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>First of all, medieval style punishments is not an acceptable answer. Why? just because you put your foot down it's not acceptable? Think about it from anothe

>First of all, medieval style punishments is not an acceptable answer. Why? just because you put your foot down it's not acceptable? Think about it from another perspective. Think in terms of effectiveness rather than compassion. If compassion results in shit holes like SF, while strict punishment results in singapore. You can't argue with results. Like I get your argument. Everyone gets it. Solutions cannot however just be about compassion. You need to consider compassion and effectiveness in tandem. If pedophilia resulted in torture and the death penalty, I assure you, it will be reduced by a significant amount. You're much more likely to support this. In fact, I would argue that you have little compassion for the pedophile over the scammer. It's not as if human morality is clear cut and rational. It's irrational, and lack of compassion is applied more to the pedophile who himself can't help his condition. Additionally there are cases of pedophilia where the victim and the perpetrator eventually got married. So really just relying on compassion alone isn't going to cut it. You need to see effectiveness, and know when to apply medieval punishments. Because in all seriousness Singapore is a really great city; you can't deny that and you can't deny what it took for it to become that way.

tsimionescu 1y ago
No, effectiveness is not an excuse for immoral, disproportionate punishments. And morality is not nearly as irrational or difficult as you make it out to be. The victims of a scammer are not nearly as badly hurt as the victims of a pedophile. And since both crimes are perpetrated by knowing adults, there's no "they couldn't help it" compassion for the victims (note that it's not illegal to have pedophilic tendencies - it's illegal to hurt children by acting on those tendencies). So, the moral calculus is simple: same internal culpability for the perpetrator, but different levels of damage to the victims results in different levels of moral culpability. And even for such heinous crimes, the death penalty is not acceptable, nor is corporal punishment. There is still value in a human life beyond such crimes. In addition, there is always the problem of applying major punishments to people who are actually innocent - which is a far more common occurence than proponents of such punishments typically admit. How happy would you be to be killed because you got confused for a scammer? Not to mention, the deterrence effect is vastly overstated - there is little evidence of a significant difference in rates of major crime depending on the level of punishment, beyond some relatively basic level. Actual success rates of enforcement are a much more powerful predictor of crime rates. You can have the worse possible punishments, but if almost no one gets convicted, criminals will keep doing it hoping they won't personally get caught.
- ninetyninenine 1y ago
  >No, effectiveness is not an excuse for immoral, disproportionate punishments. And morality is not nearly as irrational or difficult as you make it out to be. The victims of a scammer are not nearly as badly hurt as the victims of a pedophile. Not true. You talk as if your views are universal fact. They are not. Effectiveness is THE only metric because what's the point if things are ineffective? Effectiveness is the driver while compassion is the cost. The more compassion the more ineffective things typically are. You need to balance the views but to balance the views you need to know the extremes. Why does Singapore work? Have you asked this question? Unlikely given your extreme view points. At best you can just disagree with Singapore. But you can never really say that your view points are universal. Singapore chooses the make the trade off of compassion for effectiveness. Secondly, I personally know scam victims who are worse off than pedophilia victims. Pedophilia can be a one time traumatizing act while a scam victim can lose a lifetime of work. >Not to mention, the deterrence effect is vastly overstated - there is little evidence of a significant difference in rates of major crime depending on the level of punishment, beyond some relatively basic level. Actual success rates of enforcement are a much more powerful predictor of crime rates. You can have the worse possible punishments, but if almost no one gets convicted, criminals will keep doing it hoping they won't personally get caught. Weed is rarely used in Singapore because of death penalty. It is highly effective. It is not overrated. There are many many example cases of it being highly effective. I believe about 15 people have been hanged.
  - npteljes 1y ago
    >what's the point if things are ineffective To be human, for one. Extreme example: all you need to do to end all scams (and other, human-caused ills in the world) to just kill all humans. No humans, no human-made horrors. Or, in case we'd like living humans, they could be kept in a way where they can't interact with one another. Boom, human on human solved. >Pedophilia can be a one time traumatizing act while a scam victim can lose a lifetime of work. This is very offensive, and makes zero sense, not in itself, not in the context of your argument. Please do reconsider.
    - 1y ago

tsimionescu 1y ago

No, effectiveness is not an excuse for immoral, disproportionate punishments. And morality is not nearly as irrational or difficult as you make it out to be. The victims of a scammer are not nearly as badly hurt as the victims of a pedophile. And since both crimes are perpetrated by knowing adults, there's no "they couldn't help it" compassion for the victims (note that it's not illegal to have pedophilic tendencies - it's illegal to hurt children by acting on those tendencies). So, the moral calculus is simple: same internal culpability for the perpetrator, but different levels of damage to the victims results in different levels of moral culpability. And even for such heinous crimes, the death penalty is not acceptable, nor is corporal punishment. There is still value in a human life beyond such crimes. In addition, there is always the problem of applying major punishments to people who are actually innocent - which is a far more common occurence than proponents of such punishments typically admit. How happy would you be to be killed because you got confused for a scammer? Not to mention, the deterrence effect is vastly overstated - there is little evidence of a significant difference in rates of major crime depending on the level of punishment, beyond some relatively basic level. Actual success rates of enforcement are a much more powerful predictor of crime rates. You can have the worse possible punishments, but if almost no one gets convicted, criminals will keep doing it hoping they won't personally get caught.

ninetyninenine 1y ago
>No, effectiveness is not an excuse for immoral, disproportionate punishments. And morality is not nearly as irrational or difficult as you make it out to be. The victims of a scammer are not nearly as badly hurt as the victims of a pedophile. Not true. You talk as if your views are universal fact. They are not. Effectiveness is THE only metric because what's the point if things are ineffective? Effectiveness is the driver while compassion is the cost. The more compassion the more ineffective things typically are. You need to balance the views but to balance the views you need to know the extremes. Why does Singapore work? Have you asked this question? Unlikely given your extreme view points. At best you can just disagree with Singapore. But you can never really say that your view points are universal. Singapore chooses the make the trade off of compassion for effectiveness. Secondly, I personally know scam victims who are worse off than pedophilia victims. Pedophilia can be a one time traumatizing act while a scam victim can lose a lifetime of work. >Not to mention, the deterrence effect is vastly overstated - there is little evidence of a significant difference in rates of major crime depending on the level of punishment, beyond some relatively basic level. Actual success rates of enforcement are a much more powerful predictor of crime rates. You can have the worse possible punishments, but if almost no one gets convicted, criminals will keep doing it hoping they won't personally get caught. Weed is rarely used in Singapore because of death penalty. It is highly effective. It is not overrated. There are many many example cases of it being highly effective. I believe about 15 people have been hanged.
- npteljes 1y ago
  >what's the point if things are ineffective To be human, for one. Extreme example: all you need to do to end all scams (and other, human-caused ills in the world) to just kill all humans. No humans, no human-made horrors. Or, in case we'd like living humans, they could be kept in a way where they can't interact with one another. Boom, human on human solved. >Pedophilia can be a one time traumatizing act while a scam victim can lose a lifetime of work. This is very offensive, and makes zero sense, not in itself, not in the context of your argument. Please do reconsider.
  - 1y ago