Is there a case for corporeal punishment instead of prison time?

There's some talk online of the possibility of reintroducing corporeal punishment to lower prison costs, reduce the size of the prison system, break the school-to-prison pipeline, and improve the efficiency of justice. 

Eliding all the detailed arguments, the most compelling argument to me also is the simplest. Which is that 5 lashes on the butt seems a lot kinder then a year in prison, especially if the criminal is young.

George Orwell’s review of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler, excerpt:

”

….Also he has grasped the falsity of the hedonistic attitude to life. Nearly all western thought since the last war, certainly all “progressive” thought, has assumed tacitly that human beings desire nothing beyond ease, security and avoidance of pain. In such a view of life there is no room, for instance, for patriotism and the military virtues. The Socialist who finds his children playing with soldiers is usually upset, but he is never able to think of a substitute for the tin soldiers; tin pacifists somehow won’t do. Hitler, because in his own joyless mind he feels it with exceptional strength, knows that human beings don’t only want comfort, safety, short working-hours, hygiene, birth-control and, in general, common sense; they also, at least intermittently, want struggle and self-sacrifice, not to mention drums, flags and loyalty-parades. However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life. The same is probably true of Stalin’s militarised version of Socialism. All three of the great dictators have enhanced their power by imposing intolerable burdens on their peoples. Whereas Socialism, and even capitalism in a more grudging way, have said to people “I offer you a good time,” Hitler has said to them “I offer you struggle, danger and death,” and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet. Perhaps later on they will get sick of it and change their minds, as at the end of the last war. After a few years of slaughter and starvation “Greatest happiness of the greatest number” is a good slogan, but at this moment “Better an end with horror than a horror without end” is a winner. Now that we are fighting against the man who coined it, we ought not to underrate its emotional appeal.

“

Orwell suggests that minimizing suffering is not a good axiom for maximizing utility, or even for human happiness, along with quite a few other implications. Thoughts?

Hi everyone, I’m fairly new to the community, though I’ve been lurking on and off for a few years, and I would like to hear the opinions on a key question I am unsure about.

What is the ultimate goal of the rationalist enterprise? 

I understand there are clear goals to establish ‘Friendly AI’, to realize intelligence ‘upgrading’, if achievable, life extension, and so on. But what is unclear to me is what comes next in the ideal case where all these goals have been achieved, and to what ultimate end.

For example, 

I’ve encountered  discussions about eudaimonia scenarios (private galaxies, etc.), though I’m not sure how seriously to take those, as surely the possibilities of the co-moving light cone that is within our capacity to inhabit are exhaustible in finite time, especially if all these designs reach their ultimate fruition? 

"The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown." - Albert Camus, Thoughts?

"Thus, a people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it."

• John Stuart Mill

Mill enumerates some common scenario in the political development of nation-states. Thoughts?

Why are there so many cargo cults embraced by one segment of the population or another? 

Is it something to do with the need to feel special and unique? To sublimate away the fear of being forgotten after death?

To compete for social status? An outlet for unrefined creative energies? 

In some cases it's even more extreme, and seemingly even more maladaptive, than the Pacific Islanders spending their energy on building wooden radar dishes and control towers in hopes of attracting cargo planes. 

Such as the unironic collectors of anime girl pillows. Or those single mothers that spend all their money buying luxury handbags, shoes, etc. Or young men going into debt to afford expensive upbadged versions of normal cars (in some cases the cars aren't even faster or more comfortable, just more expensive with flashy trim)

This leads to a scary thought, is the human reward system that easy to hijack?

Hayek preferred a 'liberal dictator' over a 'democratic government lacking liberalism' if given the choice of systems for a transitionary period, Thoughts?

Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism.

Friedrich Hayek, Interview in El Mercurio (1981)

Personally, I can understand the appeal of a dictatorship that defends minority groups, even for purely self-interested purposes, as well as the odiousness of a fair 'democratic government' that would reduce the same for even the most well reasoned and widely agreed upon purposes. 

And if given an either-or choice I can see why Hayek would side with the dictatorship.

• Some of the people on death row today might not be there if the courts had not been so lenient on them when they were first offenders. Thomas Sowell

The problem of ‘justice’. Over what time scales do we refer to when we say ‘justice’? Near ‘justice’ can be in reality a far tyranny. And vice versa. Thoughts?