It's precisely because you did not read further that you thought it was pascal's wager. I address this in the latter half of the post.

As I look around at all of the alleged and potential young offenders in my life, including those alleged and potential young offenders in my family and the alleged and potential young offenders in my community on their way to and from their assigned government education/correction facility, I can’t help but hope that we some day have better language to refer to these “young offenders”.

I never said that at all. I said the author "seems to be deliberately" using the word children instead of young offenders to promote a sympathetic response. I also never said that I thought this was a bad idea.

I understand that’s what you meant but that is a reductive way of filtering what you consider “true” events.

Say you and me both are sitting in a couch. Suddenly you have a full on vision of Krishna radiant with power and love. You break down crying. Your life is transformed. All the suffering you’ve endured suddenly has meaning. You have regained your will to carry on. You feel a new purpose to help the less fortunate around you.

… and I’m like: “nah, didn’t happen because I couldn’t see it”

For you it was obviously a very real experience. That doesn’t mean you literally had a visit from Krishna, or that Krishna is even real or any othe God for that matter. There are all sorts of interpretations of what happened. Neither of us will ever know objectively what exactly went down. But it doesn’t matter because something real happened to you.

It’s one I been toying with as a concept. Like what do you do with the lives created in the new reality, do just expect they mean less then the people in the old reality or do expect the new people matter more

Because not all parents are neutering… sometimes kids turn violent and need incarceration to prevent harm to the community.

You are misunderstanding me, somehow. if someone hallucinates something, they experienced it, but it didn't happen. Something happened, but not the thing they perceived.

“is it a hero’s duty to return the world to ground zero?” If this is what people expect from you, Yes. But if you are the only one who doesn’t want this, then this might be selfish.

“Can one be content in an altered reality?” As long as it is not seen as something bad, I don’t see any reason why not.

“What makes a new world’s life more or less valid then the old ones?” Your achievements. If you are poor, a rebooted world where nobody is poor would be a new chance. But if you once were poor and worked yourself up, then all would be for nothing.

This is a nice topic tough. I am currently playing a video game about deciding your own destiny. A villain changes reality to make everyone happy and live without pain. The heroes stop him because they believe humans can’t evolve without experiencing pain. However you can also decide to live in this new reality. Both will lead to a good ending.

Rehabilitation is unfortunately but one reason to send someone to prison. I firmly believe that everyone can be saved, but that doesn't mean we have the capability to save them right now. Sequestration is another reason for prison, since there's nothing we can do for them but stop them from harming others.

It feels like giving up, because it is, but sometimes there isn't a better option.

You think that using the word “children” to refer to persons under 17 is unnatural but “young offender” is a perfect fit?

What rehabilitation do you think is happening in prisons?

You said “… that doesn’t mean it truly happened”. I’m saying if someone has an experience they had an experience. They may not interpret the event according to objective truth but objective truth is elusive anyway.

Your aim is for people to accept a comfortable lie instead of an uncomfortable fact.

so you are a theist only because you think you will be rewarded?

In the real world, real prisons do real harm by real metrics. There is a right answer. Just about anyone can be fixed. Even then, even if we agree that some people are just hurricanes, we can allow them to live sequestered but humanely in comfort.

Because 17 year old can murder you just like a 18+ year old.

Did I claim otherwise?

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But that’s not quite analogous. The argument as I read it is more along the lines: “We might as well consider God real, because when we act as God is real, it produces effects as if God is real”

The same cannot be said of Santa Claus. I can’t wait up on Christmas Eve by the fireplace and expect to have a close encounter.

Since acting like Santa Claus is real is pointless, it is also pointless to think of Santa Claus as real, and pointless to discuss Santa Claus as if he were real.

If a person experiences something, it happened. You may disagree on the precise nature of what it was, but something happened.

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The author of this article Andy West wrote a very good book called The life inside where he is describing his experiences teaching philosophy in the prison. It is worth to check

Direct response to “children should be seen and not heard.” I know a ton of people who got sent away to “Excelsior” which was the school for “the bad kids”, but when not being trained to be a drone and ridiculed for not understanding chemistry or basic math, they were the kindest people. Loyal to a fault. Genuinely creative and above all, hopeful.

But what else are kids supposed to fee when they don’t fit in? Angry is a word that fits, imo.

So, instead of telling them to shut up and comply, let’s realize kids are not made to be formed. They are under our care and we keep fucking them up because “it is what it is” as the article states.

I think his statement at the end is really poignant. Feed that anger at the system by doing something about it. And that starts at home. And in our communities at schools.