4 ms·

A normal fine simply becomes "the cost of doing business". The point is to deter Google, not to simply add a cost to its activities. Related links: https://ra

by mfoy_ 8y ago

A normal fine simply becomes "the cost of doing business". The point is to deter Google, not to simply add a cost to its activities. Related links: https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine.pdf https://rady.ucsd.edu/faculty/directory/gneezy/pub/docs/fine... NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/15/books/chapters/freakonomi... NPR: https://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89233955/dan-ariely-takes-on-irrational-economic-impulses https://www.npr.org/2008/03/31/89233955/dan-ariely-takes-on-...

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
A fine is a price -- exactly. So why are you trying to deter them from doing something which they're willing to pay you more to let them do than it costs you to let them do it? Or if the fine would be lower for some other company with less money, then why are you willing to let that other company pay less to do it than it costs you to let them do it?
- UnFleshedOne 8y ago
  Fine is not supposed to be a price, taxes serve that purpose.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    A fine is supposed to be a price. If the only purpose was deterrence then why isn't every offense a capital one and every fine in the amount of "everything you've got"? Taxes are something else entirely. Income taxes aren't intended to put a price on working so that people won't do it unless it's worth the cost, they're intended to raise government revenue.
    - hellllllllooo 8y ago
      A fine is supposed to be a deterrent so it needs to be high enough to deter.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        It's supposed to be a price. Suppose there are fines for both texting while driving and blocking traffic. Now someone is driving in a place where they can't stop without blocking traffic, when they think of a piece of information that they need someone else to know as an urgent matter of life and death. If they don't send the information right away their kid is going to die. No fine is going to deter them from that. To account for the probability of getting caught, the deterrence-level penalty would have to be something like death for you and your whole family. I assume nobody is going suggest that the penalty for blocking traffic should be that the government will snuff out your bloodline. Because that's disproportionate, because the fine is supposed to be a price -- and in that case it's one worth paying, because the alternative is worse, so that's what we should want to happen. It's not a problem that we failed to deter someone from blocking traffic for a minute in order to save their child. "Fixing" things so that we actually deter them from that (and then their child dies) is not an improvement. And the same is true for less drastic events that are still worth more than the cost of blocking traffic for a minute. Which is why a fine is a price, proportional to the harm.
- mfoy_ 8y ago
  The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm. You're missing the forest for the trees.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm. Then he should have set the late fee to as much as the amount he wanted to go home earlier. Which would still be the same amount for every parent regardless of how much money they had, because which parent is late has nothing to do with how much he values not being able to go home on time.
    - fivefive55 8y ago
      So you set it to $1000. Now the parents are still late and also argue about the insane fine, so you get no money and end up staying later than you would have anyway arguing with the parents. How about instead of a fine you give the kids to CPS. You go home on time, the late parents never come back, or if they do they're never late again, and you win. I guess the point is that monetary punishments don't seem to work when companies can consider it as 'cost of doing business.' If we start taking away the company's hypothetical metaphorical children when they're late to pick them up then they have a reason to listen.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
        > So you set it to $1000. Now the parents are still late and also argue about the insane fine, so you get no money and end up staying later than you would have anyway arguing with the parents. Except that you do ultimately get the $1000, because you have a valid contract specifying that, and the premise is that some people are willing to pay it. Which is great -- you get paid $1000/hour to stay an extra hour. Well worth it. (And if not, specify the amount that makes it worth it.) > How about instead of a fine you give the kids to CPS. You go home on time, the late parents never come back, or if they do they're never late again, and you win. At which point you still receive no money but have to spend time arguing with them anyway when they show up at your house with an army of lawyers (or a machete) because you left their kids with CPS. And then you lose all your business because no one will trust their kids to someone who would leave them with CPS. > I guess the point is that monetary punishments don't seem to work when companies can consider it as 'cost of doing business.' If we start taking away the company's hypothetical metaphorical children when they're late to pick them up then they have a reason to listen. But we don't need them to listen as long as they're paying. Just take their money. It's worth more than their compliance, by definition, because the amount is explicitly chosen that way.

by mfoy_ 8y ago

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

A fine is a price -- exactly. So why are you trying to deter them from doing something which they're willing to pay you more to let them do than it costs you to let them do it? Or if the fine would be lower for some other company with less money, then why are you willing to let that other company pay less to do it than it costs you to let them do it?

UnFleshedOne 8y ago
Fine is not supposed to be a price, taxes serve that purpose.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  A fine is supposed to be a price. If the only purpose was deterrence then why isn't every offense a capital one and every fine in the amount of "everything you've got"? Taxes are something else entirely. Income taxes aren't intended to put a price on working so that people won't do it unless it's worth the cost, they're intended to raise government revenue.
  - hellllllllooo 8y ago
    A fine is supposed to be a deterrent so it needs to be high enough to deter.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      It's supposed to be a price. Suppose there are fines for both texting while driving and blocking traffic. Now someone is driving in a place where they can't stop without blocking traffic, when they think of a piece of information that they need someone else to know as an urgent matter of life and death. If they don't send the information right away their kid is going to die. No fine is going to deter them from that. To account for the probability of getting caught, the deterrence-level penalty would have to be something like death for you and your whole family. I assume nobody is going suggest that the penalty for blocking traffic should be that the government will snuff out your bloodline. Because that's disproportionate, because the fine is supposed to be a price -- and in that case it's one worth paying, because the alternative is worse, so that's what we should want to happen. It's not a problem that we failed to deter someone from blocking traffic for a minute in order to save their child. "Fixing" things so that we actually deter them from that (and then their child dies) is not an improvement. And the same is true for less drastic events that are still worth more than the cost of blocking traffic for a minute. Which is why a fine is a price, proportional to the harm.
mfoy_ 8y ago
The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm. You're missing the forest for the trees.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > The daycare owner didn't want $10, he wanted to go home at 4pm. Then he should have set the late fee to as much as the amount he wanted to go home earlier. Which would still be the same amount for every parent regardless of how much money they had, because which parent is late has nothing to do with how much he values not being able to go home on time.
  - fivefive55 8y ago
    So you set it to $1000. Now the parents are still late and also argue about the insane fine, so you get no money and end up staying later than you would have anyway arguing with the parents. How about instead of a fine you give the kids to CPS. You go home on time, the late parents never come back, or if they do they're never late again, and you win. I guess the point is that monetary punishments don't seem to work when companies can consider it as 'cost of doing business.' If we start taking away the company's hypothetical metaphorical children when they're late to pick them up then they have a reason to listen.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
      > So you set it to $1000. Now the parents are still late and also argue about the insane fine, so you get no money and end up staying later than you would have anyway arguing with the parents. Except that you do ultimately get the $1000, because you have a valid contract specifying that, and the premise is that some people are willing to pay it. Which is great -- you get paid $1000/hour to stay an extra hour. Well worth it. (And if not, specify the amount that makes it worth it.) > How about instead of a fine you give the kids to CPS. You go home on time, the late parents never come back, or if they do they're never late again, and you win. At which point you still receive no money but have to spend time arguing with them anyway when they show up at your house with an army of lawyers (or a machete) because you left their kids with CPS. And then you lose all your business because no one will trust their kids to someone who would leave them with CPS. > I guess the point is that monetary punishments don't seem to work when companies can consider it as 'cost of doing business.' If we start taking away the company's hypothetical metaphorical children when they're late to pick them up then they have a reason to listen. But we don't need them to listen as long as they're paying. Just take their money. It's worth more than their compliance, by definition, because the amount is explicitly chosen that way.