301–310 of 416 posts
Yes, but even hidden, it's probably still going to appear quite significant, and I do believe that at some point, the fine size becomes nonsensical. But then again, I do not think that who you are or what you have should change the magnitude of the crime you commit. I don't think it is sensible that I should get greater fines because I chose to bust my ass and suffer from stress to gain more for my family, whereas I…
Don't want to be "unfairly" fined? Drive within the rules.
Add to that a justice system also mostly automated and you are quickly caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare you can't get out if something goes wrong. Imagine the justice system run like google support. Even if something is clearly wrong you can't clear it up if you are not a famous person with a big Twitter following.
"caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare"
I've been meaning to read kafka one day. Is there a title in specific you would recommend to start with?
> The police said they have upgraded their tech to avoid issues like this in the future. if (person_id == "Dong Mingzhu") { // TODO: generalise this return false }
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A classic short story along this line is: Computers Don't Argue by Gordon R. Dickson A man has a complaint with his book club, but a series of errors escalate things alarmingly. The Wikipedia article has the whole plot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue
Or have the actual story: https://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133
I miss used bookstores, most of the big ones in my city have closed down
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You're just using bad banks. I have a great private bank in San Francisco (First Republic), where I get personalized service via email, phone, or in person any time I need it. I can use any ATM in the world free of charge, and any time I want to do anything it's a quick email away. (Including opening new business accounts, complicated requests, ordering cash in $2 notes, whatever you could think of).
I'm familiar with First Republic. It's a nice bank. If you never leave the Bay Area, and the most complicated things you do can be accomplished at an ATM. My needs are more... complex.
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This is something that Melbourne, AU has recently grappled with - do you give public transport ticket fines to homeless people? You can give them as many fines as you want, but they're not going to pay them, and will just end up making it harder for them to get out of the cycle they're trapped in. I believe homeless no longer get fined for not having a ticket here. You can argue technicalities and loopholes all you w…
I take your point, but there is a big difference between being homeless and being without income. Retirees are the most obvious example, but there are plenty of 'normal' people who don't have an income that basically get to speed and park illegally for free under this sort of system. Unless of course, we put in a minimum fine for everything and charge extra based on income beyond that. But this does nothing to help t…
> ends up just being a punishment for having a good job.
No; it's a punishment for breaking the law, with (ideally) the punishment scaling to create a similar deterrent to everyone in the society.
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> What happens when a driver hits a pedestrian? Is there an investigation into whether the driver could've stopped in time? The driver would be more guilty as they should have been going with a suitable speed and pay attention to the road when driving inside the city.
Living in a major city myself, I can think of several intersections where one could be traveling the speed limit and paying attention but be completely unable to stop in time for a pedestrian crossing unexpectedly. There are numerous streets and corners that are really poorly lit because of scaffolding/debris/etc.
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It seems ridiculous to me to assume, as you seem to, that rich=hardworking and poor=lazy. Why not rich=lazy, poor=hardworking? That seems to make at least as much sense to me, to correspond to reality. No-one mentioned "changing the magnitude of the crime". The point is, if you get a $1000 fine, that could mean absolutely nothing to a millionaire/billionaire, but a lot to someone with $1000. Yet you talk as if fining…
This only holds for those that a born rich, or fell upon immense luck. For those below Dubai princes, the riches come from an entirely distorted work/life balance where you are never really off-duty, and immense responsibility. I intend to get there one day with hard work so my family can be well off. However, I do not see why it makes sense to punish me for it. Fining me twice as much because I work double the hours…
That is one way to frame the situation - there are many others, but in all your comments you act as if there is only one way to frame these things - yours, and all other ways are unfair, wrong, absurd etc. I'm not sure why.
Then there's your "Life should be unfair because life's unfair" argument:
"I think that punishment should only consider the crime. Anything else is discrimination. Those with less wealth can buy fewer apples, fewer burgers, and pay for fewer speeding tickets. Such is life."
But I guess in your framing of that, it's not unfair, because everyone who has twice the money has worked twice as hard. Maybe that is the situation when you compare yourself with some people you know - I guess that's where that comes from. But using that as if it applies to everyone in the world, leads to strange conclusions, or so it seems.
I guess everyone does the "applying situations in their life to the world" thing all the time, but you sound so far right-wing, I wonder if this it where that comes from - it's not uncommon in the media to hear wealthy people calling the poor lazy, or arguing there should be no welfare etc, sounding totally selfish and heartless. As if because they're ok, everyone else should be also. Maybe they just frame things like you do - "if they had worked harder they wouldn't be poor, if so it's because they're lazy." etc.
For one thing, some people become poor because of dealing with unexpected diseases, or bad accidents, or bad luck, or divorce, or..a multitude of things. Some people become wealthy for equally random reasons. Your model totally ignores all such things, as if "shit doesn't happen" in this world. And as if everyone starts out life with the same amount in the bank.
p.s. I appreciate you writing about your experience and beliefs on this page, thanks.
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> I intend to get there one day with hard work so my family can be well off. One day? You mean you aren’t rich yet? Sounds to me like you’re just a lazy bum making excuses. /s
Hah, well, the life-reducing stress I refer to in other comments were taken from my own experience. I'm working a full-time job, doing consultancy work on the side to help cover costs, and trying to build a company myself while doing all that. Apart from the time spent telling people that they are wrong on the internet (which is incredibly unproductive, as it is both stressful and generally a waste of time, but https…
Thx - I needed a laugh