4 ms·
I wonder if the punishment for murder ought to decrease as world population increases.
by sbmassey 8y ago
I wonder if the punishment for murder ought to decrease as world population increases.
- danso 8y agoThe damages from murder aren’t calculated relative against population count.
- MiddleEndian 8y agoPerhaps it should instead increase as the average lifespan increases.
- wongarsu 8y agoWhich would imply that the punishment for killing a child should be more severe than the punishment for killing an old man. And that killing a cancer patient shouldn't be punished as harshly as killing a healthy person.
- magduf 8y agoThere is definitely a good argument there. A child has far more potential years of life left than an elderly person, so killing them seems worse. Perhaps that's one reason why we tend to think so badly of child murderers. Of course, in reality (at least the American judicial system), punishment is usually based more on other factors, such as motive. So premeditatedly killing an old man because you wanted to steal his stuff is punished more than killing a child purely by accident.
- MiddleEndian 8y agoFWIW, I don't really believe that the punishment should increase with increased lifespan, I was just giving a contradictory example based on different numbers.
- everdev 8y agoNo. For the victim it's still a 100% loss.
- Apocryphon 8y agoAnd the victim's loved ones.
- grkvlt 8y agoWhat if you murder someone that everybody hates, and who in turn hated everybody?
- magduf 8y agoThose are the murders that the police frequently don't expend a lot of effort in investigating. There's actually a lot of murders that never get solved.
- everdev 8y agoIt's hard to argue the world wouldn't be a better place, but I think it's hard to know where to draw the line. It's all fine until you're in the minority, then I can't imagine you'd want people killing someone you like and respect even if they're nearly universally despised. It's a slippery slope probably best avoided.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- nothrabannosir 8y agoNot the punishment, but to make the analogy more precise: society's "interest" in individual murders does decrease proportionally with its own size. In a village, a murder is the talk of town. In a city, we don't even know. So, yes; GPs point, while cold and calculating in the way only actuaries can sometimes be, was a fair point nonetheless.
- yongjik 8y agoWell, but (by the same metric) the punishment is already reduced. If you execute someone for murder today, you're only executing 1/7.7B of total population. (I agree, it's kinda silly metric.)