> You never actually gave a reason for that assertion. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, all interventions carry some risk of bad unintended things happen

> You never actually gave a reason for that assertion. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, all interventions carry some risk of bad unintended things happening. You can get killed in car accident driving to court, but we don't eliminate court. > What is the difference between "disincentive" and "punishment" here? Traditionally, punishment is seen as having up to three components: deterrence, retribution, and/or incapacitation. https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/reasons-we-punish# https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/reasons-... I'm using "disincentive" here to emphasize that (1) only deterrence is sought, (2) the deterrent is created before the deterred action rather than implemented later, (3) the deterrent is "bound up" with the deterred action in a particularly tight way. There is more to say about (3), but it would take a while to unpack, and I think (1) and (2) are sufficient for this discussion. (I'm happy to use better or more standard terminology if it exists.) > would you be OK with replacing the physical barriers with, say, spikes that would tear up a car's tires and instantly cause an accident, should the car try to cross the line? Only insofar as the effectiveness went up so much that the total harm caused was less. The spikes sound scary and bring a grisly accident to mind, and intuitively we know that in the real world drivers would sometimes hit them by accident. So let me try an alternative hypothetical that may help illustrate my position better. Suppose we are trying to build a humane prison and we need to find a way to keep people inside. First note that, traditionally, a fence with razor wire on top is used as a disincentive even though we all agree it would be terrible to punish escapees by cutting their hands with a razor. And say there is some rate of prisoners escaping (1 per decade, or whatever) with the fence. Now, imagine we could replace the fence with an extremely deep pit around the prison that would be fatal to fall into. (For the sake of the thought experiment, we assume counterfactually that the pit is as cheap as a fence and introduced no other issues.) Suppose the pit has a railing around it so no one falls in accidentally, and also that it is much more effective at preventing escape because essentially no one bothers to try. Death by falling is even more unreasonable as a punishment for trying to escape, yet the situation seems better than the razor wire. The reason is that the pit is a very effective disincentive (a deterrent created prior rather than after the fact) and the total harm (number of escapees plus injury to attempted escapees) is much less.