4 ms·

It's a pretty large punishment.

cess11 2y ago
Is this some kind of joke I'm not getting? Prison and fines are punishments, having to pay damages is not. When you can't afford to pay your debts, bankruptcy is not a punishment, it's a process to clear out the debts so both debtor and creditors can move on. Punishment regulates the relation between a person and the state and is a part of criminal law, paying damages is part of civil law.
- ada1981 2y ago
  I’d agree re bankruptcy but can you discern between your use of damages (which you say is not a punishment) and fines (which you say are a punishment?
  - cess11 2y ago
    One is payed to the state, the other to another person, as in one regulates the relation to the state, the other the relation to another person.
    - HPsquared 2y ago
      What's your view on statutory damages for copyright infringement? "Wilful infringement" has statutory damages up to $150k per work. This is similar. Like this it's a punishment imposed by the state, through the medium of inflated damages.
      - cess11 2y ago
        No, I do not consider damages in copyright infringement a punishment. Whether damages are measured correctly or not in some case or other is beside the point I was making.
    - ada1981 2y ago
      I’m confused what you define a punishment as then.
- kobalsky 2y ago
  what kind of punishment do you think he deserves?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- pineaux 2y ago
  This is correct. People should split intent and outcome. So for example: you going to prison is a punishment. Your wife leaving you because of it, is not part of the punishment, that is an outcome, but it is not an outcome that is intended. The same here. There are damaged to be payed to the victims of alex' Jones heinous lies that have provably made the lives of people that were already victims so much worse. The judges entitled them to restitution for the damages done and because Jones didn't turn up for court and had contempt for the court by ignoring direct orders they probably punished him by making the sum very high. However. Going bankrupt was not the aim of the punishment. It just asks a high sum. He might have been able to pay it, which would have been fine. However. Jones didnt stop being an unethical human (pretty objectively, as long as you don't believe his lies) and tried to slither out of his duty to pay.
  - lettergram 2y ago
    > Jones didn't turn up for court and had contempt for the court by ignoring direct orders they probably punished him by making the sum very high. Just fyi he did, the court kept claiming he had to produce documents / analytics he said he didn’t have. There’s no evidence the documents ever existed, but judge disagreed, so they issued a default judgement (ie no trial). https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1055864452/alex-jones-found-liable-for-defamation-in-sandy-hook-hoax-case https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1055864452/alex-jones-found-l... They then had a jury trial to determine damages were in the billions (lol) https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4996347/alex-jones-liquidate-bankruptcy-sandy-hook-families https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4996347/alex-jones-liqu... And lost in all this is what jones actually did… which in my judgement is not even liable and we wouldn’t even know because a trial was never held — https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/here-exactly-what-alex-jones-has-said-about-sandy-hook-massacre https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/here-exactly-what-al... Which, sure I think is nuts. But I don’t see anything in there besides his opinion and trying to support his bat shit crazy opinion. So what, he thinks it was a fake event. As far as I can tell from this (and perhaps I’m missing something), he didn’t do anything to anyone. If we start penalizing calling people a liar, we’re going to end up in a much worse place where all we have are liars
    - 2y ago
- cthalupa 2y ago
  The Sandy Hook families have literally been awarded punitive damages. Their point is literally punishment. That is why punitive damages exist in civil law. It's what the word punitive means.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Something can be punishing without being a punishment.
    - cthalupa 2y ago
      The intent is explicitly and specifically to punish someone and be a punishment. Compensatory damages are awarded in an attempt to compensate the plaintiff for the damage they received due to the actions of the defendant. Punitive damages are awarded to the plaintiff on top of the compensatory damages and their exact purpose is to punish the defendant for their actions. They are two different types of damages and the exact purpose of punitive damages is to be a punishment. It's their raison d'etre. They were created to provide further levers to punish people.
paulgb 2y ago
He recklessly caused a lot of pain to families that already suffered a horrific tragedy, and profited from the attention by being (almost literally) a snake-oil salesman. He deserves a large punishment.
- iwartz 2y ago
  [flagged]
- HPsquared 2y ago
  Yeah I'm not denying that, he clearly caused harm. But he's definitely being punished for it.
moomin 2y ago
You cause a lot of damage, you get a lot of punishment.
- logicchains 2y ago
  Actually generally for emotional damage you don't. In the US you're perfectly free to insult someone and hurt their feelings without being liable to pay them damages.
  - zztop44 2y ago
    That hugely depends on the circumstances.
    - sophacles 2y ago
      No it really doesn't. There are no legal consequences for insulting someone, unless you actually defame them. Nearly all defamation cases are dismissed by the court immediately for not rising to the very high level of facts required for defamation.
      - capybaraStorm 2y ago
        The interesting precedent here is if you lie about the dead (who until this fiction, had no protection from defamation), you have defamed any living person who says the opposite and factual information about them. But we all know the precedent set in this case was a lie. Otherwise anyone who said the kids were really killed would have standing, since Jones thought they were "crisis actors." We all know this was really used as a back door way to pay the parents for dishonoring the dead. Basically "meh we can't extract justice from the murderer, best we can do is get a lot of money from someone with mutual hate." Edit: s/precedent/historical precedent/ . I did not mean to imply as assumed below this precedent is legally binding.
        sophacles 2y ago
        Interesting analysis... one potential wrinkle: There is no precedent being set here. This is just the expected outcome within the framework set by past precedent... Nothing novel or new happened wrt the law or anything else. It's just a bog standard case of a trashy asshole riling up his idiotic followers for money, and taking it well beyond the long established line of acceptable.
evanb 2y ago
Not all consequences are punishments.

