this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Hard to say... I think first of all one needs to differentiate between the "successful" ones and those that end up more visible as criminals and the like.
I think the successful ones are the ones that do more harm to society and a Solarpunk society is much more resistant against such people than our current one that often rewards sociopathic behaviour in leadership roles.
As for the less successful ones: there is probably no easy answer to this, but it might be possible to treat with some psychopharmic substances?
As someone who thinks psychopaths can be helpful in the right job postions, I agree the mild cases of psychopaths probably do the most harm in policical positions, even more than serial killers. And I also agree its caused by a governance problem that would ideally already be solved.
Absolute not just the mild cases. I think our main problem is that we are ruled by absolute psychopaths. Or are they like us, just with too much power? Sometimes I'm not sure. How much chocolate do I eat that I don't care about who picked it, just like a billionaire doesn't give a shit about how he earns the money for his dick rockets?
It starts feeling more like a moral problem of giving arseholes too much power. So a 'Have to solve now problem' because we don't even get to a solarpunk society without withdrawing our attention, time, money, energy from the powerful. Maybe that's also a treatment for a lot of psycho drama - ignore it. How would we treat people like Trump or Musk if they were toddlers? When my kid was little and being awful I would rather ignore it and not give it attention, because I read about it in some long lost book about how some Amazonian tribe raises their kids. It worked quite beautifully. Not sure if this shit has a cure as long as guys like these have money and people's attention and respect.
Edit: fixed because it read like I permanently ignored my kid
But what authority decides for or against treatment? I'd think a group would ultimately give a person some alternatives - leave, get locked up, or get treatment, but you couldn't just force one of these thing unto a person.
I'll say upfront that I'm glad someone started this conversation because I've had a lot of questions about how a solarpunk society would answer these questions, but haven't made it very far in the fundamental philosophy stuff regarding prison abolition, anarchism, etc. So I could be totally off base here.
But it strikes me that exile would be a strong temptation as a solution, because it offers a lot of freedom, but a dangerous one - it could mean that a person who has already made themselves enough of a problem to get to the point where their community is presenting these options, is now on their own, possibly holding a grudge, and either able to encounter strangers on the road, in a low-enforcement situation, or able to show up at another community who won't have any warning (unless there's an overarching identification system which could turn any exile from one place into a way more damaging experience). Depending on what got them kicked out and what causes it, they may just learn how to hide warning signs better before escalating. Or they might form motivated groups akin to bandits.
In a society with a strong drive to internalize externalities when it comes to things like manufacturing, I feel like they'd feel it was irresponsible to cast people out to kind of stew in exile, but I have no good answers.
The whole goal of prison abolition and what to do with people who present a legitimate threat is massive, and I don't know enough about anything involved to try and suggest solutions. But I feel like whatever they come up with will need to be somewhat workable in a smaller scale in order to be practical while a society is transitioning, probably unevenly, into being solarpunk.
Sorry I don't have something more useful, I'm glad they brought this up and I'm grateful to all of you for discussing it.