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He seems fairly dislikable and he is probably on the wrong side of the law, but what possible benefit would prison be here?
by moocowduckquack 13y ago
He seems fairly dislikable and he is probably on the wrong side of the law, but what possible benefit would prison be here?
- dllthomas 13y agoIt might be of benefit to neighbors he is bothering, and by extension anyone else who will be forced to bear the brunt of externalities he similarly ignores in the future.
- moocowduckquack 13y agoIf it is externalities that you are worried about, the externalities from him being in prison are likely to be far higher than the externalities of him trying to rent out a few apartments. I don't agree with the guy, but I also suspect he may have a point about some of the regulations being over prescriptive. Also, I think that believing that this guy should be in prison for these actions is far more sociopathic than anything this article claims that this guy is doing.
- dllthomas 13y agoThe costs of punishment almost always exceed the cost of the individual action. The question is the cost of enforcement in total versus the prevented cost in total, including both the costs that would be caused by this guy and the costs that would be caused by others that are deterred by the credible threat of enforcement. Having said that, I am extremely sympathetic to the notion that NYC markets may be over-regulated, and have mixed feelings about the notion that evasion is an appropriate way to deal with that. I don't necessarily think this guy should be in prison; I was narrowly answering your question: "[W]hat possible benefit would prison be here?"
- chongli 13y agoThe question is the cost of enforcement in total versus the prevented cost in total, including both the costs that would be caused by this guy and the costs that would be caused by others that are deterred by the credible threat of enforcement. And therein lies the rub. Sociopaths are not deterred by any but the most credible of threats. They will always find new avenues of exploit down at the bottom. To make an extreme effort to try and wipe out all sociopaths, parasites, free riders (or whatever else you want to call them) would impose enormous, crippling costs on our society.
- dllthomas 13y agoYes. But at the same time there are clearly cases where the costs imposed do exceed the cost of enforcement. I don't pretend to know whether that is the case here; I weakly expect that it isn't. Again, my post was a response to a question: "[W]hat possible benefit would prison be here?" Deterrence and prevention of behaviours with harmful externalities is the possible benefit.
- chongli 13y agoIt's a complicated and difficult problem to solve. At the same time as we're finding and closing these loopholes, more of these people are infiltrating the highest levels of government and seeking to create more loopholes. Society ceases to function if enough people succeed at violating the social contract.
- dllthomas 13y agoRight. Most of the interesting questions are complicated, because most of the genuinely simple things we all just agree on the right answer quickly and stop talking about it...
- gaius 13y agoRemoves him from circulation. Maybe he can AirBnB the other bunk in his cell?
- moocowduckquack 13y agoWhy is is that some people have such a hard-on for other people's misery? It seems that every news story about a minor infraction is met with snivelling cretins vomiting sadistic fantasies of prison life for the subject of the story.
- lmm 13y agoI think you've answered your own question. It's just this kind of story makes it socially acceptable to express it (and in this particular case the subject's marked lack of empathy seems to excuse us taking the same view).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]