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This comment contains a policy suggestion. I want it to become law in the United States and elsewhere. I can't quite use the word "literally" but I almost can

This comment contains a policy suggestion. I want it to become law in the United States and elsewhere. I can't quite use the word "literally" but I almost can so I'll do so anyway: if you pay a ransom, you are literally paying for your party to attack someone else. And you are actually literally (not metaphorically) funding their next attack. Paying a ransom should be a criminal act that is twenty times worse than asking for one. It should be illegal for the exact same reason that possession of stolen goods is illegal. On a microeconomic level it might make sense for you personally to buy stolen goods off the street: the existence of the laws making you a criminal if you do no longer makes this true.

stdbrouw 10y ago
If you drive a car you are literally contributing to global warming. If you pay taxes you are literally funding bombs and missiles. If you download big files you are literally taking bandwidth away from your neighbors. Hyperbole does not a rational argument make.
- hueving 10y ago
  None of those are hyperbolic, they are just true facts. Understanding the macroeconomic demand you are participating in isn't hyperbolic. Buying elephant tusks promotes the killing of elephants, regardless of where they came from because the demand you created supports a price in favor of bad actors as well.
- logicallee 10y ago
  You are not drawing any policy conclusions from your statements. You state that "if you drive a car you are literally contributing to global warming" which implies the policy statement "if it is illegal to drive a car, contribution to global warming decreases" and use this to imply it's not a rational argument to make it illegal to drive cars. To your great surprise, I will now state that it is actually already illegal to drive cars, and it actually does have the exact effect that you say is not a rational conclusion: http://www.dmv.org/articles/what-to-do-if-your-car-fails-an-emissions-test/ http://www.dmv.org/articles/what-to-do-if-your-car-fails-an-... Today, today, it is literally illegal to drive a car....which doesn't meet EPA standards! As a direct effect, people do not buy and drive cars which fail emissions standards. So, yes, the exact policy suggestion that you don't go quite as far as to argue for actually is being enforced and actually demonstrably has the exact effect that you (only imply) doesn't happen. Since you don't even imply any policy conclusions for the other two points I can't address them, I have no idea why you would mention them. (If the government made it illegal to collect or pay taxes, obviously its tax base would evaporate overnight, this goes without saying, nobody would illegally pay money to the government out of civic duty despite its now being illegal to do so.)
bubo_bubo 10y ago
Knowingly buying stolen goods is illegal because they are still not yours even if you 'bought' them. Paying a ransom to get your own property back because it is yours is not even in the same ballpark.
- logicallee 10y ago
  we'll agree to disagree on whether it's in the same ballpark. I see the difference you point out, sure.
tgb 10y ago
Anyone down voting this should read Thomas Schilling's Strategy of Conflict. At one point in time in England it was punishable by death to pay ransom to pirates.
- 21 10y ago
  Yet the modern world decided to go back on that. The principle being that you are not (as) responsible for what you do under duress.
  - logicallee 10y ago
    This is a good and important point. However is data ransom this kind of duress? In a sense, paying a ransom is taking the law into your own hands -- rather than say to the FBI, "criminals have asked me for ransom" you are interacting with the criminals directly. On a literal level you are literally transferring cold hard cash to them. You make a good argument for why the policy suggestion I made is not a good idea, but I am not entirely convinced by it. As a rule it is not a good idea to engage in vigilante behavior. Lawmakers and judges would have to use their discretion here and come up with quite nuanced laws.
    - bubo_bubo 10y ago
      Yes, it's duress. I'm sure you having 10 years of your life locked up in an encrypted vault would put a cramp in your style. >transferring cold hard cash to them So? If I go to the 7-11 and buy a soda, and the cashier has been skimming the till, I am transferring cold hard cash to a thief. The difference you keep skipping over is mens rea and I suggest you read up on it before you sound more foolish than you already are.
      - logicallee 10y ago
        That last sentence was really uncalled-for. I think you don't really understand that I was discussing an economic argument. Regarding putting a cramp in your style - how about if a thief has stolen your phone with valuable something on it that isn't anywhere else, but you have an application that tells you where the phone is and you own a shotgun. Can you go and get your phone back by force if in your calculation it has a higher chance of actually solving your immediate problem, than involving the police? Why or why not? It's your phone. The thief knows what he did. The thief knows that it's yours. I am not saying that there is no argument on your side of letting people take care of issues directly with criminals (whether by force or transferring ransoms), but there are important arguments on the other side as well. It's certainly not so clear-cut that you can start ending with petty insults (and please check your reply to be substantive if you reply to this.)

