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The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

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Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#91

Post by towelr34dy »

tzs wrote: post #82
towelr34dy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "he was looking at maybe 6 or 7 years if things went as favorably as possible for prosecutors" Do you know this for a fact? Because the way I understand it is, he was facing multiple decades in prison IF all charges stuck. And once you got to trial, all charges can stick. It has happened. So he was facing 35 years. So saying he wasn't is just wrong. Your 6-7 years is 'probably'. I think what your saying…

Suppose I toss a brick through the window of a government office overnight when no one is inside, causing $101 worth of damage. I could be charged with felony destruction of government property, a crime with the statute says has a maximum sentence of 10 years and a $250k find. Am I facing 10 years in prison? No! That's because the way sentencing works under the Federal Sentencing Guidelines is that the sentence range…

Your 6-7 years is 'probably'. PEOPLE DO GET MAXIMUM. It happens. Therefore you saying it doesn't won't change anything. Your equating low probability with no probability. This is a false equation.

Have some intellectual honesty and admit you were wrong.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#92

Post by skybrian »

ilaksh wrote: post #59

For me there is a related issue that is just as problematic or worse. There are certain things that are critical of the US government that are simply not allowed to be spoken in most US centric places. The public effectively censors itself. I could mention some specific things but that would trigger it and then no one would see my comment. In general you can get away with mentioning things from the distant past but n…

Well, it's true that there are things you can't just assert without controversy. If you say anything you have to make an argument or link to some evidence, because they're not well-known.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#93

Post by readhn »

driverdan wrote: post #86
readhn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you cant put a price on time behind prison bars and away from your family. what if during that time his father died? was 100million "worth it"?

30 months in prison is about 11 years of full time work (40h a week, 50 weeks a year). Not only will he be extremely rich but his family and children will never have to work again in their lives. Totally worth it. If a family member dies while you're in prison you're usually allowed to attend their funeral unless you're an extreme risk.

its not about attending a funeral ... its about not being there with your loved ones. you cant buy that time back...for a million or a billion..time is the most precious asset we own.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#94

Post by ilaksh »

skybrian wrote: post #92
ilaksh wrote: post #59

For me there is a related issue that is just as problematic or worse. There are certain things that are critical of the US government that are simply not allowed to be spoken in most US centric places. The public effectively censors itself. I could mention some specific things but that would trigger it and then no one would see my comment. In general you can get away with mentioning things from the distant past but n…

Well, it's true that there are things you can't just assert without controversy. If you say anything you have to make an argument or link to some evidence, because they're not well-known.

What I'm talking about are certain views that regardless of what evidence or argument you make, people will hit the downvote button, call you crazy, or flag the post.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#95

Post by Aeolun »

whatshisface wrote: post #45
Aeolun wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can stop littering without being fucked over by it very easily.

If you stop littering you'll have to carry trash around for longer, which is a personal cost. Littering is a miniature analogy, with and smaller table stakes. The hedonistic difference between making a good salary selling out your countrymen and hiding from your government in Russia is pretty big, a lot bigger than carrying a chip bag around, but the moral difference scales in proportion. A common fallacy is thinking…

I don’t think that’s a fallacy so much as survival instinct. Doing the ‘right’ thing becomes disproportionally harder when the matter goes over $100.

Good is relative to average, and is a concept that society determines the baseline of.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#96

Post by Rebelgecko »

towelr34dy wrote: post #90
secabeen wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way to know it as a fact because the judge is legally allowed to apply any sentence up to that maximum. His link shows that most judges follow the guidelines, and vary rarely go over them. Intelligent decisions are ones that are made after understanding probabilities. Unfortunately Aaron decided to take the guaranteed outcome of suicide over the small chance that he'd serve multiple decades. I think we all…

So you are saying: Judges never convict people to the maximum sentence? I'm sorry, your point isn't very clear. It's a bit muddled. Or are you saying that his probably of being sentenced to the maximum was low? If so, how low? And when does it stop being 'intelligent' to consider a small probability with a horribly outcome? I mean, in your intelligent opinion.

