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On September 05 2024 20:42 Magic Powers wrote:
The common theme is that punishment just pushes people underground and to the fringes of society, it doesn't actually stop their activities. They do what they do, whether other people like it or not. Doesn't matter the punishment..
Why enforce any laws then? Are you advocating for complete anarchy or are there some things you just like punishing people over for fun?
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On September 05 2024 20:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:I think it's reasonably likely that more North Koreans would watch South Korean / western media if not for the harsh punishment. People aren't arguing that draconican punishments results in that activity ceasing to exist, merely that some percentage of people who would go for it will end up not going for it. If my wife were to get pregnant today, I'd probably want an abortion because I prefer not having more children. (For the sake of the argument, let's say my wife is on the same page as I am). But if the punishment for having an abortion was death and there was a roughly 1% chance we'd be found out if we tried to have one, I'd be like okay I guess we're having another baby. Abortion is a curious case because it's one of those situations where for some people, having a child is absolutely unthinkable and even a risky/dangerous/potentially harshly punished abortion is preferable. However for others, having a child is inconvenient, and then, safe and easily available abortions means you go for it while dangerous and potentially harshly punished abortions will tip the scale to 'nope'. Prohibition actually caused an initial sharp decline in alcohol consumption, followed by an increase - but still lower than pre-prohibition levels. ( First down to 30%, then up to 60-70%). So from the perspective of 'reducing consumption of alcohol', it worked. It's just that there were all sorts of other side effects making it overall an undesirable policy.
Yes indeed, the problem lies within the unintended consequences of punishment. Maybe the punishment technically "works", but it also causes new problems that then need solving, and those new problems need solving as well, and so forth. It just kicks the can down the road, and that can collects more garbage and it becomes a mess. Ultimately punishment creates a never-ending cycle of problems. The solution is therefore not to punish or to punish harder, it's to find solutions that don't require punishment to begin with.
This is why the argument that "punishment works" is flawed to begin with. It evidently doesn't work unless we look at it very short-sightedly.
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On September 05 2024 21:12 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 20:42 Magic Powers wrote:
The common theme is that punishment just pushes people underground and to the fringes of society, it doesn't actually stop their activities. They do what they do, whether other people like it or not. Doesn't matter the punishment.. Why enforce any laws then? Are you advocating for complete anarchy or are there some things you just like punishing people over for fun?
I'm just advocating for smart solutions that work in the long term and are as humane as possible.
I consider prison sentences a band-aid that becomes necessary in extreme cases. In and of itself it doesn't make people less likely to commit crimes, it just locks them up and for that time period they can't commit crimes in public life. This is the right choice in some instances (such as serial killers). The problem is when this band-aid becomes a catch-all and it's used to lock up people who require help, not bars. People who can live a normal life given they receive help should receive help. Law and culture should be adjusted so that locking people up becomes less and less necessary to begin with. It's not an easy road, but nobody said it's easy. It's hard, and that's exactly why we need to work on it.
Also, bars and help can and should be combined. It's not binary, we need to reframe the concept of punishment altogether. Locking people up should never come without rehabilitation. And that rehab should be humane and it should involve good psychology, not outdated methods.
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On September 05 2024 20:42 Magic Powers wrote:
I can give many examples that demonstrate the inefficacy of punishment.
North Korea: South Korean drama films.
America: Abortion rights, transgender rights, prohibition.
All of these cases (and many more) are examples of people being pushed underground and not stopping their activities. South Koreans smuggle their drama films into North Korea and the people there watch them in secret under their blankets at night. They do this despite ownership of these films being punishable by death.
Transgender people in America used to be a rarity. Were they actually though? Most likely they weren't. What happened was that they were just being pushed underground by oppressive culture and law. They weren't seen, but they weren't inactive. They were present the whole time doing their thing less overtly. Now we see transgender people "pop up everywhere". Why? Because they were always far more numerous than we realized. They were always active and they always did their usual transgender things. So what has made them so visible? Less oppressive culture and law. It's a very simple explanation.
Abortion (Roe v Wade) and prohibition (Al Capone) were the same thing. People get pushed underground, nothing else changes. Their activity remains.
The common theme is that punishment just pushes people underground and to the fringes of society, it doesn't actually stop their activities. They do what they do, whether other people like it or not. Doesn't matter the punishment.
