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Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

injusticetoday.com

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Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#61

Post by [deleted] »

tbrownaw wrote: post #42
cloakandswagger wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typical bails are so small already that I can't seem to get riled up over this particular "injustice". An assault and battery charge will generally get you a $10K bail. Assuming the typical bondsman charges 10%, that's a measly $1,000 to be walking the streets again after assaulting someone. I can already hear the stampede of justice troopers coming to tell me that $1,000 of emergency funds is too much to ask of your…

stampede of justice troopers coming to tell me that $1,000 of emergency funds is too much The first search result I got back says that median retirement savings are That $1k is only "small" for us rich folk.

[deleted]

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#62

Post by sincerely »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #55
sincerely wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh dear. the presumption of innocence is an international human right. justice-by-statistics is an extremely bad idea.

At the core of this is the old, philosophical question of, "Is it better to let one hundred criminals go free if it means not wrongfully convicting one innocent man?" Considering that we are talking about bail (meaning 1-2 weeks in jail, not a lifetime in prison) and we have justice systems that are right 80-90% of the time, I lean towards the more pragmatic statistical approach. The "internationally recognized human…

i do not think you understand the reality of someone living, for instance, paycheck-to-paycheck. "1-2 weeks in jail", which you seem to suggest is not that big of a deal, is a lost job and unpaid rent, to say nothing of other responsibilities (for instance, children or pets). does this seem like a reasonable consequence for being merely accused of a crime?

i brought up the human rights angle because your line of thought appears to run counter to article 11 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights...but it's interesting that you can dismiss that by calling it a "cliche".

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#63

Post by ritchiea »

pm90 wrote: post #38
ritchiea wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that policy needs to change but raising money via mining to actually free people can change those people's lives while we press for a legislative solution. It's an abstract problem for you but why merely sit around waiting for policy to change when people still suffer from bad policy? Added bonus: when there is energy around sidestepping bad policy that is another sign to legislators that the policy shou…

A better solution IMO would be to set up a trust/charity that provides bail money. Using technology to solve problems is great: I just don't think this is a particularly good solution. And Government agencies are very very conservative: if you pilot a program and it fails to deliver, they will essentially no longer listen to you.

It's hard to get people to donate their money directly. You might be able to get more people to passively donate CPU cycles and electricity than to directly donate money. And please don't argue there's no difference because people definitely are more likely to do something if you make it easy for them to do it.

I understand from an engineering perspective this has a cost but the idea is clearly to find a way to get more people to donate to a worthy cause.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#64

Post by ritchiea »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #13

This is a bad idea for a couple of reasons: > “If generating money out of thin air by using a computer program seems absurd, that’s because it is,” Grayson Earle, who dreamed up and co-leads the project, told In Justice Today Does this person actually understand how crypto mining works? (Classy of them to take a swipe at the very technology enabling their project, by the way.) Even with a GTX1080 TI, at $0.12/kWH you…

Bail is broken [0], that's the assumption they're starting with. They and many others have observed that bail lends the wealthy an opportunity to walk free with little cost, overfills jails, creates debt/costs for innocent people who are never convicted of crimes and has created a market for businesses to profit off of justice system inefficiency. Whether you agree or not is for another argument. They believe the bail system is not working and that it's a worthy cause to raise money for people that would be stuck behind bars because they can't afford bail.

And while there are clearly engineering costs to mining, this app provides users a passive way to donate to the bail reform cause. The theory is clearly that people who otherwise would not donate will download the app and donate CPU cycles. Getting people to open their wallets is harder than getting people to donate their CPU cycles. "Direct donation is more efficient" is only an effective argument against this if it is the case that every potential user of the app is equally likely to enter their banking information and donate a small sum monthly. I suspect many people who would not be willing to set up a small monthly donation would be willing to donate CPU cycles & electricity.

0. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/07/12/536905881/epis...

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#65

Post by cloakandswagger »

sincerely wrote: post #62
cloakandswagger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the core of this is the old, philosophical question of, "Is it better to let one hundred criminals go free if it means not wrongfully convicting one innocent man?" Considering that we are talking about bail (meaning 1-2 weeks in jail, not a lifetime in prison) and we have justice systems that are right 80-90% of the time, I lean towards the more pragmatic statistical approach. The "internationally recognized human…

i do not think you understand the reality of someone living, for instance, paycheck-to-paycheck. "1-2 weeks in jail", which you seem to suggest is not that big of a deal, is a lost job and unpaid rent, to say nothing of other responsibilities (for instance, children or pets). does this seem like a reasonable consequence for being merely accused of a crime? i brought up the human rights angle because your line of thou…

So what if my thoughts run counter to some UN document? It's interesting that you evoke it in such a religious manner, as if that alone should shut out any discussion.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#66

Post by dragonwriter »

smallnamespace wrote: post #49
0d311 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re: your first point I don't think it's an attempted solution to a problem of efficient wealth transfer, I think it's an attempt to solve the issue of marketing a charity. Any charity's argument is essentially 'give us your wealth so we can do something good with it for people who do not have wealth'. Being able to reduce the cost for donators to something as low as the cost of electricity and the simplicity of downl…

The problem is the extreme inefficiency of the trade-off. That electricity is probably being converted to Bitcoin at a much worse exchange rate than a large miner would get, so we are essentially wasting electricity in order to give the donor a better story than giving directly.

