7 ms·

>You assume people need external incentives to commit crime, which is completely wrong. People need external incentives to NOT commit crime, These are the same

by slg 4y ago

>You assume people need external incentives to commit crime, which is completely wrong. People need external incentives to NOT commit crime, These are the same thing. There is one decision, either commit crime or don't. There are positive and negative incentives on each side. >For example, stealing comes with the inherent reward of gaining whatever it is you stole. You don't need to be homeless and starving to want more money or physical goods. Sure, but if you are homeless and starting your motivation to steal go up because that money represents a greater marginal improvement to your life. Would you disagree with that? >But if I could just walk into a store, grab things and walk out with the knowledge that I was not going to be punished for it in any way, I absolutely would. Why wouldn't I? Because it's "wrong"? I'm sorry but the world doesn't work that way. If I didn't, someone else would. It is always funny to me when someone admits they have no morals and think that means no one else has morals. There have been studies that show most people don't operate this way. For example, a majority of people will try to return a lost wallet and that percentage goes up when the amount of cash in the wallet increases[1]. How do you explain that? [1] - https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734141432/what-dropping-17-000-wallets-around-the-globe-can-teach-us-about-honesty https://www.npr.org/2019/06/20/734141432/what-dropping-17-00...

bakugo 4y ago
>Sure, but if you are homeless and starting your motivation to steal go up because that money represents a greater marginal improvement to your life. Would you disagree with that? No. I never claimed that nobody has ever committed a crime due to being poor or homeless. All I'm saying is that the claim that solving homelessness and poverty would also solve crime is objectively wrong.
- slg 4y ago
  No one said this is a solution to "solve crime" just like throwing all criminals in jail doesn't "solve crime". There will always be murderers, rapists, and just generally evil and deranged people. The goal isn't for San Francisco to have zero crime. That is impossible. The goal is to reduce crime. Reducing homeless and poverty would lead to a reduction in crime. Do you agree with that?
hackerlight 4y ago
"How do you explain that?" That can also be a selfish act. The feeling of happiness and pride from being gratuitously thanked exceeds the feeling of happiness from getting extra cash. Social validation and feeling wanted is a powerful driver of happiness, because being popular in your tribe leads to reproductive success. Clear selfish motive there. So that doesn't map onto anonymously stealing from a store which many people, if not most people, would do if there were guaranteed to be no criminal or social consequences. Empirically the correlation between income and shoplifting wasn't that high, last I checked. And studies of people cheating show it is more common than not, last I checked. Almost everyone eats meat, despite the knowledge it's morally reprehensible, simply because it's still within the Overton Window for now. Eating meat is more morally reprehensible than shoplifting, the only reason people do the former and not the latter is social acceptability. By design, people are intrinsically selfish creatures. Any motivations that present as altruistic are either cultural mind viruses, disingenuous virtue signalling, or strategies (such as popularity and recognition seeking) we unconsciously selfishly employ to improve happiness (proximate reason) and genetic fitness (underlying reason).
- JetSpiegel 4y ago
  There's no societal difference between "people are intrinsically good" and "people are intrinsically selfish, but perform good acts for social credit". When the rubber meets the road, people are performing good acts. Even when using stunted amoral analysis of human behavior, who cares what's the reason people are justifying moral acts?

by slg 4y ago

bakugo 4y ago

>Sure, but if you are homeless and starting your motivation to steal go up because that money represents a greater marginal improvement to your life. Would you disagree with that? No. I never claimed that nobody has ever committed a crime due to being poor or homeless. All I'm saying is that the claim that solving homelessness and poverty would also solve crime is objectively wrong.

slg 4y ago
No one said this is a solution to "solve crime" just like throwing all criminals in jail doesn't "solve crime". There will always be murderers, rapists, and just generally evil and deranged people. The goal isn't for San Francisco to have zero crime. That is impossible. The goal is to reduce crime. Reducing homeless and poverty would lead to a reduction in crime. Do you agree with that?

hackerlight 4y ago

"How do you explain that?" That can also be a selfish act. The feeling of happiness and pride from being gratuitously thanked exceeds the feeling of happiness from getting extra cash. Social validation and feeling wanted is a powerful driver of happiness, because being popular in your tribe leads to reproductive success. Clear selfish motive there. So that doesn't map onto anonymously stealing from a store which many people, if not most people, would do if there were guaranteed to be no criminal or social consequences. Empirically the correlation between income and shoplifting wasn't that high, last I checked. And studies of people cheating show it is more common than not, last I checked. Almost everyone eats meat, despite the knowledge it's morally reprehensible, simply because it's still within the Overton Window for now. Eating meat is more morally reprehensible than shoplifting, the only reason people do the former and not the latter is social acceptability. By design, people are intrinsically selfish creatures. Any motivations that present as altruistic are either cultural mind viruses, disingenuous virtue signalling, or strategies (such as popularity and recognition seeking) we unconsciously selfishly employ to improve happiness (proximate reason) and genetic fitness (underlying reason).

JetSpiegel 4y ago
There's no societal difference between "people are intrinsically good" and "people are intrinsically selfish, but perform good acts for social credit". When the rubber meets the road, people are performing good acts. Even when using stunted amoral analysis of human behavior, who cares what's the reason people are justifying moral acts?