Today I'd like to steal 16 minutes of your time. Lucky that this kind of theft isn't considered a criminal act, because the Prison Industrial Complex seems to thrive by ever lowering the bar to involuntarily gain access to their premises.
source: Wikimedia Commons
If prison, the exploitation of a place to house, feed and rehabilitate those who have done wrong by society, has become a for profit industry to the degree that we even talk about a prison industrial complex, what does that say about our culture? And if you make your prisoners work for essentially no pay at all, how exactly is that any different than slavery? Just some questions that pop up in my head when thinking about prisons and how we deal with those who were sent there.
But I promised to keep it short this time, and that's a good thing because off-chain life is getting crazy again. I found this TED talk by Shaun Attwood, who faced 200 years in prison, but eventually only had to serve a couple of them. His story about those years is an extraordinary and eye-opening one. I humbly invite you, fellow Steemians, to listen to his experiences and how they changed his life. And while listening, keep in mind that he's talking about an industry.
For me this talk re-focused my attention on the importance of freedom and reminded me what happiness essentially means. And how sharing experiences, be it through music, paintings, poets, art in general, or in a talk by an ex-drugs dealer and smuggler, or here on Steemit, can help us all stay focused on what it means to be human. And how the market economy with it's relentless drive for the accumulation of private wealth poisons that humanity in countless ways; these prisoners are being treated as less than human, their significance as a breathing, living, conscious being completely overshadowed by their significance to the bottom-line of the industry...
What facing 200 prison years taught me about happiness | Shaun Attwood
I hope this gave you something to think about. If so, please share those thoughts in the comments below. As always, please accept my gratitude for your support and interest in my ramblings here on Steemit :-) Hope to see you all back here tomorrow, and until then: keep cool, keep curious and keep Steeming!
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