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This might be a very naive take, but perhaps you need to spell out what people are supposed to do, so they can do it? "Murder bad" is obvious, but there's a ton

This might be a very naive take, but perhaps you need to spell out what people are supposed to do, so they can do it? "Murder bad" is obvious, but there's a ton of much subtler regulations that might not be obvious or intuitive unless they're explicitly written down.

jaggederest 6y ago
And, more importantly perhaps, for most legal systems, interpretation of things not explicitly enumerated is pretty unclear. It's a little bit like "undefined behavior" in a C compiler, only half jokingly allowed to do anything up to and including rm-rf'ing the machine you're running it on.
watwut 6y ago
But if there is no penalty, you are just limiting rule followers while giving advantage to rule breakers.
- luckylion 6y ago
  It's strange that a comment like this is downvoted. I agree wholeheartedly. A law without enforcement is pressuring people not to follow it. I think generally everyone understands that (hence tax laws are enforced), but it's a more practical approach: you can never get 100% of the population to comply, and you don't need to. If you can achieve the minimum desired compliance without spending money on enforcement, you have what you need and saved money. It's naive, because it discounts the damage it does to lawfulness. When people see that law-breakers are not punished (and are defacto rewarded in most cases), they lose respect for the law, the state the is supposed to uphold the law, and the states' institutions. I believe we can witness that in many Western societies. Murder investigations don't make a lot of sense economically, in most cases. Unless it's a serial killer or a career criminal, the chances are slim to none that they will commit the same crime again, so why -in that line of thinking- should we spend money on finding out who did it and then imprison them for even more money, especially when, ostensibly, our prison system isn't for punishment? It wouldn't be a problem to let the few murderers in modern European societies go free, but it would create a giant problem by what it does to the population.
- prmph 6y ago
  That’s assuming everyone sees every law as a limitation or restriction. Some people see the benefit to all of obeying the rules; to them complying is a benefit in itself, and violators harm themselves

jaggederest 6y ago

And, more importantly perhaps, for most legal systems, interpretation of things not explicitly enumerated is pretty unclear. It's a little bit like "undefined behavior" in a C compiler, only half jokingly allowed to do anything up to and including rm-rf'ing the machine you're running it on.

watwut 6y ago

But if there is no penalty, you are just limiting rule followers while giving advantage to rule breakers.

luckylion 6y ago
It's strange that a comment like this is downvoted. I agree wholeheartedly. A law without enforcement is pressuring people not to follow it. I think generally everyone understands that (hence tax laws are enforced), but it's a more practical approach: you can never get 100% of the population to comply, and you don't need to. If you can achieve the minimum desired compliance without spending money on enforcement, you have what you need and saved money. It's naive, because it discounts the damage it does to lawfulness. When people see that law-breakers are not punished (and are defacto rewarded in most cases), they lose respect for the law, the state the is supposed to uphold the law, and the states' institutions. I believe we can witness that in many Western societies. Murder investigations don't make a lot of sense economically, in most cases. Unless it's a serial killer or a career criminal, the chances are slim to none that they will commit the same crime again, so why -in that line of thinking- should we spend money on finding out who did it and then imprison them for even more money, especially when, ostensibly, our prison system isn't for punishment? It wouldn't be a problem to let the few murderers in modern European societies go free, but it would create a giant problem by what it does to the population.
prmph 6y ago
That’s assuming everyone sees every law as a limitation or restriction. Some people see the benefit to all of obeying the rules; to them complying is a benefit in itself, and violators harm themselves