Charity donations are driven by lots of things that are inefficient but provide a better story. The inefficiency is, in effect, part of the cost of marketing a charity.

Charity fundraising is about maximizing net donations, not maximizing donation efficiency. There may be some causes where the potential donor pool is such that the latter is important to the former, but, irrational as it may be, it's generally not.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#67

Post by dragonwriter »

sincerely wrote: post #62
cloakandswagger wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the core of this is the old, philosophical question of, "Is it better to let one hundred criminals go free if it means not wrongfully convicting one innocent man?" Considering that we are talking about bail (meaning 1-2 weeks in jail, not a lifetime in prison) and we have justice systems that are right 80-90% of the time, I lean towards the more pragmatic statistical approach. The "internationally recognized human…

i do not think you understand the reality of someone living, for instance, paycheck-to-paycheck. "1-2 weeks in jail", which you seem to suggest is not that big of a deal, is a lost job and unpaid rent, to say nothing of other responsibilities (for instance, children or pets). does this seem like a reasonable consequence for being merely accused of a crime? i brought up the human rights angle because your line of thou…

That's the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” not “UN Declaration of Human Rights”.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#68

Post by dragonwriter »

pm90 wrote: post #38
ritchiea wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that policy needs to change but raising money via mining to actually free people can change those people's lives while we press for a legislative solution. It's an abstract problem for you but why merely sit around waiting for policy to change when people still suffer from bad policy? Added bonus: when there is energy around sidestepping bad policy that is another sign to legislators that the policy shou…

A better solution IMO would be to set up a trust/charity that provides bail money. Using technology to solve problems is great: I just don't think this is a particularly good solution. And Government agencies are very very conservative: if you pilot a program and it fails to deliver, they will essentially no longer listen to you.

> A better solution IMO would be to set up a trust/charity that provides bail money

Um, been done. Its called “The Bail Project”. [0]

This crypto-mining project is just a fundraising project (not the only one) for the Bail Project.

> I just don't think this is a particularly good solution.

It's not a solution to the bail problem, it's just an added funding channel for something that aims to be (part of) that solution.

[0] https://bailproject.org

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#69

Post by dragonwriter »

dmitrygr wrote: post #40

Classic silicon valley-like thinking. Try to "disrupt" a system without understanding what it is for and why it was designed the way it was. Bail is designed to prevent flight risk. It is set high enough that you'd have a hard time coming up with that much money without being forced to stay and appear. Having strangers pay your bail means you have no reason to stay. It makes bail jumping more likely. People having a…

> Bail is designed to prevent flight risk.

“Rationalized” rather than designed.

> It is set high enough that you'd have a hard time coming up with that much money without being forced to stay and appear.

In practice, it's not for the rich, and it's set high enough that the poor can't afford bonds much less the bail itself.

> Having strangers pay your bail means you have no reason to stay.

The project this provides an additional funding stream for already exists, and the vast majority of people whose bail is funded do not skip, so this is empirically not the case.

> People having a hard time making bail is working-as-intended.

It's clearly not working as intended by anyone who would fund the project this funds.

> If you dislike it, write to your senator.

Seeking change in the laws (which many people are, at local, state, and national levels) is not incompatible with seeking to take legal steps to mitigate harms of the current system in the meantime.

Re: Cryptocurrency Is the Next Frontier in the Quest to Abolish Cash Bail

#70

Post by s73ver_ »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #55
sincerely wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh dear. the presumption of innocence is an international human right. justice-by-statistics is an extremely bad idea.

At the core of this is the old, philosophical question of, "Is it better to let one hundred criminals go free if it means not wrongfully convicting one innocent man?" Considering that we are talking about bail (meaning 1-2 weeks in jail, not a lifetime in prison) and we have justice systems that are right 80-90% of the time, I lean towards the more pragmatic statistical approach. The "internationally recognized human…

So someone should have to spend 1-2 weeks in jail, thus losing their job, losing their ability to pay rent, so likely losing their house, despite the fact that it has not been proven that they've done anything?
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