3 ms·
It is not enough to be able to imagine a hypothetical very bad outcome. The expected negative impact (probability*badness) has to actually be large. I can ima
by jessriedel 5y ago
It is not enough to be able to imagine a hypothetical very bad outcome. The expected negative impact (probability*badness) has to actually be large.
I can imagine blocking an ambulance and a patient dying if I leave my car double-parked. I can imagine someone slipping and breaking their neck if I don't shovel my sidewalk as required by the city. I can imagine a car swerving to avoid me and hitting someone else if I jay walk. But we don't punish these crimes with jail time.
The total negative impact of this jamming crime is probably dominated by the degradation of normal service for normal people (which I expect is large!), not rare events.
- gambiting 5y agoThe law against jammers(and the harsh punishment) is absolutely dictated by the fact that it blocks emergency services first and foremost though. It's messing with critical infrastructure of our society. The fact that it blocks someone's netflix access is only secondary.
- jessriedel 5y ago1. All justifications I have read for these sorts of laws list both emergency services and daily services in the very first sentence of justification. 2. The current discussion is about what the law should be, not how it is; there are lots of stuff (e.g., laws combating terrorism) that are poorly justified using appeals to rare events.
- Goronmon 5y agoI can imagine someone slipping and breaking their neck if I don't shovel my sidewalk as required by the city. I think its more like purposefully icing your sidewalk or driveway to make it harder for salesmen/canvassers/etc to make it to your door.
- jessriedel 5y agoI agree that is even more analogous to the crime under discussion, but I think the point stands either way. We wouldn't put someone in jail for purposefully icing a sidewalk unless the risk was actually really large or someone actually got hurt.