What actually deters people from an activity is when the activity becomes literally impossible. For example North Korean escapees have kept succeeding over the years despite plenty of them getting shot. Clearly the deterrent wasn't enough. But a few years ago the methods to catch escapees were improved to the point that they literally can't pull off their stunt anymore, so they practically all get shot now. This is why almost no one can escape anymore. That doesn't mean they stop trying, they just all get shot. As we can see, making something literally impossible is the real "deterrent". Punishment is not, it doesn't work. It often even backfires because the incentive goes the other way (North Korean escapees may not want to escape in the first place if the country was worth living in).
Counterexample: I stick to the speed limit in the average speed control zone. I do this, because I know the chance of getting caught speeding is close to 100%, and I'd rather just stick to the speed limit than get the fine. If all there are, are the odd speed camera that'll flash me if I drive past that too fast, I will rely on my memory + crowdsourcing to tell me where those cameras are, and not really worry about my speed in between them.
That said, I will generally not speed too much, because I know most of the speed limits are there for good reasons, it's just the entirely arbitrary "on this stretch of the road you're only allowed 70 instead of 80" kinda things that I will flagrantly ignore if there is no real threat of punishment.
The same way blackjack's monkeys don't actually learn not to do that behaviour. They learn not to do that behaviour when the bald monkey in a labcoat is nearby with a spray bottle. Some monkeys will tend not to do that even when the labcoat monkey is not there, but some monkeys will just learn when they can get away with the behaviour and when not. Source: I have a dog who knows she's not allowed into the kitchen and goes into the kitchen anyway when we are not around to yell at her.
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I stopped obeying a lot of traffic rules since moving to the Bay Area. If I’m at a red light and there’s nobody around I just go. “No u-turn”? Pssh, not for me. Seems like they don’t really enforce the laws too strictly here so why should I bother.
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On September 05 2024 21:32 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 20:42 Magic Powers wrote:
I can give many examples that demonstrate the inefficacy of punishment.
North Korea: South Korean drama films.
America: Abortion rights, transgender rights, prohibition.
All of these cases (and many more) are examples of people being pushed underground and not stopping their activities. South Koreans smuggle their drama films into North Korea and the people there watch them in secret under their blankets at night. They do this despite ownership of these films being punishable by death.
Transgender people in America used to be a rarity. Were they actually though? Most likely they weren't. What happened was that they were just being pushed underground by oppressive culture and law. They weren't seen, but they weren't inactive. They were present the whole time doing their thing less overtly. Now we see transgender people "pop up everywhere". Why? Because they were always far more numerous than we realized. They were always active and they always did their usual transgender things. So what has made them so visible? Less oppressive culture and law. It's a very simple explanation.
Abortion (Roe v Wade) and prohibition (Al Capone) were the same thing. People get pushed underground, nothing else changes. Their activity remains.
The common theme is that punishment just pushes people underground and to the fringes of society, it doesn't actually stop their activities. They do what they do, whether other people like it or not. Doesn't matter the punishment.
What actually deters people from an activity is when the activity becomes literally impossible. For example North Korean escapees have kept succeeding over the years despite plenty of them getting shot. Clearly the deterrent wasn't enough. But a few years ago the methods to catch escapees were improved to the point that they literally can't pull off their stunt anymore, so they practically all get shot now. This is why almost no one can escape anymore. That doesn't mean they stop trying, they just all get shot. As we can see, making something literally impossible is the real "deterrent". Punishment is not, it doesn't work. It often even backfires because the incentive goes the other way (North Korean escapees may not want to escape in the first place if the country was worth living in). Counterexample: I stick to the speed limit in the average speed control zone. I do this, because I know the chance of getting caught speeding is close to 100%, and I'd rather just stick to the speed limit than get the fine. If all there are, are the odd speed camera that'll flash me if I drive past that too fast, I will rely on my memory + crowdsourcing to tell me where those cameras are, and not really worry about my speed in between them. That said, I will generally not speed too much, because I know most of the speed limits are there for good reasons, it's just the entirely arbitrary "on this stretch of the road you're only allowed 70 instead of 80" kinda things that I will flagrantly ignore if there is no real threat of punishment. The same way blackjack's monkeys don't actually learn not to do that behaviour. They learn not to do that behaviour when the bald monkey in a labcoat is nearby with a spray bottle. Some monkeys will tend not to do that even when the labcoat monkey is not there, but some monkeys will just learn when they can get away with the behaviour and when not. Source: I have a dog who knows she's not allowed into the kitchen and goes into the kitchen anyway when we are not around to yell at her.
