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I believe that, as a matter of public policy, there ought to be an important distinction between violent and non-violent crimes. The rationale behind prison, a

I believe that, as a matter of public policy, there ought to be an important distinction between violent and non-violent crimes. The rationale behind prison, as opposed to corporal punishment without incarceration, is to remove dangerous people from society, so that they don't further victimize the public. A violent murderer -- of really any type of murder, e.g. of a random stranger, of one's spouse, or a murderer-for-hire -- should be removed from society for society's benefit. The key point is that the needs of society must come first; punitive measures are a secondary concern. As theory goes, this is trivial. In SBF's case, his ability to further harm the public is absolutely minimal, provided his punishment includes severe restrictions on his ability to access computers and serve as the director or shareholder of any business. I'd sentence him to a few years in jail, as a punitive measure, and then a lifetime of community service and probation. Let him try and do some good, if he's sincere about those stories he tells re his motivations. You might argue that punitive measures serve a vital function as deterrence, but evidence doesn't seem to support that argument, and in any case it applies far more strongly to violent crime than to financial crimes. As, in the latter, crimes are often amorphous and poorly delineated, and selective enforcement is the rule rather than the exception.

jgeada 3y ago
We measure the worth of a life, for insurance and actuarial purposes, at about $10m (and frequently less). Stealing someone's savings is stealing their life, their time, and in some cases their ability to survive (as we have very few safety nets in the US) Please stop defending white collar crime as somehow more palatable, as somehow a better class of criminal. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/upshot/virus-price-human-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/upshot/virus-price-human-...
- __loam 3y ago
  Thank you for telling this moron exactly what I wanted to say. White collar crime is incredibly violent, it's just well hidden.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
  Spoken like a true homo economicus. To you the value of somebody else's life may be $10M. To society, it varies with time and place. Yet, to the person in question, the value could well be infinite -- it's probably infinite more often than not -- i.e. no amount of money will induce somebody to die. When you kill somebody, you rob that person of everything they have, everything they ever will have, and of the value they've placed on their own life. But we're speaking of society. Is SBF a physical danger to society? Clearly not. He's not going to rob and murder you if he catches you in the park after sundown. His reputation is destroyed, and from a harm mitigation perspective it should be enough to monitor his economic activity and make sure he isn't in a position to run any more frauds. If you seek punitive measures, that's all well and good, but it should be done in a way that's equitable and according to a theory of punishment that's applied uniformly. I don't believe that exists, and jailing a non-violent criminal for such a period of time, when extremely violent criminals serve less time and are then allowed to reintegrate into society (often with poor results,) seems both strange and wrong.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > no amount of money will induce somebody to die Not true; people have committed suicide due to financial losses that they believe have destroyed their life and made it not worth living. If any FTX customers ended up killing themselves over this (I saw a post somewhere upthread claiming that was true, though I haven't verified that), isn't that just as bad? Certainly the intent is different in the case of a murderer vs. someone who incidentally drives someone to suicide by stealing their life savings. But the end result is still the same. Regardless of that, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that a person would value their own life at infinite dollars. Certainly I don't want to die, but would I expect or want an unbounded amount of money to be spent in order to keep me alive? No, I don't think so; that feels selfish and would undoubtedly harm others. And people will do some funny things to help their family, including working a job where eventual death due to a job-related accident or illness is inevitable. While that's not the same as someone agreeing to be killed in exchange for money, it seems relevant. And hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there were quite a few (financially desperate) people in the world who would agree to be murdered in exchange for their family being financially taken care of for the rest of their lives. > non-violent criminal [...] violent criminals I really dislike this bucketing. It ignores quite a spectrum of crime: punching someone in the face at a bar is not the same as stabbing someone who survives is not the same as shooting someone who dies. And violent crimes-of-passion are not the same as cold, calculated, planned violence. I'm just not convinced that a violent crime is automatically worse than a non-violent one. And the terms themselves are somewhat arbitrary. I would consider it incredibly violent to deprive someone of their savings and livelihood.
nemomarx 3y ago
If you consider the murder closure rate in most cities, selective enforcement of violent crimes seems absolutely normal - the cops simply will not find everyone who kills someone and track them down. They're not very good at it. This undermines a lot of the certainty of punishment and therefore the deterring factor of law enforcement, of course.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Not sure what you're trying to assert here, though. You bring up selective enforcement, but then describe a lack of competence in solving murders. I suppose both things can be happening, but they are not the same thing.
jrochkind1 3y ago
Are you suggesting corporal punishment for SBF?

