Biotechnology Could Allow Prisoners To Serve A 1000-Year Sentence In 8 Hours
Scientists believe the technology that would allow prisoners to serve 1000-year sentences in just eight-and-a-half hours is a real possibility.
The ways in which people should be punished for breaking the law is something that is hotly debated. Hundreds of years ago, the death penalty was commonplace in most countries, sometimes for crimes that really shouldn't have carried such a severe sentence. The death penalty still exists today, but is far less common and only used for the most heinous of crimes.
Many people strongly disagree with the death penalty being used at all. Whether that be for human rights reasons, or because they think that's the "easy way out" for certain people who have committed unspeakable acts. The future of punishment for breaking the law might be one that is completely void of the death penalty. However, it might feature something even worse.
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Fans of Black Mirror might be familiar with an episode that shows off a form of technology that tricks the user into thinking more time has passed. So, the user might feel as if a month has passed when in actuality it has only been an hour, for example. The episode features the tech being used as a cruel and unusual punishment, forcing those being punished to live in false realities that last years, while minutes pass in real-life.
Turns out that method of punishment is closer to becoming a reality than we thought. Rebecca Roache is a philosopher who studies how futuristic technologies might transform punishment. Roache told Aeon that drugs might be used to distort a prisoner's mind, to make them feel as if time is passing far more slowly than it actually is.
"You could imagine developing a pill or a liquid that made someone feel like they were serving a 1,000-year sentence," Roache explained. "If the speed-up were a factor of a million, a millennium of thinking would be accomplished in eight and a half hours." To live 1000 years, only to return to reality and it's still the same day. Chances are anyone who goes through that will not be the same again once that sentence has been served.
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