Technically the fine does deter speeding, but in my view this oversimplifies the societal effort behind curbing speeding. The fine is merely the final barrier in a long list of methods used to teach people to drive safely. If all we ever did was just to give people fines when they're speeding and we stopped creating a culture of safe driving and educating people and so forth, I'd argue the amount of speeding would go up a lot. So this is another example where it's not a binary situation. We have a long list of things we do before a fine is handed out, and all those other things deserve the majority of the credit. That isn't to say that fines are pointless, but evidently they're not very good at stopping people from speeding since so many people are still getting tickets. Furthermore, the fines can (and are) also being used fraudulantly by the police to catch people who weren't speeding, or to trap them into speeding in very specific places and thus setting them up.
Punishment comes with a whole host of issues that need solving. I rarely hear pro-punishment people acknowledge and address these issues. They handwave them away and just argue for more punishment.
For example, why don't we increase the fine so even fewer people end up speeding? Would that help the situation? Would it make speeding less likely than it is right now? If punishment is so effective, why not push for more punishment?
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On September 05 2024 19:42 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 19:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Tbh I don't really see BJ arguing for harsher punishment across the board (maybe for certain crimes), what he is consistently arguing for is more enforcement. But he's also saying that harsher punishment will to some degree work as a deterrent - not that it's something he is in favor of.
Not even that. I didn't even make comments about enforcement or harshness. My argument, and I'll link to the post was literally just that punishment works. This is literally psychology 101 stuff. Put a monkey in a cage and spray it with water if it does a certain behavior and it will stop doing the behavior to avoid the negative stimuli. I made zero comments about whether we need harsher punishments, more punishments, what the right balance of punishments are, etc. It's pretty fucking cruel to put a monkey in a cage and spray it with cold water so you can test hypotheses. It still has no bearing on whether or not the monkey curtails behaviors to avoid the ice water. The fact that these opinions I'm offering are somehow controversial tells me maybe some people failed their Intro to Psychology class.
Lemme try this.
Put a monkey in a cage and give it a banana if it does a certain behavior and it will keep doing the behavior to get the banana. There you go, the solution to crime is bananas. Problem solved, let's move on to the next topic!
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On September 05 2024 21:54 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 19:42 BlackJack wrote:On September 05 2024 19:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Tbh I don't really see BJ arguing for harsher punishment across the board (maybe for certain crimes), what he is consistently arguing for is more enforcement. But he's also saying that harsher punishment will to some degree work as a deterrent - not that it's something he is in favor of.
Not even that. I didn't even make comments about enforcement or harshness. My argument, and I'll link to the post was literally just that punishment works. This is literally psychology 101 stuff. Put a monkey in a cage and spray it with water if it does a certain behavior and it will stop doing the behavior to avoid the negative stimuli. I made zero comments about whether we need harsher punishments, more punishments, what the right balance of punishments are, etc. It's pretty fucking cruel to put a monkey in a cage and spray it with cold water so you can test hypotheses. It still has no bearing on whether or not the monkey curtails behaviors to avoid the ice water. The fact that these opinions I'm offering are somehow controversial tells me maybe some people failed their Intro to Psychology class. Lemme try this. Put a monkey in a cage and give it a banana if it does a certain behavior and it will keep doing the behavior to get the banana. There you go, the solution to crime is bananas. Problem solved, let's move on to the next topic!
I’ll repeat part of my post that started this digression
There's a lot of research in behavioral conditioning, reward and punishment, carrots and sticks. I suspect declaring that sticks don't work and only carrots work has a lot more to do with not wanting to punish people because it's mean than concrete evidence that punishment doesn't work
Your point that monkeys will also change their behavior to respond to rewards is something I already said. The problem is people won’t acknowledge that a desire to avoid a negative stimuli with also change their behavior. It’s a fringe take that thumbs its nose at decades of established research in psychology because people want to appear virtuous.
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On September 05 2024 21:41 BlackJack wrote:
I stopped obeying a lot of traffic rules since moving to the Bay Area. If I’m at a red light and there’s nobody around I just go. “No u-turn”? Pssh, not for me. Seems like they don’t really enforce the laws too strictly here so why should I bother.
