Animavore wrote:

That's not what retributive justice is. Retributive justice is about stringing them up high. Cutting their balls off. Making sure they suffer like those kids have. It's an eye for an eye etc.
If you don't believe any of that then it is you who doesn't really believe in retributive justice at all and not me who believes in a form of such.

Wow, you have a very wrong idea about what retributive justice is. The idea of retributive justice is giving wrongdoers what they deserve. Whether this involves cutting someone's balls off or simply sending them to jail for a half a day is an independent factor, something different from the conception of retributive justice itself. You confuse the particular instance of retribution with the principle of retributive justice itself.

It's not that the criminal deserves a lack of reward. It's that they haven't (yet) done anything to deserve one. Bit of a distinction there.

They haven't done anything to deserve a reward or a lack of reward?


Could you answer this:

"Now, if child rape and murder is of the highest transgression, or at least a transgression of some sort, wouldn't you say that that there is a way children deserve to be treated? i hope so. So, the question here is whether you think child rape and murder is a transgression."

I have yet to see a law which would use the word "deserve" in its text. And no, I do not wonder why.

Two hours? Wow. If you're going to kill someone, why not just blow their brains out? Sure, it's messy, but at least they're dead immediately.

Thorham wrote:Two hours? Wow. If you're going to kill someone, why not just blow their brains out? Sure, it's messy, but at least they're dead immediately.

There is this:

Ohio Replaces Lethal Injection With Humane New Head-Ripping-Off Machine

Seeking a more humane method of carrying out capital punishment, Ohio’s new machine yanks inmates heads from their bodies using painless, powerful robotic claws.

http://www.theonion.com/video/ohio-repl ... NA:InFocus

As I think I've mentioned before, to ensure a kill in Arizona in lest than two hours, you just have to leave them out in the sun.

What about Ayers Rock? Somewhere in Australia, last I heard... You can wear out your socks climbing up that thing!

Onyx8 wrote:

John Ayers wrote:

Onyx8 wrote:Deserve? This sounds suspiciously like magical thinking.

Wow.

Ok, by what metric is it decided what is 'deserved' by someone?

Did I miss where you answered this?

Ah, 'deserve'. Yeah...it's important people get what they deserve, not that there is less crime or anything.

Fallible wrote:Ah, 'deserve'. Yeah...it's important people get what they deserve, not that there is less crime or anything.

It's very important that vengeful people feel good.

Cito di Pense wrote:No, Mr. Ayers. Here you're showing that analogies are like swimming holes filled with drunkards who can't swim trying to rescue one another from drowning.

Yeah, well. Symbolism's a load of bollocks...

Animavore wrote:Yeah, I guess it's a case that rather than people getting what they deserve, they get what they seize.
Or in the case of criminals, have seized off them.

Really, and at the risk of being tautological, people get what they get. Sometimes, they can have influence on what they get, and sometimes they can't.

The cost of variables, and evolution in action.

Fallible wrote:Ah, 'deserve'. Yeah...it's important people get what they deserve, not that there is less crime or anything.

Well, maybe it is. That is, maybe, a substantial number of people believe this, and when they justify their actions on the idea that it will make there be less crime, they are lying.

That would be useful information, and it would help understand what people say more accurately than just assume that they are telling the truth.

We in the US have had a thing called the War on Drugs for decades now, and it has always been justified on the basis of how drugs cause so much awful bad stuff to happen. Whereas, many suspected that it was just a way to hurt people of certain skin colors and keep them away from economic and political power. But there was all this crap about drugs are bad, mmm'kay.

And then, Colorado made recreational cannabis illegal, and crime dropped, and they got a lot of taxes, which is what all the comedians were saying. Which is kind of amazing, because Colorado used to be very conservative.

I think it highly likely that all those people who said that the War on Drugs would make things better knew they were lying. Just like I think that George W. Bush knew he was lying when he selected WMDs for the justification of the invasion of Iraq. I also think he said so, as in the campaign up until 2000, he repeatedly talked about wanting to get back as Saddam Hussein for taking a shot at his dad. But people were so busy throwing around bullshit that hardly anybody remembered.

So if someone says that justice is for retribution, it's refreshing and honest, and I'd rather have them say that than couch it in layers of bullshit for a more socially acceptable answer, like reducing crime. Especially if they really don't care about reducing crime at all and really want it to go up, as I strongly suspect. It is a far more accurate and predictive model of US conservatism to start with the assumption that everything they do is about maintaining a moral hierarchy, with God, Baby Jesus, men, women, white people, black people, heterosexual, homosexuals, etc. all in their place than it is to take what they say on the Bill O'Reilly show at face value.

Even those who claim not to believe in God or Baby Jesus always seem to have something in there at the top. Invisible hand? Invisible penis? Not sure which, but I'd rather see it talked about than pretended not to exist for political reasons.

epepke wrote:John, you started off so well with this:

John Ayers wrote:Justice should be largely based upon retribution. That's what justice is.

That's great. OK, that's getting somewhere. This is what justice is to shit-slinging monkeys, and since we're shit-slinging monkeys, we like that sort of stuff.

But then we get the self-congratulatory aspect of it, too, which is where you get to talk about about the lying, the masturbation, and everything else you have to say about PeeZed, FTB, and Atheism >.

Lots of folks appear to discover 'atheism' and when they discover it's nothing but a lack of belief, they add something. Or they bring something with them, but the assumption is that atheism makes everything all right. Or formal logic, or something. Usually, their brand of formal logic looks like something they learned from some ancient theologian, and then polished in a classroom or two. There's a Coursera course on formal logic on my radar, now. Maybe after that, I'll be able to talk the talk, but I'll have to learn how to type the symbols. There's something I heard about... type theory... oh, wait...