I don't think they're saying never. If you look at the recommended guidelines[1], for a crime like Schwartz's the maximum could theoretically be many years, but the guidelines would suggest a sentence between 0 and a few years (he'd be in the first column assuming he didn't have any criminal history. Depending on what modifiers come into play his "offense level" could be as low as 6[2]. Maybe it would be more than that, but he certainly wouldn't hit level 40, which is what it would take to get a 30+ years sentence. Even though a judge can technically give a higher sentence than the guidelines, it's fairly rare— it happened less than 3% of the time in 2017.[3]

depending [1]: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/guidelines-manu... [2]: See §2B1.1 at https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2018-guidelines-manual/2018-... [3]: Table 8 at https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-pu...

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#97

Post by draw_down »

ilaksh wrote: post #59

For me there is a related issue that is just as problematic or worse. There are certain things that are critical of the US government that are simply not allowed to be spoken in most US centric places. The public effectively censors itself. I could mention some specific things but that would trigger it and then no one would see my comment. In general you can get away with mentioning things from the distant past but n…

#1 such issue is Israel/Palestine.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#98

Post by towelr34dy »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #96
towelr34dy wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you are saying: Judges never convict people to the maximum sentence? I'm sorry, your point isn't very clear. It's a bit muddled. Or are you saying that his probably of being sentenced to the maximum was low? If so, how low? And when does it stop being 'intelligent' to consider a small probability with a horribly outcome? I mean, in your intelligent opinion.

I don't think they're saying never . If you look at the recommended guidelines[1], for a crime like Schwartz's the maximum could theoretically be many years, but the guidelines would suggest a sentence between 0 and a few years (he'd be in the first column assuming he didn't have any criminal history. Depending on what modifiers come into play his "offense level" could be as low as 6[2]. Maybe it would be more than t…

Remember the original comment only said that people plea because of the big threat. It is a big threat. And given the fact that you probably wouldn't take a 1:33 chance on Russian roulette, it seem it is a big threat to you.

But not when it is on others. Then it's fine 'because low probability'. In fact, many of the apologists for what happened go as far as to conflate in a single post low probability with no probability.

The double think is amazing.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#99

Post by whatshisface »

Aeolun wrote: post #95
whatshisface wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you stop littering you'll have to carry trash around for longer, which is a personal cost. Littering is a miniature analogy, with and smaller table stakes. The hedonistic difference between making a good salary selling out your countrymen and hiding from your government in Russia is pretty big, a lot bigger than carrying a chip bag around, but the moral difference scales in proportion. A common fallacy is thinking…

I don’t think that’s a fallacy so much as survival instinct. Doing the ‘right’ thing becomes disproportionally harder when the matter goes over $100. Good is relative to average, and is a concept that society determines the baseline of.

The problem with recourse to the survival instinct is that survival actually turns around and becomes bad past a certain point. For example, consider the survival of a brutal regime: they might say "we have to be brutal or else the people would stop us." A lighter analogy would be a vampire that drinks blood to say alive: yes, he has to do it to stay alive, but the thing that's being kept alive is a vampire. More realistically, someone might say, "I am embezzling from my company because if I didn't I would default on my house." Of course, that is a silly objection, because the person they're keeping housed is an embezzler.

So, Snowden's choice was between giving a traitor the easy life and facing hardship and uncertainty as a good person. Granted, he had to suffer a lot, but the alternative to suffering was providing comforts to a criminal that happened to be him.

Re: The Personal Toll of Whistle-Blowing

#100

Post by tzs »

towelr34dy wrote: post #98
Rebelgecko wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they're saying never . If you look at the recommended guidelines[1], for a crime like Schwartz's the maximum could theoretically be many years, but the guidelines would suggest a sentence between 0 and a few years (he'd be in the first column assuming he didn't have any criminal history. Depending on what modifiers come into play his "offense level" could be as low as 6[2]. Maybe it would be more than t…

Remember the original comment only said that people plea because of the big threat. It is a big threat. And given the fact that you probably wouldn't take a 1:33 chance on Russian roulette, it seem it is a big threat to you. But not when it is on others. Then it's fine 'because low probability'. In fact, many of the apologists for what happened go as far as to conflate in a single post low probability with no probabi…

The 3% who were sentenced above the guideline amount were not chosen at random. They were people who had specific factors in their cases that allowed for an above guideline sentence.

These are factors such as causing a death, causing significant physical injury, causing extreme psychological harm to your victims beyond that one would expect from the crime, abducting people, causing property damage beyond what is taken into account by the guidelines, using weapons during the crime, or torture.

Swartz did not have any of the factors that could end one up in the 3%.

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