I did exactly that one late night. The problem was, the only car around was a police care with 2 bored cops on their night patrol. I am pretty sure they kept a nice distance just to see if they could catch me to entertian themselves.
Anyway, the fear of shame and punishment are very strong regulatory mechanisms. When there are no strong normes in place yet, like for MP3 downloads in the 90s, much more "crime" is committed. In reality, we are much more free to do whatever we want than we think, but sliding into Anarchy is bad for us all.
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Bit exited about Walz, he is a crazy good communicator and i wish our social democrats could field someone like that. He'll be around and I'm very much looking forward to the debate against the weirdo.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On September 05 2024 23:17 r00ty wrote:Bit exited about Walz, he is a crazy good communicator and i wish our social democrats could field someone like that. He'll be around and I'm very much looking forward to the debate against the weirdo. + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okjx3gkmd-E
Walz seems like a genuinely nice and wholesome guy, and I hope he performs well against Vance.
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United States41470 Posts
On September 05 2024 21:25 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 20:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:I think it's reasonably likely that more North Koreans would watch South Korean / western media if not for the harsh punishment. People aren't arguing that draconican punishments results in that activity ceasing to exist, merely that some percentage of people who would go for it will end up not going for it. If my wife were to get pregnant today, I'd probably want an abortion because I prefer not having more children. (For the sake of the argument, let's say my wife is on the same page as I am). But if the punishment for having an abortion was death and there was a roughly 1% chance we'd be found out if we tried to have one, I'd be like okay I guess we're having another baby. Abortion is a curious case because it's one of those situations where for some people, having a child is absolutely unthinkable and even a risky/dangerous/potentially harshly punished abortion is preferable. However for others, having a child is inconvenient, and then, safe and easily available abortions means you go for it while dangerous and potentially harshly punished abortions will tip the scale to 'nope'. Prohibition actually caused an initial sharp decline in alcohol consumption, followed by an increase - but still lower than pre-prohibition levels. ( First down to 30%, then up to 60-70%). So from the perspective of 'reducing consumption of alcohol', it worked. It's just that there were all sorts of other side effects making it overall an undesirable policy. Yes indeed, the problem lies within the unintended consequences of punishment. Maybe the punishment technically "works", but it also causes new problems that then need solving, and those new problems need solving as well, and so forth. It just kicks the can down the road, and that can collects more garbage and it becomes a mess. Ultimately punishment creates a never-ending cycle of problems. The solution is therefore not to punish or to punish harder, it's to find solutions that don't require punishment to begin with. This is why the argument that "punishment works" is flawed to begin with. It evidently doesn't work unless we look at it very short-sightedly.
Singapore presumably doesn’t exist in your narrative.
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On September 05 2024 21:54 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 19:42 BlackJack wrote:On September 05 2024 19:11 Liquid`Drone wrote:
Tbh I don't really see BJ arguing for harsher punishment across the board (maybe for certain crimes), what he is consistently arguing for is more enforcement. But he's also saying that harsher punishment will to some degree work as a deterrent - not that it's something he is in favor of.
Not even that. I didn't even make comments about enforcement or harshness. My argument, and I'll link to the post was literally just that punishment works. This is literally psychology 101 stuff. Put a monkey in a cage and spray it with water if it does a certain behavior and it will stop doing the behavior to avoid the negative stimuli. I made zero comments about whether we need harsher punishments, more punishments, what the right balance of punishments are, etc. It's pretty fucking cruel to put a monkey in a cage and spray it with cold water so you can test hypotheses. It still has no bearing on whether or not the monkey curtails behaviors to avoid the ice water. The fact that these opinions I'm offering are somehow controversial tells me maybe some people failed their Intro to Psychology class. Lemme try this. Put a monkey in a cage and give it a banana if it does a certain behavior and it will keep doing the behavior to get the banana. There you go, the solution to crime is bananas. Problem solved, let's move on to the next topic!
Oh god you're trying to summon GH, aren't you.
+ Show Spoiler +There's an angle for "Capitalism bad they're just giving you bananas to keep you in your cage" in here.
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On September 05 2024 17:53 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 17:14 Salazarz wrote:On September 05 2024 13:03 BlackJack wrote:On September 05 2024 08:46 Sermokala wrote:On September 04 2024 11:13 BlackJack wrote:On September 04 2024 09:16 KwarK wrote:On September 04 2024 08:40 Sermokala wrote:
Cruelty for the sake of Cruelty isn't the answer in any circumstance. If you look at the crime rate in America and then look at the amount of people we jail you wouldn't need some silly concept like empathy to question punishments effectiveness at curtailing crime.
