin Howell)
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 00:54:20 EDT
Organization: Cornell University Astronomy Dept., Ithaca, NY
Return-Path: <howell@astrosun.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
To: das9674@usl.edu
Cc: 
Status: R

In article <1992Aug18.180211.18389@usl.edu> you write:
>In article <92231.023450MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu>
>Norman St. John Polevaulter <MBS110@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>In article <1992Aug17.223817.17281@usl.edu>,
>>das9674@usl.edu (Stephenson Daniel A) says:
>>>I'd rather an alternative to the death penalty...
>>
>>I look at things and see a perfect alternative to the death penalty --
>>life imprisonment with absolutely no possibility of parole. It's just as
>>nasty if not nastier (you want to live your life out in a prison cell?) it's
>>cheaper than our current death penalty system, it keeps the criminals
>>off the streets for good just like the death penalty does, but most important
>>of all, if it turns out that the suspect was innocent after all, they can
>>be freed from jail! If the unfortunate person has been executed, on the
>>other hand, making it up to them is rather more difficult.
>>
>>So how's this sound? You asked for an alternative...
>
>The implementation of the death penalty is not the same thing as the principle
>of the death penalty.  Life in prison w/o parole WOULD be the next best thing,
>but I don't think it would have the same effect as outright DYING.

Actually it's arguable whether the "death penalty" is a penalty at
all.  Everybody dies, and I'd think the fear of dying is less of a
punishment than the knowledge that you're going to spend the rest of
your life in prison.

That philosophy aside, the best argument for the death penalty may not
be deterrence, but expediency.  It's easier to kill a criminal than to
pay for his upkeep, and if the maximum sentence were really life with
no possibility of parole, a criminal under such a sentence would have
nothing to lose--he could try to escape, kill guards/fellow prisoners,
what-have-you, without any worries.  (I know these are the arguments
my mom, a diehard 50's/early-60's liberal and no fan of the Reagan
years, uses to support the death penalty.)

Personally I think that the death penalty issue isn't really important
in crime control.  Very few crimes in this country ever get the death
penalty, and considering the attitudes of most Americans this isn't
likely to change.  If you really want to control crime, you should try
to reduce those crimes that affect society the most, and these aren't
affected by the death penalty.

>For example, some people whine about nuclear power being wasteful, cost
>way to much.  I'd argue that those issues would not exist if it were not
>for the 'whiners'.  See?

This really isn't true (and I was a nuclear power supporter until a
few months ago).  While safety protests have certainly increased the
cost of nuclear power in recent years, causing plant operation delays,
closings, and other such events, and generally helping to increase the
costs of the industry, nuclear power really is inherently expensive.
It surprised me to find out that the American utility industry
actually had to be threatened by the federal government with
nationalization (or with competition from nationalized plants, I'm not
sure which) before it would start building nuclear plants.
Presumeably this was done to prevent the Soviets from gaining a
technological edge and to provide more technological experience for
reactor usage in other fields, such as naval vessels and spacecraft.
It may also have been used to help provide fissionable material for
the weapons industry.  (Note I'm not arguing with any of these goals;
I'm sure they made sense at the time.)

A nuclear power plant is an inherently complex beast.  You have a
fission reaction which must be carefully controlled to prevent either
shutdown or runaway core melting.  You have two independant cooling
systems: one transfers heat from the reactor to the primary coolant
(giving you radioactive water), and the other transfers that heat to
the turbines so the turbines don't become contaminated.  (Fossil-fuel
fired plants should only need one, since there's no contamination
risk.)  You must have some shielding and safeguards built into the
system, since you are dealing with inherently dangerous material and
you at least want to keep your workers healthy.  The radiation can
even have deteriorating effects on the plant materials--high-energy
particles can wreak havoc with the crystal structure of most metals,
seriously weakening them over time.  All this leads to a plant which
costs a lot more to build and run than a fossil-fuel fired plant of
similar power output.  Mining, processing, and shipping the fuel also
can be hazardous (and therefore costly), as is waste disposal.  Note I
have not counted any effects of "whiners".

A very thorough and intelligent discussion of nuclear power is
provided in the book "Normal Accidents: living with high-risk
technologies", by an organizational theorist named Charles Perrow; I'm
sure any decent library catalog system would allow you to find it
easily.  The author first got involved with nuclear power by being
asked to serve on the Three Mile Island investigating committee.  The
book is actually an investigation of several types of complex,
"tightly-coupled" systems, which are both difficult for the operators
to understand and unforgiving in the required timescales of responses.
He argues rather convincingly that you can expect, given time,
accidents involving the whole system in question of arbitrary
seriousness--hence the title: these accidents are "normal" to the
system.  He goes on to examine several real systems (nuclear power,
chemical plants, air travel, marine transport, space flight, genetic
engineering, etc.)  that pose hazards either to their operators or to
the public, and studies how likely such "normal accidents" or "system
accidents" are for these systems.

I would not be mentioning this book if he didn't eventually argue for
getting rid of nuclear power plants (he does not argue for getting rid
of all the other systems mentioned, although marine transport comes
under especially scathing criticism), but his reasons are far more
clear and intelligent than those of most people.  They certainly led
me to change my mind on nuclear power plants.  The book, while a
little academic (not surprising, considering the author's background)
is nevertheless very interesting, and while you may not agree with all
of the author's opinions, I think you'll find it enlightening.  One
intriguing point: this book was written back in 1984, before the major
disasters of Chernobyl, Bhopal--India (a huge chemical leak in a
heavily populated area), and Challenger, yet all three are
foreshadowed somewhat in the book.  This guy really knows what he's
talking about.  (It would have been interesting to see an analysis of
computers and computer networks in this book, as I think they would
definitely fall under his classification of complex, tightly- coupled
systems, although they are usually not hazardous.  But that may have
to wait for another book.)

The biggest advantage of nuclear power has always been its inherent
ability to pack a large amount of ready-to-use energy into a small
space.  This makes it extremely useful for powering warships, for whom
cruising range is vital, and submarines, which to be most useful must
stay under for long periods.  It is also useful in spacecraft, both
for satellites which need a large, long-lasting power supply but do
not have access to the sun (as in the outer solar system), and for
rockets which require very powerful engines.  It might have even found
a use in long-duration aircraft flight if the shielding requirements
hadn't posed prohibitive weight restriction.  It will always be hard
to deal with, but for certain purposes it will be indispensable.
Generating electric power for cities just isn't one of those purposes.

If you want to know what I think will eventually be the primary power
source for cities, I think it will be solar.  It carries no
limitations on fuel supply or risks of greenhouse warming.  It is
relatively cheap to build--and promises to be even cheaper with
emerging technologies.  It requires fair amounts of land, but the
total land area required to support the planet's needs is about the
size of one large Western state, and that could be distributed over
building rooftops.  It need not even be influenced much by weather, if
you provide plenty of reserve capacity and distribute the power cells
over a wide area.  And if you consider the entire solar system, the
potential power available is far more than we will need or use for a
VERY long time.

-- 

--Colin Howell			email to howell@astrosun.tn.cornell.edu
--Cornell Astronomy Dept.	(hopefully switching to computer science)

--
Dan Stephenson das9674@usl.edu 
"Is it that Blake has a genius for leadership, or merely that *you* have a 
 genius for being led?" -Avon, from Blakes 7                           
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