Is this some kind of joke I'm not getting? Prison and fines are punishments, having to pay damages is not. When you can't afford to pay your debts, bankruptcy is not a punishment, it's a process to clear out the debts so both debtor and creditors can move on. Punishment regulates the relation between a person and the state and is a part of criminal law, paying damages is part of civil law.

ada1981 2y ago
I’d agree re bankruptcy but can you discern between your use of damages (which you say is not a punishment) and fines (which you say are a punishment?
- cess11 2y ago
  One is payed to the state, the other to another person, as in one regulates the relation to the state, the other the relation to another person.
  - HPsquared 2y ago
    What's your view on statutory damages for copyright infringement? "Wilful infringement" has statutory damages up to $150k per work. This is similar. Like this it's a punishment imposed by the state, through the medium of inflated damages.
    - cess11 2y ago
      No, I do not consider damages in copyright infringement a punishment. Whether damages are measured correctly or not in some case or other is beside the point I was making.
  - ada1981 2y ago
    I’m confused what you define a punishment as then.
kobalsky 2y ago
what kind of punishment do you think he deserves?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
pineaux 2y ago
This is correct. People should split intent and outcome. So for example: you going to prison is a punishment. Your wife leaving you because of it, is not part of the punishment, that is an outcome, but it is not an outcome that is intended. The same here. There are damaged to be payed to the victims of alex' Jones heinous lies that have provably made the lives of people that were already victims so much worse. The judges entitled them to restitution for the damages done and because Jones didn't turn up for court and had contempt for the court by ignoring direct orders they probably punished him by making the sum very high. However. Going bankrupt was not the aim of the punishment. It just asks a high sum. He might have been able to pay it, which would have been fine. However. Jones didnt stop being an unethical human (pretty objectively, as long as you don't believe his lies) and tried to slither out of his duty to pay.
- lettergram 2y ago
  > Jones didn't turn up for court and had contempt for the court by ignoring direct orders they probably punished him by making the sum very high. Just fyi he did, the court kept claiming he had to produce documents / analytics he said he didn’t have. There’s no evidence the documents ever existed, but judge disagreed, so they issued a default judgement (ie no trial). https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1055864452/alex-jones-found-liable-for-defamation-in-sandy-hook-hoax-case https://www.npr.org/2021/11/15/1055864452/alex-jones-found-l... They then had a jury trial to determine damages were in the billions (lol) https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4996347/alex-jones-liquidate-bankruptcy-sandy-hook-families https://www.npr.org/2024/06/07/nx-s1-4996347/alex-jones-liqu... And lost in all this is what jones actually did… which in my judgement is not even liable and we wouldn’t even know because a trial was never held — https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/here-exactly-what-alex-jones-has-said-about-sandy-hook-massacre https://www.mediamatters.org/alex-jones/here-exactly-what-al... Which, sure I think is nuts. But I don’t see anything in there besides his opinion and trying to support his bat shit crazy opinion. So what, he thinks it was a fake event. As far as I can tell from this (and perhaps I’m missing something), he didn’t do anything to anyone. If we start penalizing calling people a liar, we’re going to end up in a much worse place where all we have are liars
  - 2y ago
cthalupa 2y ago
The Sandy Hook families have literally been awarded punitive damages. Their point is literally punishment. That is why punitive damages exist in civil law. It's what the word punitive means.
- cess11 2y ago
  Something can be punishing without being a punishment.
  - cthalupa 2y ago
    The intent is explicitly and specifically to punish someone and be a punishment. Compensatory damages are awarded in an attempt to compensate the plaintiff for the damage they received due to the actions of the defendant. Punitive damages are awarded to the plaintiff on top of the compensatory damages and their exact purpose is to punish the defendant for their actions. They are two different types of damages and the exact purpose of punitive damages is to be a punishment. It's their raison d'etre. They were created to provide further levers to punish people.

paulgb 2y ago

He recklessly caused a lot of pain to families that already suffered a horrific tragedy, and profited from the attention by being (almost literally) a snake-oil salesman. He deserves a large punishment.

iwartz 2y ago
[flagged]
HPsquared 2y ago
Yeah I'm not denying that, he clearly caused harm. But he's definitely being punished for it.

moomin 2y ago

You cause a lot of damage, you get a lot of punishment.

logicchains 2y ago
Actually generally for emotional damage you don't. In the US you're perfectly free to insult someone and hurt their feelings without being liable to pay them damages.
- zztop44 2y ago
  That hugely depends on the circumstances.
  - sophacles 2y ago
    No it really doesn't. There are no legal consequences for insulting someone, unless you actually defame them. Nearly all defamation cases are dismissed by the court immediately for not rising to the very high level of facts required for defamation.
    - capybaraStorm 2y ago
      The interesting precedent here is if you lie about the dead (who until this fiction, had no protection from defamation), you have defamed any living person who says the opposite and factual information about them. But we all know the precedent set in this case was a lie. Otherwise anyone who said the kids were really killed would have standing, since Jones thought they were "crisis actors." We all know this was really used as a back door way to pay the parents for dishonoring the dead. Basically "meh we can't extract justice from the murderer, best we can do is get a lot of money from someone with mutual hate." Edit: s/precedent/historical precedent/ . I did not mean to imply as assumed below this precedent is legally binding.
      - sophacles 2y ago
        Interesting analysis... one potential wrinkle: There is no precedent being set here. This is just the expected outcome within the framework set by past precedent... Nothing novel or new happened wrt the law or anything else. It's just a bog standard case of a trashy asshole riling up his idiotic followers for money, and taking it well beyond the long established line of acceptable.

evanb 2y ago

Not all consequences are punishments.