If you're serious about considering scientific rigor you would look at examples of successful reductions in crime like camden and bogota and consider them. Sometimes giving a shit about people and looking at why they're exhibiting "anti-social behavior" is a good thing. Giving kids breakfast and lunch for free so they have some sort of nutrition and aren't hungry has shown success in combating behavior issues in school but that would be communism somehow. Eh, look at Singapore. There’s only so many times someone can be caned before they work out which rules aren’t worth breaking. If it’s not capricious and is part of a larger social rules based system then people can and do buy into it. The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty. Yes, this is exactly how a rational person forms an opinion. Does it work? Yes/no If it works, is it worth the cruelty? Yes/no Instead some people prefer to work backwards Is this cruel? Yes/no If it it's cruel then it's bad and it doesn't work. Notice how you end your post talking about cruelty whereas Serm starts his post talking about cruelty. That's a major tell to how each of you apply your reasoning, imo. It’s a major tell how you don't find the cruelty is an issue, your gotcha is the priority list people have when discussing cruelty in their post. You're so blinded by your love for cruelty that you missed the part where Kwark agrees with me that punishment doesn't work.You would be able to know this contradiction if you bother to read the posts you disagree with and the logical arguments I make. Instead you would rather just ignore the things that make your argument uncomfortable and just misconstrude what people say for the sake of internet points. My position is based in Christian morals and logical values like "does thing work" while you provide nothing for your argument other than "man these people giving a shit about other people are wrong because they give a shit about other people". Ah jeez you really got me that I have a problem with cruelty and I prioritize solving issues by taking into consideration why people do things and not just jump to hurting them and just hopecasting that it solves problems. You think Kwark agrees with you that punishment doesn’t work? He said “The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty.” Do I have to explain double negatives to you? He’s literally saying that it works but it’s not worth the cruelty. Setting aside the debate of whether it’s “cruel” to give someone a small fine for not obeying the transit rules, the point is irrelevant. The debate is whether punishments curtail the unwanted behavior. It’s like if I say “shooting someone between the eyes with a Glock for smoking in public will reduce people smoking in public” and you start ranting about how it’s cruel. Whether it’s cruel is irrelevant. I’ve already tried explaining this to you but there’s no evidence you’re capable of understanding. In fact the only thing I think you will take away from this post is “BJ wants to shoot people between the eyes for smoking in public. Look how evil he is.” Maybe try having a conversation without idiotic hyperboles for once. Like, 'if we shoot people with a glock for smoking that would definitely reduce the number of smokers, ergo punishment works as a deterrent!!!' is an idiotic thing to say in an argument about efficacy of justice systems and what makes an effective deterrent against crime in a society. My hyperbole has nothing to do with arguing about the efficacy of justice systems and deterrents. The hyperbole was to point out the absurdity of Serm's position. Him being an empathetic virtuous person and me being a cruel sadistic person is also a stupid point to make on the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent. But of course you're going to gloss right over that and blame me for the breakdown in conversation.
The possion you assigned to me is absurd because you constructed it out of fluff. I brought real examples of how cruelty is bad for the sake of cruelty and empathy is good because it allows you to understand the problem. You're not engaging in reality you're trying to construct sand castles that don't exist. Your position was that things are getting bad because they prioritize empathy and that we should be getting back to punishment as a focus. I pointed to an example where punishments weren't working for the sake of punishments and you ignored that because it is inconvenient to you to acknowledge reality. You think its a stupid point to make the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent because why? Do you want to go into the effectiveness of the severity of punishments vs the certainty of punishments for crimes? You're responsible for the breakdown in conversation because you refuse to play any sort of defense or elaborate on anything you say. Instead you resort to hyperbole and making inane statements chasing a gotcha argument against positions no one is taking.
You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy. Having empathy and understanding why people commit crimes doesn't mean that you stop enforcing crimes. It means that you stop the crimes from happening in the first place by understanding why those crimes were commited and preventing those circumstances.
A great example is MADD's crusade against drunk driving. Punishments went way up and enforcement went way up but people didn't get jailed en mass were people had their ability to live a life after drunk driving taken away. There was a massive campaign to educate the populace and change the public perception of drunk driving that worked. That required a group to have empathy for the people who drunk drove and understand why it was culturally acceptable to drive drunk.