jgeada 3y ago

We measure the worth of a life, for insurance and actuarial purposes, at about $10m (and frequently less). Stealing someone's savings is stealing their life, their time, and in some cases their ability to survive (as we have very few safety nets in the US) Please stop defending white collar crime as somehow more palatable, as somehow a better class of criminal. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/upshot/virus-price-human-life.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/upshot/virus-price-human-...

__loam 3y ago
Thank you for telling this moron exactly what I wanted to say. White collar crime is incredibly violent, it's just well hidden.
A_D_E_P_T 3y ago
Spoken like a true homo economicus. To you the value of somebody else's life may be $10M. To society, it varies with time and place. Yet, to the person in question, the value could well be infinite -- it's probably infinite more often than not -- i.e. no amount of money will induce somebody to die. When you kill somebody, you rob that person of everything they have, everything they ever will have, and of the value they've placed on their own life. But we're speaking of society. Is SBF a physical danger to society? Clearly not. He's not going to rob and murder you if he catches you in the park after sundown. His reputation is destroyed, and from a harm mitigation perspective it should be enough to monitor his economic activity and make sure he isn't in a position to run any more frauds. If you seek punitive measures, that's all well and good, but it should be done in a way that's equitable and according to a theory of punishment that's applied uniformly. I don't believe that exists, and jailing a non-violent criminal for such a period of time, when extremely violent criminals serve less time and are then allowed to reintegrate into society (often with poor results,) seems both strange and wrong.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > no amount of money will induce somebody to die Not true; people have committed suicide due to financial losses that they believe have destroyed their life and made it not worth living. If any FTX customers ended up killing themselves over this (I saw a post somewhere upthread claiming that was true, though I haven't verified that), isn't that just as bad? Certainly the intent is different in the case of a murderer vs. someone who incidentally drives someone to suicide by stealing their life savings. But the end result is still the same. Regardless of that, I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that a person would value their own life at infinite dollars. Certainly I don't want to die, but would I expect or want an unbounded amount of money to be spent in order to keep me alive? No, I don't think so; that feels selfish and would undoubtedly harm others. And people will do some funny things to help their family, including working a job where eventual death due to a job-related accident or illness is inevitable. While that's not the same as someone agreeing to be killed in exchange for money, it seems relevant. And hell, I wouldn't be surprised if there were quite a few (financially desperate) people in the world who would agree to be murdered in exchange for their family being financially taken care of for the rest of their lives. > non-violent criminal [...] violent criminals I really dislike this bucketing. It ignores quite a spectrum of crime: punching someone in the face at a bar is not the same as stabbing someone who survives is not the same as shooting someone who dies. And violent crimes-of-passion are not the same as cold, calculated, planned violence. I'm just not convinced that a violent crime is automatically worse than a non-violent one. And the terms themselves are somewhat arbitrary. I would consider it incredibly violent to deprive someone of their savings and livelihood.

nemomarx 3y ago

If you consider the murder closure rate in most cities, selective enforcement of violent crimes seems absolutely normal - the cops simply will not find everyone who kills someone and track them down. They're not very good at it. This undermines a lot of the certainty of punishment and therefore the deterring factor of law enforcement, of course.

kelnos 3y ago
Not sure what you're trying to assert here, though. You bring up selective enforcement, but then describe a lack of competence in solving murders. I suppose both things can be happening, but they are not the same thing.

jrochkind1 3y ago

Are you suggesting corporal punishment for SBF?