4 ms·

>I think the bottom line is that "high IQ" people will tend to have more capability to break white collar crimes, and will do so with better cover (lawyers, spe

>I think the bottom line is that "high IQ" people will tend to have more capability to break white collar crimes, and will do so with better cover (lawyers, special accounting etc...). I want to challenge this a bit. With common crimes, its obvious you're committing a crime. Breaking into someone's home, mugging, etc are clearly victimization. Now compare that to a technical crime that may or may not be a crime depending on which judge you get or how a jury decides to interpret a regulatory bill that's hundreds of pages long and can only be understood by a team of experts who most likely don't agree with each other. Or the creation of a new kind of investment vehicle no one has seen before. Or starting a new industry that no one understands. It becomes very difficult to equate these with street criminals who go into something knowingly they're breaking the law and acting unethically compared to a technical violation of something incredibly complex. More often than not, these kinds of things only become illegal well after their creation. So we're talking more about doing novel things and the lag between doing and regulation. That's not really crime. For example for a tech industry perspective, how many patent laws has even your most hobbyist of coders violated? The Linux kernel was analyzed a few years back and found to be potentially infringing on over 200 patents, for example. So anytime we monetize linux we're potentially 'white collar criminals.'

barrkel 10y ago
The further up the value chain you are, not only can you eat a bigger parasitic load, but you're also insulated from "real" victims; because the value chain is built out of imaginary social constructions like companies, contracts, debt etc., you can dissemble by pointing out its non-substance and debatable social construction, like you demonstrate. The extra leverage (and thus reward) that comes from bending the design of social constructions and the ease in dissembling is exactly why I think it should be more harshly punished, rather than less.
- drzaiusapelord 10y ago
  The problem with your approach is that you unfairly target the wealthy simply for being wealthy and educated and make excuses for the poor and uneducated. Consider two scenarios. My finance firm creates a new security that in the long run hurts people. A criminal breaks into a home and rapes a woman. I get the death penalty and he a lighter sentence for... reasons. I think you're just engaging in classism here. If anything, violence should have more serious punishments as its never justifiable outside of self-defense and can be expected to continue unless the state steps in. Also, the finance people are the bad guys right now but when society sees what automation is truly doing to their jobs, they'll come after us. So all of us who are automators are now going to jail. Beware witchhunts, because there's nothing that keeps you from becoming a witch. Law, morals, and intent won't matter once we're designated, as a class, as 'white collar' criminals like you are doing to finance people currently. Instead we should lean on the rule of law and not make special exemptions or special witch-hunts for any group. Write good law and policy. Don't engage in classist rhetoric that makes no sense outside of feel good and frankly, hysterical, ranting about "jailing the bankers!"
  - barrkel 10y ago
    The rule of law, as a social construct, is harder to apply to people with more social influence. I don't think the wealthy are hard done by, sorry; and I don't think it's wrong to "make excuses for the poor and uneducated"; there are social structural reasons why injustice is perpetrated primarily against the poor and uneducated. It's easy to point at the rapist; it's much harder to point at the chap who got away with his bonus while the government propped up his bank. But how many people died because of redirected funds, reduction in spending on healthcare, or even something as mundane as road upkeep, increasing vehicle accidents? White collar criminals indirectly kill people. They are scum, parasites on our social constructs. It's not feel-good ranting, BTW. It makes me extremely angry that people try to push hot buttons like rape and murder that would anger animals, to distract from greater crimes perpetrated in more abstract ways. It's a cheap but effective trick; and I'm sick of it.

barrkel 10y ago

The further up the value chain you are, not only can you eat a bigger parasitic load, but you're also insulated from "real" victims; because the value chain is built out of imaginary social constructions like companies, contracts, debt etc., you can dissemble by pointing out its non-substance and debatable social construction, like you demonstrate. The extra leverage (and thus reward) that comes from bending the design of social constructions and the ease in dissembling is exactly why I think it should be more harshly punished, rather than less.

drzaiusapelord 10y ago
The problem with your approach is that you unfairly target the wealthy simply for being wealthy and educated and make excuses for the poor and uneducated. Consider two scenarios. My finance firm creates a new security that in the long run hurts people. A criminal breaks into a home and rapes a woman. I get the death penalty and he a lighter sentence for... reasons. I think you're just engaging in classism here. If anything, violence should have more serious punishments as its never justifiable outside of self-defense and can be expected to continue unless the state steps in. Also, the finance people are the bad guys right now but when society sees what automation is truly doing to their jobs, they'll come after us. So all of us who are automators are now going to jail. Beware witchhunts, because there's nothing that keeps you from becoming a witch. Law, morals, and intent won't matter once we're designated, as a class, as 'white collar' criminals like you are doing to finance people currently. Instead we should lean on the rule of law and not make special exemptions or special witch-hunts for any group. Write good law and policy. Don't engage in classist rhetoric that makes no sense outside of feel good and frankly, hysterical, ranting about "jailing the bankers!"
- barrkel 10y ago
  The rule of law, as a social construct, is harder to apply to people with more social influence. I don't think the wealthy are hard done by, sorry; and I don't think it's wrong to "make excuses for the poor and uneducated"; there are social structural reasons why injustice is perpetrated primarily against the poor and uneducated. It's easy to point at the rapist; it's much harder to point at the chap who got away with his bonus while the government propped up his bank. But how many people died because of redirected funds, reduction in spending on healthcare, or even something as mundane as road upkeep, increasing vehicle accidents? White collar criminals indirectly kill people. They are scum, parasites on our social constructs. It's not feel-good ranting, BTW. It makes me extremely angry that people try to push hot buttons like rape and murder that would anger animals, to distract from greater crimes perpetrated in more abstract ways. It's a cheap but effective trick; and I'm sick of it.