Cito di Pense wrote:But then we get the self-congratulatory aspect of it, too, which is where you get to talk about about the lying, the masturbation, and everything else you have to say about PeeZed, FTB, and Atheism >.

Yeah. I like that. I don't make excuses for it, though. "Atheism >" is a good one.

epepke wrote:

Cito di Pense wrote:But then we get the self-congratulatory aspect of it, too, which is where you get to talk about about the lying, the masturbation, and everything else you have to say about PeeZed, FTB, and Atheism >.

Yeah. I like that. I don't make excuses for it, though. "Atheism >" is a good one.

The self-congratulatory are forever injecting the word 'explanation' when what they denote is 'excuse'. The Dunning-Kruger effect is frequently hard at work amongst the explainers.

About the > : The whole point of woo is that there be something more. Was it not you who wrote recently about taking people at face value?

epepke wrote:

Fallible wrote:Ah, 'deserve'. Yeah...it's important people get what they deserve, not that there is less crime or anything.

Well, maybe it is. That is, maybe, a substantial number of people believe this, and when they justify their actions on the idea that it will make there be less crime, they are lying.

I've no doubt that people think it's important that others (criminals) get what they deserve, since many of them are forever ranting on about it. To be honest I don't even see many people trying to justify that desire through arguments that it leads to less crime. It clearly doesn't anyway. It seems to be enough for them, and they generally have no problem admitting, that they think it's 'right', and just desserts for the harm done. Whether it has any beneficial effect on crime rates comes in a distant second (it would have to). What argument other than 'I think it's right that they pay' can explain why so many people still support the death penalty when it's evident it does nothing to reduce murder rates? Well, 'I just want the scum gone', I suppose, but this looks linked, as in 'the scum doesn't deserve to live'.

That would be useful information, and it would help understand what people say more accurately than just assume that they are telling the truth.

We in the US have had a thing called the War on Drugs for decades now, and it has always been justified on the basis of how drugs cause so much awful bad stuff to happen. Whereas, many suspected that it was just a way to hurt people of certain skin colors and keep them away from economic and political power. But there was all this crap about drugs are bad, mmm'kay.

And then, Colorado made recreational cannabis illegal, and crime dropped, and they got a lot of taxes, which is what all the comedians were saying. Which is kind of amazing, because Colorado used to be very conservative.

I think it highly likely that all those people who said that the War on Drugs would make things better knew they were lying. Just like I think that George W. Bush knew he was lying when he selected WMDs for the justification of the invasion of Iraq. I also think he said so, as in the campaign up until 2000, he repeatedly talked about wanting to get back as Saddam Hussein for taking a shot at his dad. But people were so busy throwing around bullshit that hardly anybody remembered.

So if someone says that justice is for retribution, it's refreshing and honest, and I'd rather have them say that than couch it in layers of bullshit for a more socially acceptable answer, like reducing crime. Especially if they really don't care about reducing crime at all and really want it to go up, as I strongly suspect.

To be honest I'm much less interested in whether people are saying things I'd rather hear and much more interested in looking at whatever it is they're saying and tackling that. It's not been my experience that people are reluctant to talk about retributive justice, quite the opposite in fact - they like to talk about it a lot (take Anders Brevik as an example. Here and elsewhere there was no dearth of people wanting to complain about how he didn't have it bad enough in prison). This being the case it has always in equal parts irritated and amused me to watch them trying to justify their views and the reasons that they hold them in the face of the fact that giving people what they deserve appears to reduce fuck-all except confidence in the justice system to reduce crime. I'm not sure that people in general want crime to go up - a lot of the yammering seems born of fear of baddies. Politicians, you mean? Yeah well...they're not strictly speaking 'people', are they.

It is a far more accurate and predictive model of US conservatism to start with the assumption that everything they do is about maintaining a moral hierarchy, with God, Baby Jesus, men, women, white people, black people, heterosexual, homosexuals, etc. all in their place than it is to take what they say on the Bill O'Reilly show at face value.

Even those who claim not to believe in God or Baby Jesus always seem to have something in there at the top. Invisible hand? Invisible penis? Not sure which, but I'd rather see it talked about than pretended not to exist for political reasons.

Is anyone trying to stop them talking about it? If so they're failing spectacularly.

'I just want the scum gone' is at least honest, and I personally can appreciate that. After all, its human. Not long ago Mick was banned from here on exactly same grounds and the efforts trying to justify his ban were pathetic. Such honesty cuts through bullshit and enables everyone to spend their time and energy elsewhere, and I personally appreciate that too.

Again, who has said that people shouldn't say such things?

Cito di Pense wrote:Maybe after that, I'll be able to talk the talk, but I'll have to learn how to type the symbols. There's something I heard about... type theory... oh, wait...

All you need to know about formal logic: "I think part of the appeal of mathematical logic is that the formulas look mysterious - you write backward Es!" -- Hilary Putnam.

If you're programming, you're doing most of it anyway. The crucial talent you need as a engineer is to be able to say this isn't an engineering problem.

Who said people should do something? All I wanted to say was that I can understand why people do what/feel how you described. That I prefer cutting through bullshit does not imply any should for anyone else. If someone wants to talk about historical Jesus on 1000 pages I will not be the one trying to stop it.

Christ on the Electric Chair. America is shitting itself.

Not a good place to be at this time in History.

--GA