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High potential punishment has never worked. If your city has exactly 0 'meter maids' what does the 100x fine do to deter you? Nothing. If your city is patroll

High potential punishment has never worked. If your city has exactly 0 'meter maids' what does the 100x fine do to deter you? Nothing. If your city is patrolling its meters with a frequency that guarantees you will be caught 100% of the time you will definitely not do it ever (if you knew or after being caught multiple times in a row) and the expenses for meter maid salaries would be exorbitant. No more money coming in. Theres probably a hard to attain sweet spot where having the patrols brings in enough money to offset enough of the salaries and which also gives you the feeling of 'always getting caught' thus not making it worth your while.

colechristensen 5y ago
shrug i’ve usually got caught unless parking for a very short time, i think with computerized meters they must have some automatic systems that flag cars just by driving past with an enforcement vehicle, only do that during busy times and you have pretty decent enforcement and parking meters doing what they were designed to do
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  So then tell me if you've got caught nearly 100% of the time, are the fines just a slap on the wrist or why do you keep doing it? (what I didn't say is that if all you get is 'you bad boy but please don't do it again' then 100% enforcement doesn't help either. That should be obvious)
  - colechristensen 5y ago
    Well the last parking ticket I got was a result of putting the wrong space number in the machine, I got them more frequently when I was younger and stupid or forgetful. (I had a bit of a problem with sleep and would park somewhere and take an unplanned nap and get a ticket). In the cheaper ticket city I would freely not pay the meter more or less breaking even on cost, and now in a more expensive city I do unless i’m only intending to park for a few minutes.
seg_lol 5y ago
> High potential punishment has never worked. And then you talk about meter maids. What do meter maids have to do with Google not breaking labor laws?
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  This is something called an analogy. In particular I chose a "car analogy", which is a common technique. Sometimes when a non car analogy is used people smirkingly ask for or make up a car analogy even. I could use a different one that would stir up much more controversial debate. What if stealing office supplies carried the death sentence? If you are guaranteed never to be caught how much of a deterrent would it be? If you get caught 100% of the time for that but all they do is to make you pay 10x what the supplies were worth? Basically what I was trying to show that it's all about a combination of percentage of getting caught and the sentence. Only upping the possible sentence does not act as the deterrent people commonly attribute to it.
- peterpaid 5y ago
  Probability of the potential turning into reality. A high potential punishment in the parking ticket analogy is very unlikely with few or no "meter maids". Their point is that high potential punishment alone isn't sufficient, but that it must be likely or inevitable as well.

colechristensen 5y ago

shrug i’ve usually got caught unless parking for a very short time, i think with computerized meters they must have some automatic systems that flag cars just by driving past with an enforcement vehicle, only do that during busy times and you have pretty decent enforcement and parking meters doing what they were designed to do

tharkun__ 5y ago
So then tell me if you've got caught nearly 100% of the time, are the fines just a slap on the wrist or why do you keep doing it? (what I didn't say is that if all you get is 'you bad boy but please don't do it again' then 100% enforcement doesn't help either. That should be obvious)
- colechristensen 5y ago
  Well the last parking ticket I got was a result of putting the wrong space number in the machine, I got them more frequently when I was younger and stupid or forgetful. (I had a bit of a problem with sleep and would park somewhere and take an unplanned nap and get a ticket). In the cheaper ticket city I would freely not pay the meter more or less breaking even on cost, and now in a more expensive city I do unless i’m only intending to park for a few minutes.

seg_lol 5y ago

> High potential punishment has never worked. And then you talk about meter maids. What do meter maids have to do with Google not breaking labor laws?

tharkun__ 5y ago
This is something called an analogy. In particular I chose a "car analogy", which is a common technique. Sometimes when a non car analogy is used people smirkingly ask for or make up a car analogy even. I could use a different one that would stir up much more controversial debate. What if stealing office supplies carried the death sentence? If you are guaranteed never to be caught how much of a deterrent would it be? If you get caught 100% of the time for that but all they do is to make you pay 10x what the supplies were worth? Basically what I was trying to show that it's all about a combination of percentage of getting caught and the sentence. Only upping the possible sentence does not act as the deterrent people commonly attribute to it.
peterpaid 5y ago
Probability of the potential turning into reality. A high potential punishment in the parking ticket analogy is very unlikely with few or no "meter maids". Their point is that high potential punishment alone isn't sufficient, but that it must be likely or inevitable as well.