stdbrouw 10y ago

If you drive a car you are literally contributing to global warming. If you pay taxes you are literally funding bombs and missiles. If you download big files you are literally taking bandwidth away from your neighbors. Hyperbole does not a rational argument make.

hueving 10y ago
None of those are hyperbolic, they are just true facts. Understanding the macroeconomic demand you are participating in isn't hyperbolic. Buying elephant tusks promotes the killing of elephants, regardless of where they came from because the demand you created supports a price in favor of bad actors as well.
logicallee 10y ago
You are not drawing any policy conclusions from your statements. You state that "if you drive a car you are literally contributing to global warming" which implies the policy statement "if it is illegal to drive a car, contribution to global warming decreases" and use this to imply it's not a rational argument to make it illegal to drive cars. To your great surprise, I will now state that it is actually already illegal to drive cars, and it actually does have the exact effect that you say is not a rational conclusion: http://www.dmv.org/articles/what-to-do-if-your-car-fails-an-emissions-test/ http://www.dmv.org/articles/what-to-do-if-your-car-fails-an-... Today, today, it is literally illegal to drive a car....which doesn't meet EPA standards! As a direct effect, people do not buy and drive cars which fail emissions standards. So, yes, the exact policy suggestion that you don't go quite as far as to argue for actually is being enforced and actually demonstrably has the exact effect that you (only imply) doesn't happen. Since you don't even imply any policy conclusions for the other two points I can't address them, I have no idea why you would mention them. (If the government made it illegal to collect or pay taxes, obviously its tax base would evaporate overnight, this goes without saying, nobody would illegally pay money to the government out of civic duty despite its now being illegal to do so.)

bubo_bubo 10y ago

Knowingly buying stolen goods is illegal because they are still not yours even if you 'bought' them. Paying a ransom to get your own property back because it is yours is not even in the same ballpark.

logicallee 10y ago
we'll agree to disagree on whether it's in the same ballpark. I see the difference you point out, sure.

tgb 10y ago

Anyone down voting this should read Thomas Schilling's Strategy of Conflict. At one point in time in England it was punishable by death to pay ransom to pirates.

21 10y ago
Yet the modern world decided to go back on that. The principle being that you are not (as) responsible for what you do under duress.
- logicallee 10y ago
  This is a good and important point. However is data ransom this kind of duress? In a sense, paying a ransom is taking the law into your own hands -- rather than say to the FBI, "criminals have asked me for ransom" you are interacting with the criminals directly. On a literal level you are literally transferring cold hard cash to them. You make a good argument for why the policy suggestion I made is not a good idea, but I am not entirely convinced by it. As a rule it is not a good idea to engage in vigilante behavior. Lawmakers and judges would have to use their discretion here and come up with quite nuanced laws.
  - bubo_bubo 10y ago
    Yes, it's duress. I'm sure you having 10 years of your life locked up in an encrypted vault would put a cramp in your style. >transferring cold hard cash to them So? If I go to the 7-11 and buy a soda, and the cashier has been skimming the till, I am transferring cold hard cash to a thief. The difference you keep skipping over is mens rea and I suggest you read up on it before you sound more foolish than you already are.
    - logicallee 10y ago
      That last sentence was really uncalled-for. I think you don't really understand that I was discussing an economic argument. Regarding putting a cramp in your style - how about if a thief has stolen your phone with valuable something on it that isn't anywhere else, but you have an application that tells you where the phone is and you own a shotgun. Can you go and get your phone back by force if in your calculation it has a higher chance of actually solving your immediate problem, than involving the police? Why or why not? It's your phone. The thief knows what he did. The thief knows that it's yours. I am not saying that there is no argument on your side of letting people take care of issues directly with criminals (whether by force or transferring ransoms), but there are important arguments on the other side as well. It's certainly not so clear-cut that you can start ending with petty insults (and please check your reply to be substantive if you reply to this.)