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On September 06 2024 03:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 21:25 Magic Powers wrote:On September 05 2024 20:59 Liquid`Drone wrote:I think it's reasonably likely that more North Koreans would watch South Korean / western media if not for the harsh punishment. People aren't arguing that draconican punishments results in that activity ceasing to exist, merely that some percentage of people who would go for it will end up not going for it. If my wife were to get pregnant today, I'd probably want an abortion because I prefer not having more children. (For the sake of the argument, let's say my wife is on the same page as I am). But if the punishment for having an abortion was death and there was a roughly 1% chance we'd be found out if we tried to have one, I'd be like okay I guess we're having another baby. Abortion is a curious case because it's one of those situations where for some people, having a child is absolutely unthinkable and even a risky/dangerous/potentially harshly punished abortion is preferable. However for others, having a child is inconvenient, and then, safe and easily available abortions means you go for it while dangerous and potentially harshly punished abortions will tip the scale to 'nope'. Prohibition actually caused an initial sharp decline in alcohol consumption, followed by an increase - but still lower than pre-prohibition levels. ( First down to 30%, then up to 60-70%). So from the perspective of 'reducing consumption of alcohol', it worked. It's just that there were all sorts of other side effects making it overall an undesirable policy. Yes indeed, the problem lies within the unintended consequences of punishment. Maybe the punishment technically "works", but it also causes new problems that then need solving, and those new problems need solving as well, and so forth. It just kicks the can down the road, and that can collects more garbage and it becomes a mess. Ultimately punishment creates a never-ending cycle of problems. The solution is therefore not to punish or to punish harder, it's to find solutions that don't require punishment to begin with. This is why the argument that "punishment works" is flawed to begin with. It evidently doesn't work unless we look at it very short-sightedly. Singapore presumably doesn’t exist in your narrative.
Singapore presumably isn't ridden with societal problems and huge youth disillusionment in government in your narrative. It's also presumably notably more safe than other developed Asian cities.
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On September 06 2024 11:17 Sermokala wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2024 17:53 BlackJack wrote:On September 05 2024 17:14 Salazarz wrote:On September 05 2024 13:03 BlackJack wrote:On September 05 2024 08:46 Sermokala wrote:On September 04 2024 11:13 BlackJack wrote:On September 04 2024 09:16 KwarK wrote:On September 04 2024 08:40 Sermokala wrote:
Cruelty for the sake of Cruelty isn't the answer in any circumstance. If you look at the crime rate in America and then look at the amount of people we jail you wouldn't need some silly concept like empathy to question punishments effectiveness at curtailing crime.
If you're serious about considering scientific rigor you would look at examples of successful reductions in crime like camden and bogota and consider them. Sometimes giving a shit about people and looking at why they're exhibiting "anti-social behavior" is a good thing. Giving kids breakfast and lunch for free so they have some sort of nutrition and aren't hungry has shown success in combating behavior issues in school but that would be communism somehow. Eh, look at Singapore. There’s only so many times someone can be caned before they work out which rules aren’t worth breaking. If it’s not capricious and is part of a larger social rules based system then people can and do buy into it. The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty. Yes, this is exactly how a rational person forms an opinion. Does it work? Yes/no If it works, is it worth the cruelty? Yes/no Instead some people prefer to work backwards Is this cruel? Yes/no If it it's cruel then it's bad and it doesn't work. Notice how you end your post talking about cruelty whereas Serm starts his post talking about cruelty. That's a major tell to how each of you apply your reasoning, imo. It’s a major tell how you don't find the cruelty is an issue, your gotcha is the priority list people have when discussing cruelty in their post. You're so blinded by your love for cruelty that you missed the part where Kwark agrees with me that punishment doesn't work.You would be able to know this contradiction if you bother to read the posts you disagree with and the logical arguments I make. Instead you would rather just ignore the things that make your argument uncomfortable and just misconstrude what people say for the sake of internet points. My position is based in Christian morals and logical values like "does thing work" while you provide nothing for your argument other than "man these people giving a shit about other people are wrong because they give a shit about other people". Ah jeez you really got me that I have a problem with cruelty and I prioritize solving issues by taking into consideration why people do things and not just jump to hurting them and just hopecasting that it solves problems. You think Kwark agrees with you that punishment doesn’t work? He said “The problem isn’t that it doesn’t work. It’s that it’s not worth the cruelty.” Do I have to explain double negatives to you? He’s literally saying that it works