Recently went through the same thing. The person was moved twice so all the money on the app was lost since it was a different system at a different prison. Then at the last place, they changed vendors and the money on the app was lost again. I could've gotten it back, but I would've had to jump through a bunch of hoops and made a bunch of calls so I didn't worry about it which I'm sure is what they were hoping for by making it such an ordeal in the first place.
One of very few times I've seen her genuinely pissed off was after attempting to deal with some of the tech support for this system, because money ended up in the "wrong account" (via all the dark patterns you can imagine for the methods of donating), and the only way to move it was more or less for her to provide DNA samples to the prison (despite having nothing to do with anything) - it was that much information that they wanted to "maybe be able to help."
The system is designed to extract money at all costs, and they seem very, very good at doing so, via hook or by crook.
Well, you can't really tell if the other group got worse as a whole because it says later in the article that over 80% of the kids not on puberty blockers dropped out of the study so at the end there were only 6 kids left in the study who weren't on puberty blockers.
I live in the suburbs and am interested in this. I don't think it'd be possible to be fully self sufficient, but what I do personally is have a fairly large garden and some fruit trees planted. I preserve and ferment some of the vegetables for longer term storage. I also have a decently large amount of rice/beans/canned food/sardines. I figured this way I'm decently protected from quite a few emergencies involving limited access to food and will be able to get a decent amount of nutrition from the garden and be able to get the calories and protein from the food I have stored. It actually came in handy last year when we had the winter storm in Texas. I was pretty much snowed in for a week with no electricity but we had plenty to eat and I had no real worries. You can look into urban homesteading though. There is quite a bit you can do with not a lot of space in regards to becoming more self sufficient. If you can't have chickens another animal to look into would be quail. I don't personally raise any but am looking into it. We aren't allowed to have chickens where I live because of the HOA but quail are actually considered pets so it's allowed.
If your comment was some kind joke please disregard my comment.
Sorry to see you getting down voted into the basement, I too am a devout theist. I don't think the nature of your argument being theistic is the primary reason you are getting down voted though. I think if you built a stronger set of arguments about why this matters and how it relates to humans deserving a better level of treatment than other animals your comment would fair better.
A decent example might be something like,
"As a Christian, I believe all humans are made in the image and likeness of God. This gives humans a special place in the order of the universe in Gods eyes and God asks us to respect that view in relation to how we treat other human beings. Giving humans a higher level of reverence than other animals. Being made in Gods likeness is also a reflection of the higher order cognitive, spiritual, and social faculties that humans share and other animals often don't display. Although we do see animals having some advanced emotions or social ordering we don't see them simultaneously containing all the high order functions that humanity does at once"
I wrote Christian because I'm a Christian, you might be part of any religion or none. Something like the above comment might be more constructive in the future best wishes.
The problem is that you’re approaching the discussion with a completely different philosophical framework than most people have, so they’ll latch on to specific things they disagree with in your example comment and dismiss the rest. For example your statement “I believe all humans are made in the likeness of God” will lead to “well I don’t”, and the discussion is over.
I think it’s more effective to find the core issue of disagreement, which here seems to be whether or not ethics can exist without some kind of a moral authority.
Christians have a tough time in public discussions these days, unfortunately because of some blunders in the past and poor arguments in the present.
I agree with all of your comment. However, I think many people presume the purpose of the HN comments section is to have a robust debate that helps the community arrive at some conclusion. I think there is a lot of value in comments that simply share a persons point of view. I would really enjoy hearing others perspectives outside of secular scientific/evolutionary viewpoint and christian viewpoint.
Particularly it would be great to hear from people with hindu backgrounds as they often have a lot to say about our relationship with animals.
It is true that without a foundation for human exceptionalism, like belief that humans were designed for a special purpose by a higher power, it becomes very difficult to answer ethical questions of why humans should be treated differently than other animals. The eugenics movement was strong in American institutions in the early 20th century.
