4 ms·

I like it simply because screwing the rich and middle as hard as the poors on trivial issues is gonna make it real clear real quick how excessive penalties for

I like it simply because screwing the rich and middle as hard as the poors on trivial issues is gonna make it real clear real quick how excessive penalties for common civil offenses are and pretty soon thereafter the laws will change. HN has this fantasy of $10k speeding tickets. In reality it's gonna look like 100mph speed limits, $100 fines for you and $10 fines for your nanny.

telesilla 6y ago
Don't excessive speeding tickets lead to a loss of license? This is the perfect response. Perhaps a more sophisticated society will one day know our fears and punish us accordingly (cue film script).
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >Don't excessive speeding tickets lead to a loss of license? Usually. >Perhaps a more sophisticated society will one day know our fears and punish us accordingly (cue film script). That was a plot line in 1984 and IMO flies in the face of equality under law.
- Spooky23 6y ago
  For a normal person, yes. If you have money to light on fire you can hire attorneys to delay, appeal, etc. Eventually, it will catch up.
elil17 6y ago
Other countries have $10k speeding tickets for the rich who ignore traffic rules. It’s not such a fantasy, it’s a real world way to reduce emissions and automobile deaths.
- monocasa 6y ago
  Even $100k tickets. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...
- gambiting 6y ago
  The problem is that above a certain level even that doesn't work. Like, answer me this - if you catch Jeff Bezos speeding, what possible fine can we impose on him to "hurt"? Compared to his wealth, we'd probably need to fine him like $1B for it to have any effect, right? And someone would still argue that it doesn't hurt him like a $500 ticket hurts a poor person. But then literally no court anywhere in the world would agree that a $1BN fine for speeding is "punishment fitting the crime". It's just not. Like, I like idea in general, but there will ways be people immune to it. Like others have said - the only real punishment is time. And not even necessarily prison - just make a CEO do 300 hours of community service, see how that works out.
bsanr2 6y ago
This is true of much of the justice system. Penalties aren't meant to curb certain specific behaviors, they're meant to be used as general control mechanisms for people who can't wiggle out of punshiment by one means or another. I think the advance of physical and digital surveillance is eventually going to force a reevaluation of what behavior we criminalize, because either otherwise-upstanding people start to get caught in the web (see: piracy for personal use in the 00s), or we see an increasing number of highly public instances of clearly malicious or neglectful actors sliding (which we're arguably already seeing wrt police brutality cases). We're inadvertently about to make the dystunction of our legal system everyone's problem, which is when you'll see change.
tralarpa 6y ago
> $100 fines Where I live, that's what you pay when you drive 10mph too fast.
geoduck14 6y ago
>gonna make it real clear real quick how excessive penalties for common civil offenses are and pretty soon thereafter the laws will change. I like you. This is good.

telesilla 6y ago

Don't excessive speeding tickets lead to a loss of license? This is the perfect response. Perhaps a more sophisticated society will one day know our fears and punish us accordingly (cue film script).

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
>Don't excessive speeding tickets lead to a loss of license? Usually. >Perhaps a more sophisticated society will one day know our fears and punish us accordingly (cue film script). That was a plot line in 1984 and IMO flies in the face of equality under law.
Spooky23 6y ago
For a normal person, yes. If you have money to light on fire you can hire attorneys to delay, appeal, etc. Eventually, it will catch up.

elil17 6y ago

Other countries have $10k speeding tickets for the rich who ignore traffic rules. It’s not such a fantasy, it’s a real world way to reduce emissions and automobile deaths.

monocasa 6y ago
Even $100k tickets. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland-home-of-the-103000-speeding-ticket/387484/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...
gambiting 6y ago
The problem is that above a certain level even that doesn't work. Like, answer me this - if you catch Jeff Bezos speeding, what possible fine can we impose on him to "hurt"? Compared to his wealth, we'd probably need to fine him like $1B for it to have any effect, right? And someone would still argue that it doesn't hurt him like a $500 ticket hurts a poor person. But then literally no court anywhere in the world would agree that a $1BN fine for speeding is "punishment fitting the crime". It's just not. Like, I like idea in general, but there will ways be people immune to it. Like others have said - the only real punishment is time. And not even necessarily prison - just make a CEO do 300 hours of community service, see how that works out.

bsanr2 6y ago

This is true of much of the justice system. Penalties aren't meant to curb certain specific behaviors, they're meant to be used as general control mechanisms for people who can't wiggle out of punshiment by one means or another. I think the advance of physical and digital surveillance is eventually going to force a reevaluation of what behavior we criminalize, because either otherwise-upstanding people start to get caught in the web (see: piracy for personal use in the 00s), or we see an increasing number of highly public instances of clearly malicious or neglectful actors sliding (which we're arguably already seeing wrt police brutality cases). We're inadvertently about to make the dystunction of our legal system everyone's problem, which is when you'll see change.

tralarpa 6y ago

> $100 fines Where I live, that's what you pay when you drive 10mph too fast.

geoduck14 6y ago

>gonna make it real clear real quick how excessive penalties for common civil offenses are and pretty soon thereafter the laws will change. I like you. This is good.