but it’s not worth the cruelty. Setting aside the debate of whether it’s “cruel” to give someone a small fine for not obeying the transit rules, the point is irrelevant. The debate is whether punishments curtail the unwanted behavior. It’s like if I say “shooting someone between the eyes with a Glock for smoking in public will reduce people smoking in public” and you start ranting about how it’s cruel. Whether it’s cruel is irrelevant. I’ve already tried explaining this to you but there’s no evidence you’re capable of understanding. In fact the only thing I think you will take away from this post is “BJ wants to shoot people between the eyes for smoking in public. Look how evil he is.” Maybe try having a conversation without idiotic hyperboles for once. Like, 'if we shoot people with a glock for smoking that would definitely reduce the number of smokers, ergo punishment works as a deterrent!!!' is an idiotic thing to say in an argument about efficacy of justice systems and what makes an effective deterrent against crime in a society. My hyperbole has nothing to do with arguing about the efficacy of justice systems and deterrents. The hyperbole was to point out the absurdity of Serm's position. Him being an empathetic virtuous person and me being a cruel sadistic person is also a stupid point to make on the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent. But of course you're going to gloss right over that and blame me for the breakdown in conversation. The possion you assigned to me is absurd because you constructed it out of fluff. I brought real examples of how cruelty is bad for the sake of cruelty and empathy is good because it allows you to understand the problem. You're not engaging in reality you're trying to construct sand castles that don't exist. Your position was that things are getting bad because they prioritize empathy and that we should be getting back to punishment as a focus. I pointed to an example where punishments weren't working for the sake of punishments and you ignored that because it is inconvenient to you to acknowledge reality. You think its a stupid point to make the effectiveness of punishment as a deterrent because why? Do you want to go into the effectiveness of the severity of punishments vs the certainty of punishments for crimes? You're responsible for the breakdown in conversation because you refuse to play any sort of defense or elaborate on anything you say. Instead you resort to hyperbole and making inane statements chasing a gotcha argument against positions no one is taking. You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy. Having empathy and understanding why people commit crimes doesn't mean that you stop enforcing crimes. It means that you stop the crimes from happening in the first place by understanding why those crimes were commited and preventing those circumstances. A great example is MADD's crusade against drunk driving. Punishments went way up and enforcement went way up but people didn't get jailed en mass were people had their ability to live a life after drunk driving taken away. There was a massive campaign to educate the populace and change the public perception of drunk driving that worked. That required a group to have empathy for the people who drunk drove and understand why it was culturally acceptable to drive drunk.
Jesus... it's not a binary... It's carrots AND sticks. Reward AND punishment. Positive reinforcement AND negative reinforcement. It's incredibly dense to think you can only do one or the other. It's incredibly dense to think only one works and the other doesn't. It's incredibly dense to think any punishment is simply "cruelty for the sake of cruelty."
"You're the only one thats positing that the only other option to cruelty is anarchy."
I said if you believe that punishments don't curtail the unwanted behavior then there is zero reason to enforce any laws (aka punish people).
Tell me your reason why you would still give someone a speeding ticket if punishments don't curtail the unwanted behavior
a) Raise money for the city
b) Be a dick
c) curtail people from speeding
For your convenience I've removed the option you said doesn't work. Do you want to fine people just so the city can raise money off some poor sap living paycheck to paycheck? Or is it just to be a dick?
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People with bad impulse control and low IQ are vastly overrepresentated in crime. The reason given is usually that they are bad at judging the consequences of their action compared to the immediate reward. Something that implicitly means punishment has an effect. It just works more or less well depending on the individual.
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On September 06 2024 14:29 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
People with bad impulse control and low IQ are vastly overrepresentated in crime. The reason given is usually that they are bad at judging the consequences of their action compared to the immediate reward. Something that implicitly means punishment has an effect. It just works more or less well depending on the individual.
Low IQ and bad impulse control. Now you really are just describing my dog, aren't you? Add an extremely high cuteness quotient to persuade the judge, jury and executioner of her actual innocence after the fact 
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You're all asking the wrong question tbh.
The right question isn't whether punishment is effective, its whether it is as effective as alternatives like rehabilitation, education and skills training.
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EPT
