Makes me think of Godel, Escher, Bach. It's been a while since I've read it but I recall Hofstader making the argument that self-reference is the key element of consciousness.
I believe prisons in part serve the purpose to keep us in check. With the threat of prison, society is encouraged to police itself. As another comment in this thread mentioned, Foucault helped to develop these sort of ideas and describes the motivations and development of the prison system in his work.
I've had the same Arch installation running since Spring 2020 on a desktop from 2012 or so. It's not my daily driver, but still works just fine. Even with some long periods between updates, I don't recall any serious stability issues.
One of my all time favorite YouTube videos is a lecture by William Byrd. I find myself still coming back to this video, it was so fascinating to me as an undergrad. https://youtu.be/OyfBQmvr2Hc