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How can you be anything but fine with something you don't notice? In order to be upset about something, you would necessarily have to notice it first. Obviousl

by imgabe 11y ago

How can you be anything but fine with something you don't notice? In order to be upset about something, you would necessarily have to notice it first. Obviously in your example the thief runs the risk that their victim will notice at which point the thief will be subject to all the attendant penalties. I'm not saying there shouldn't be penalties. The penalties have to be severe enough that they are not worth the risk of being noticed. If they aren't, some people are rationally going to decide to take the risk.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
So are you ok with e.g. stealing from the rich as long as they don't notice? I'll grant you that the harm is limited (kind of "lazy evaluation" of harm - there's none until the victim finally notices, and someone will somewhen, way before the heat death of the universe). But you have to look at the perverse incentives such attitude creates. If it's ok to break contracts as long as the victim doesn't notice, it pushes one side to be very shady, and the other to be hypervigilant. Also, people make mistakes and most of the time the victim notices quite soon. That's why we invented values of "honesty" and "integrity", which include not breaking deals even if the other party doesn't notice. Upholding them reduces the amount of resources we need to spend on protecting ourselves from one another.
- imgabe 11y ago
  > people make mistakes and most of the time the victim notices quite soon. This is exactly why it's a poor gamble to make in most circumstances. I'm not offering prescriptive advice. I'm not advocating that someone should steal or break contracts. I'm merely describing reality. If the reward outweighs the risk for someone, they'll come along and do it. That's a simple fact. Pretending it doesn't exist and we should all just be nice is only going to cause people to lose money. Either decrease the reward or increase the risk until that isn't the case. People put locks on their doors and keep their money in banks instead of in a big pile on their front lawn. Why? Don't criminals know it's wrong to take things that don't belong to them, even it it's sitting right there in plain sight for the taking? Why don't we just depend on the values of honesty and integrity? Wouldn't that be so easy and great? Locks are pretty easily defeated, but they provide enough of a hassle and increase the probability of detection enough that it's not worthwhile for most people to bother. If all your valuables are sitting on the lawn, some people who would never kick down your door might run up and grab them. Why? Are they "assholes" and "douchebags"? Maybe. But the incentives and penalties also shifted so there's less risk, increasing the probability that someone will find it worthwhile to take the chance. Someone who would never rob a bank might steal a sandwich if they were starving. Did they suddenly give up on the implicit social contract? No, the possibility of dying of starvation just became a larger risk to them than whatever penalty might exist for sandwich thievery. In practice, I think the AirBnB subletters are just exploiting a temporary knowledge gap between the landlords and the AirBnB guests. With enough articles like this one, landlords will wise up and close the gap, either listing their properties on AirBnB themselves, or checking occasionally that their properties aren't listed there and shutting down the lease if they are. The subletters obviously have no leg to stand on, legally. Once they have a few evictions for breach of contract on their record, they won't be able to get a lease anywhere anymore. More's the pity for them, but that's the risk they took. >and someone will somewhen, way before the heat death of the universe Probably. But then again, by definition we have no knowledge of crimes that nobody notices. There could be an untold number of crimes that have gone unnoticed.

by imgabe 11y ago

TeMPOraL 11y ago

So are you ok with e.g. stealing from the rich as long as they don't notice? I'll grant you that the harm is limited (kind of "lazy evaluation" of harm - there's none until the victim finally notices, and someone will somewhen, way before the heat death of the universe). But you have to look at the perverse incentives such attitude creates. If it's ok to break contracts as long as the victim doesn't notice, it pushes one side to be very shady, and the other to be hypervigilant. Also, people make mistakes and most of the time the victim notices quite soon. That's why we invented values of "honesty" and "integrity", which include not breaking deals even if the other party doesn't notice. Upholding them reduces the amount of resources we need to spend on protecting ourselves from one another.

imgabe 11y ago
> people make mistakes and most of the time the victim notices quite soon. This is exactly why it's a poor gamble to make in most circumstances. I'm not offering prescriptive advice. I'm not advocating that someone should steal or break contracts. I'm merely describing reality. If the reward outweighs the risk for someone, they'll come along and do it. That's a simple fact. Pretending it doesn't exist and we should all just be nice is only going to cause people to lose money. Either decrease the reward or increase the risk until that isn't the case. People put locks on their doors and keep their money in banks instead of in a big pile on their front lawn. Why? Don't criminals know it's wrong to take things that don't belong to them, even it it's sitting right there in plain sight for the taking? Why don't we just depend on the values of honesty and integrity? Wouldn't that be so easy and great? Locks are pretty easily defeated, but they provide enough of a hassle and increase the probability of detection enough that it's not worthwhile for most people to bother. If all your valuables are sitting on the lawn, some people who would never kick down your door might run up and grab them. Why? Are they "assholes" and "douchebags"? Maybe. But the incentives and penalties also shifted so there's less risk, increasing the probability that someone will find it worthwhile to take the chance. Someone who would never rob a bank might steal a sandwich if they were starving. Did they suddenly give up on the implicit social contract? No, the possibility of dying of starvation just became a larger risk to them than whatever penalty might exist for sandwich thievery. In practice, I think the AirBnB subletters are just exploiting a temporary knowledge gap between the landlords and the AirBnB guests. With enough articles like this one, landlords will wise up and close the gap, either listing their properties on AirBnB themselves, or checking occasionally that their properties aren't listed there and shutting down the lease if they are. The subletters obviously have no leg to stand on, legally. Once they have a few evictions for breach of contract on their record, they won't be able to get a lease anywhere anymore. More's the pity for them, but that's the risk they took. >and someone will somewhen, way before the heat death of the universe Probably. But then again, by definition we have no knowledge of crimes that nobody notices. There could be an untold number of crimes that have gone unnoticed.