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Incentives vs. Anarchic Douchebaggery
ginryu42
United StatesRegistered User regular
United StatesRegistered User regular
The news article's headline read, "Razor blades glued to playground at IL park" and I clicked the link. The body of the article related a disturbing tale:
I cannot help but wonder what incentive could society offer--through the offer of reward or the threat of punishment--to the people most likely to engage in socially destructive behavior such as this that would effectively reduce the occurrence of such incidents to nil? Do any such incentives exist, I wonder? Is the implementation of any such incentive economically feasible?
When I read articles like this, I just thank God I have no children, shake my head, and say to myself: Video Games [1], Playing Outside [0].
"EAST MOLINE, IL (KWQC/CNN) - A 2-year-old was injured by razor blades glued to playground equipment at a park Monday, according to authorities.
Lt. Brian Foltz said police responded to Millennium Park around 12:45 p.m. CT. The boy had been cut on his hand.
'East Moline parks are safe, but it's just a bad situation, bad instance where somebody or maybe a group of kids, I don't know who did this, but figured this would be a fun prank to do,' Foltz said.
The boy's father treated him at home and went back to the park with police. They found and removed about a dozen razors glued onto the equipment with a white, putty-like substance.
Other park visitors said they were surprised to see that kind of vandalism.
'We just kind of think about them swinging on the swing set or, you know, climbing the monkey bars,' said parent Ty Langley. 'You don't really think about razor blades.'
Police said they are investigating the incident. They went back to Millennium Park around 5 p.m. to double-check the scene. They also looked at the rest of the city's parks.
'We wanted to check out, just to make sure, and so far, we have not found anything else in any of the parks,' Foltz said."
I cannot help but wonder what incentive could society offer--through the offer of reward or the threat of punishment--to the people most likely to engage in socially destructive behavior such as this that would effectively reduce the occurrence of such incidents to nil? Do any such incentives exist, I wonder? Is the implementation of any such incentive economically feasible?
When I read articles like this, I just thank God I have no children, shake my head, and say to myself: Video Games [1], Playing Outside [0].
"He who has relied least on fortune is established the strongest." -Niccolo Machiavelli
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If it was simple sadism, there isn't a whole lot of "incentive" we can provide other than finding the person who did it and metaphorically bopping them on the nose with a newspaper.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
<18, still legally a kid.
I'm betting on some 15-17 year old with issues.
But I'm not rulling out a sick adult either.
Or you know, meat cleaver. /hyperbole
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
The second failure is on the peers not learning this from one another.
I'm not sure if this is one of those things that can be prevented. As for the punishment. I don't know. That this 'prank' targets children makes me want judicial judgment. Community service, enforced curfew by law.
"Not guilty"
In a libertarian society in which all the members thereof are aware that any violation of the law may result in execution, it seems to me, an Edo-like system of justice might be ideal. If, in our own societies, we had far fewer laws but far harsher punishments for breaking laws prohibiting behavior that deprives others of life (including health), liberty, or property, I think our society would generally be much-improved. The problem with the Edo society--as with our own--is that we have far too many rules, regulations, and laws to make tenable a system of justice in which all violations of the law are punishable by death.
So you watched a Star Trek episode, assumed that it accurately portrayed the outcome of a harsh and simplistic system of justice that was being used pretty clearly as a metaphor for mandatory minimums and three strike laws and came to the conclusion that such a system was advantageous?
And "the" problem with out society, doesn't exist. Our society has many problems. Well down the list, below things like inequality, injustice, hatred, bad taste, ignorance and misunderstanding mediocre Wesley based ST:TNG episodes well into the "not actually a problem" territory is an excess of laws.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I don't think you got that the point of that episode was that the Edo system was inherently unjust.
After my girlfriend left me and hooked up with you, I framed you for littering (or whatever other crime it might be easy to fake).
You were executed.
Later the truth came out but whatever. You got yours, you homewrecker, and that's all I care about.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
I mean you could as reasonably call for a more coherent plan to eliminate lightning strikes.
Later it came out that old man Withers did it. (Some kids and a dog solved the mystery)
Mitigating circumstances are kind of a big deal.
Yeah those were good times, I figured that as long as I had a choices of dudes who had the power of life or death over me I might as well join the one who offered me hookers and blow, so I got some guns and joined a gang.
Umm.
Is this really the direction you're choosing to take the thread in? Whether or not we should make every crime punishable by death?
I mean, it's your prerogative if that's your intention, but it's probably not going to go to a very productive place. If you want to discuss something different, you may want to clarify.
This is because death generally isn't the only punishment you want to hand out. Especially if you don't want to hand out punishment at all.
If someone is smoking crack I don't want them sentenced to death. I do want them in mandatory rehabilitation.
If a poor person steals a loaf of bread I don't want them murdered by the state either. I want them in a mando work program where they can learn useful skills and find work. I also want a critical eye turned towards the current welfare system that failed this person.
Hell, even with blatantly one sided crimes like with the Boston marathon bombing I don't want even that guy sentenced to death. I want any and every psychologist in the world to have access to him to better understand how to prevent future events like that one.
I want my government to actually work towards getting rid of the conditions that lead to crime. Not react to each individual as if they're all identical and exist in a vacuum.
