In some cases it is worse than doing essentially nothing: you're made to, e.g., perform some data processing task on a newspaper (e.g. write the readings of every kanji in this newspaper; that will take you about a day) and then, at the end of the day, your work product is checked for ~15 seconds to verify that you're not slacking and then shredded in front of your eyes. See you tomorrow.
This is so funny. Because this was how teacher disciplined us in high school. We had to copy a document for several times by next day where it got shredded in front of our eyes.
Detention at my school made us copy encyclopedia articles. What I would do is find an article about an author, then write my own sci-fi or fantasy short stories, claiming they were by that author. It was really quite fun, as I enjoy creative writing.
> at the end of the day, your work product is checked for ~15 seconds to verify that you're not slacking and then shredded in front of your eyes. See you tomorrow.
Wow, that is incredible (in a very negative / brutal sense). It's like forcing burnout on a person to motivate them to leave.
That reminds me of the story of Nazi officers telling Jews to carry big rocks from one fence to the other each day. The work was so meaningless that the prisoners couldn't take it anymore and started to jump onto the electric fence to kill themselves. I think such a practice where you make someone feel completely worthless is inhumane.
Don't know why you are being downvoted. That's an excellent point. Hell, even Albert Camus made the same comparison calling Sisyphus the proletariat of the Gods.
I'm sure you're just summarizing your view or making a joke in a really bad way. But does having a restriction on firing employees even coincide with capitalism?
Of course it can. Capitalism is not about being the best or most effective, it's about having the deepest pockets. And being the best is by far not the best way to get those pockets.
“Writing lines” was (perhaps still is) a common punishment in British schools: copy something out 100 times then the teacher would tear it up in front of you with a big grin on their face. Not sure it actually taught anything other than “don’t get caught next time”.
If we got a deans' detention at my high school in New Zealand, we had to write numbers for 1.5 hours on a Friday, starting at 1000 and going up. There was a minimum you had to write too, if you took the piss and didn't write anything you'd get another detention.
I always thought these kinds of busywork are completely useless, and don't do anything to stop you from getting into trouble again, they never did for me at least.
There's always been an element of sadism in commonwealth country's schooling systems. We had to wear shorts to school until 5th form, even in winter when it hit sub zero temperatures (at least it didn't snow).
At least they got rid of the privilege of prefects being able to hand out detentions after the entire school collectively told them to fuck off.
As someone who has issues with authority, high school was a very difficult time for me.
I wonder how important the ritualistic effects end up being. If you get in trouble, for presumably large classes of trouble, you face detention. That's better than suspension or expulsion or something else that could have far-reaching impact. That people then actually show up for detention is also quite remarkable, especially if the threat of missing it or not doing the numbers is just...more detention. The waste of time reinforces the idea of "doing the time" for your crime, afterwards things are square again, like a ritual cleansing. It lets you know you can make mistakes bad enough to get detention, repeatedly even, but you can still come out of it ok in the end.
Don't understand the shorts thing in winter though.
I made a couple of sheets in advance once, as my teacher always said to write 50 lines before you could leave for recess. The look on her face when I just pulled one out of my desk... to her credit she let me go!
>My trick was to write the first word on each line, then the second, and so forth.
You basically used Taylor-esque division of labor with yourself. Doing the same task a lot usually you become faster and more efficient at it. If you only have yourself it still might be faster if the task is repetitive enough and your context switching time is less than the time you save by writing one word so many times.
I learned to write on a blackboard with both arms at the same time (an ability which has had me labeled a freak!). In this case, it worked great so long as nobody saw you do it, and, the phrase wasn't two long.
my high school math teacher could
- write perfectly on the board while looking at the class
- write a complete sentence starting from both ends meeting perfectly in the middle
negative reinforcement encourages negative behavior in subjects with varying results but systematic abuses you'd find with the likes of British boarding schools where a theory suggests homosexual power dynamics often found in such environments void of women produces predators (Jimmy the SAville) or the horrible Ceauşescu's Natalist policies that resulted in the ban of contraception and abortion in hopes of an increased economic output from an increased population (wtf) resulted in an entire generation of unwanted children growing up under state apparatus....
I feel like this level of systematic dehumanization should be banned as it inflicts unnecessary suffering with no real benefit to society.
but Japan has the lowest crime rates because the prosecution has a track record of 99% conviction rate. You might be thinking oh fuck thats fucked up but it actually deters Japanese citizens from deviating from the law. Because no matter what they are going to throw the book at you with only 1% chance of not going to jail. When it's that biased the return on criminal action at an individual level is negative.
And as a result Japan has a thriving organized criminal economy and it makes sense, when you have a lot of disposable soldiers, don't need to pay severance (they do with their fingers), unregulated labor workforce, suddenly you've created an enormously profitable criminal enterprise that reaches into every aspect of Japanese society-pornography, brothels, stock market, celebrities, media.
Japan's justice system isn't all it looks like on the surface.
They have a habit of forcing confessions out of suspects [1], sexual assault and harassment is massively unreported, and murders are often ruled as suicides if there are no clear suspects.
Typically (not always), if someone goes to prison, it is because of them using up many chances to avoid going -- or they did something particularly heinous. Japanese prisons are not flooded with minor drug violators like US prisons are.
First, the police I've met in Japan are VERY willing to look the other way rather than convict someone on a serious-but-relatively-minor offense (e.g., drinking and driving while not "drunk"). I have also known them to handle delicate situations in very diplomatic ways (e.g., appropriate but definitely illegal street justice).
The stories I have heard of people going to jail involved that person breaking the law repeatedly and with multiple warnings (usu. with accompanying letters they had to write saying that they would not continue to behave in a criminal way).
In the more provincial areas (even the small cities), the police actually have a pretty good feel of what is going on in their towns -- the speed of gossip is impressive. If anyone is acting up, it would not be surprising for the police to find out and just go have a friendly talk with that person reminding them that doing $CRIME is, well, a crime that might have very unfortunate consequences. That discussion usually puts a lid on it.
I will also add that for a very large portion of the population, the peer pressure to conform goes extremely far in discouraging people from doing things that would put them in prison. The idea of prison itself is just a foreign idea for most people.
I haven not recently updated my reading on the Japanese criminal justice system (most of my knowledge is 10+ years old), but I don't recall reading much that made me feel like there were many prisoners were in prison unreasonably. A few were, but just a few, and completely different than the US where it's obvious that quite a few people are in prison for things like minor offenses, getting framed, not being able to afford decent representation, etc.
Japan is also a unique case in that they have a 99% conviction rate in criminal cases. The best research I’ve seem explains this in terms of extremes of prosecutorial discretion: only sure-win cases are taken to court. If you end up in a Japanese prison, you really really fucked up, broke the law, and provided the government with an open and-shut case.
As a result the “low crime rate” and “high conviction rate” are both somewhat artificial. A lot of crimes go unreported, or at the very least unprosecuted. Japan does have a relatively low crime rate, but the criminal element can often get away, especially if the victim is homeless, another criminal, or in some other way an outsider.