Example
(1) Children should be seen and not heard.
(2) Little Wolfgang Amadeus is a child.
Therefore:
(3) Little Wolfgang Amadeus shouldn’t be heard.
No matter what you think of the general principle that children should be seen and not heard, a child prodigy pianist about to perform is worth listening to; the general principle doesn’t apply.
Just because I believe in our own societies, if we had far fewer laws but far harsher punishments for breaking laws prohibiting behavior that deprives others of life (including health), liberty, or property, I think our society would generally be much-improved, it does not logically follow that I believe an Edo-like system of justice would be advantageous. All decisions are made at the margins. I think if our system were, in some ways, a little more like the Edo system of justice, it would be somewhat improved. This is not an all-or-nothing proposition. I certainly do not think all crimes should be capital crimes.
@PantsB is also committing the straw man fallacy. A straw man argument is one that misrepresents a position in order to make it appear weaker than it actually is, refutes this misrepresentation of the position, and then concludes that the real position has been refuted. This, of course, is a fallacy, because the position that has been claimed to be refuted is different to that which has actually been refuted; the real target of the argument is untouched by it.
Example
(1) Trinitarianism holds that three equals one.
(2) Three does not equal one.
Therefore:
(3) Trinitarianism is false.
This is an example of a straw man argument because its first premise misrepresents trinitarianism, its second premise attacks this misrepresentation of trinitarianism, and its conclusion states that trinitarianism is false. Trinitarianism, of course, does not hold that three equals one, and so this argument demonstrates nothing concerning its truth.
In the second paragraph of the above post, @PantsB misrepresented my position. @PantsB implied I was stating only a single problem existed with our society, when he said "'the' problem with out [sic] society, [sic] doesn't exist. Our society has many problems." I never asserted society has only one problem. I said "[t]he problem with the Edo society--as with our own--is that we have far too many rules..." by which I meant that the relevant problem with our society...is we have far too many rules. I believe, in fact, that we do have far too many rules, and if we had fewer rules and regulations governing the minutiae of life, we would have more resources to commit to the enforcement of useful laws that protect the things governments should protect: our lives, our liberties, and our property.
We already set priorities for enforcement based on available resources and cost/benefit analysis. I strongly doubt that reducing the raw number of rules will suddenly free up resources to enforce the remaining rules, unless you can readily identify something that consumes a lot of resources and is of trivial importance, which politics generally does a reasonable job of in any case.
"We should get rid of rules that don't matter" is a pretty trivial point, and one few would dispute. The trick is identifying what is considered to be trivial.
Trying to recover from that ridiculous start, by copy and pasting some Logic 101 coursework is not going to work. If you want to argue that the US or Western society has too many laws, try that. Trying to get into an ad hom argument with me is not going to work. You're not ready for this.
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
It makes no attempt to address which laws or punishments or why it's even true.
I think you may need to clarify what you mean by "far harsher punishments," because after a certain point the difference becomes largely academic to the person being punished. Notice that PantsB never said anything about capital punishment. You are arguing against an assertion about your position that was never made.
I think you are missing the (more important) point that having too many rules is not, in fact, a relevant problem. You are again arguing against an assertion that is different from the one being made.
I think we have lots of problems with the law, but the person that commits the kind of crime described in the OP I think is likely to be motivated purely by malice. In that case, no amount of punishment will change anything. Fact of the matter is a person that is thinking rationally and does not have some arbitrary desire to see harm to others, will not see any immediate benefit from attempting to harm other peoples children, and so that is something that simply won't be done by the kind of person that pays attention to the law and punishment for various crimes.
I think there are real limits to how much crime we can prevent either by enacting laws or changing society. I think we could do a lot better by re-engineering society so that people feel that they have a larger stake in it. I think that would solve a lot of problems related to minor crime, however, I am deeply skeptical that law enforcement or any other government organization could do anything about the crime described in the OP in advance of it happening.
There isn't a single one I would choose to live in.
You remove the last little bit people in shitty situations have to lose, normalize violence, punish people for dumb actions they aren't really thinking logically when they commit, and create a huge rift between those who administer the law and individuals and groups who cares about someone who might run afoul of the law.
On the other hand, places that focus more on reform than punishment, have better prisons, fewer executions... Plus or minus economic opportunity, tend to be human cultures I actually want to live in.
Like, the whole more punishment argument is just kinda refuted by every single piece of historical evidence I've ever come across.
@ginryu42, you are welcome to recreate this thread. I suggest you figure out what you want it to be before you do so. Do you want it to be about how to prevent cruel behavior like in the OP? Fine, state that. Do you want it to be about the viability of the death penalty? Fine, state that. Make sure it's narrow enough to foster actual discussion, and not something like "We need fewer laws. Discuss."
Also, please don't fill your posts with definitions of logical fallacies, and you also don't need to link every third word to a definition. You are not a Wikipedia article, and we are smart enough to Google the big words if we don't know what you're talking about.
Also-also, please don't talk to us as if we've never heard of libertarianism and will be shocked to hear about this exciting new philosophy. Please assume good faith on our part, and we'll assume good faith on yours.