The real reason to end the death penalty • Hacker News Board

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#301

Post by sneak » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:53 PM UTC

twodave wrote: post #299

Is there a point where it becomes necessary to end the life of another person? Maybe. Maybe if the person is obviously committed to harming others and refuses all attempts at reform. How do you know when someone is past helping? Anyway, there just aren't very many people who match this description. As a Christian against the death penalty I find myself often in a very unexpected minority. Many Christians I know and g…

> Is there a point where it becomes necessary to end the life of another person? Maybe. Maybe if the person is obviously committed to harming others and refuses all attempts at reform.

Even in that instance, I can't imagine it ever being necessary to end their life. We have more than sufficient technology and resources to sustain such a hopeless case in a state in which they, and everyone else, are safe from harm.

Taking a life simply because it's inconvenient to go to the lengths to secure someone from harming others for the short time that is a natural human lifespan is... befuddling. It's such a simple and tiny expense in the grand scheme of things, and such a deep and dark cliff off which to jump to save a few pennies.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#302

Post by whatever1 » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

azemetre wrote: post #288

whatever1 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a practical aspect a lot of benefits for death penalties: 1) Low cost. No need for jails and their associated costs 2) Great scaling. You can kill as many as you want, but you cannot build a jail every day 3) Safe. People don’t come back to repeat their mistakes. 4) It’s the only language that many criminals speak and understand. The downsides are of a moral nature and twofold: 1) We should not punish innocent p…

The death penalty is extremely expensive ($1.26 million is the median [1]) and not low costs at all, where do you find it being cheap? I'm assuming you're referring to the United States? [1] https://www.amnestyusa.org/issues/death-penalty/death-penalt... .

Can be done for free if you are a good demagogue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippine_drug_war#Early_mo...

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#303

Post by HWR_14 » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:55 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #250

HWR_14 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the issue is that we divide the trial into (guilty or not) and (determine punishment if guilty). There's no 95% chance of guilty, go to jail and 100% chance of guilty, death penalty. But, ultimately, some people are going to go away forever. People like Manson are never going to get released. What's the big difference between the death penalty and life imprisonment with no parole that attenuates the error in…

>What's the big difference between the death penalty and life imprisonment with no parole that attenuates the error in the conviction process. You can't reverse the damage done by either sentence. However a sentence of life without parole is correctible as soon as a mistake is identified. Releasing an innocent person after taking 40 years of their life is awful, but it is better than realizing we killed an innocent p…

I question how often people are really released after 40 years in prison. It happens, but it certainly doesn't happen frequently. In fact, it's so infrequent it seems any false release after a decade or more seems to pop up in national news.

I feel like fictional accounts of long-delayed justice are more common than real ones.

Either way a tragedy occurs, but I'm not sure how much our system should be informed by ultra-rare edge cases.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#304

Post by greedo » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:56 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #265

klelatti wrote: post #232

I absolutely abhor the death penalty. I do find this reliance on a single rationale to stop the death penalty problematic though: - For many people I suspect that there is a combination of level of proof and severity of crime that would lead them to say the risk of erroneous conviction can be ignored. - Someone will say let's focus on improving the justice system to deal with the errors. I'd rather the burden of just…

The single rationale is perfectly fine. If we had a magic oracle which supplies us with the absolutely correct guilty or not guilty verdict, there would be no problem with the death penalty. > what does the death penalty actually achieve Rids the world of an instance of evil, efficiently and permanently. Vindicates victims.

Speaking as someone who has experienced a family member's murder, the death penalty would in no way "vindicate" anyone.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#305

Post by dang » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

teddyh wrote: post #287

dang wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we did that, commenters would complain "yet again, the HN moderators completely change the meaning of a title with their invasive and random editing. It's infuriating." And in this case they'd be right, because in this case the definite article and the word "real" are essential—the article's argument doesn't really exist without them.

I think that you got that backwards. What ‘raldi’ was trying to say that it’s good that you didn’t edit the title, but implied that it’s sad that it was merely because it was pg who wrote the post that the title was left unaltered.

I bow in apology to raldi.

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#306

Post by fegu » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends." - Fellowship of the ring (Tolkien)

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#307

Post by dang » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:57 PM UTC

ruph123 wrote: post #247

dang wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't do this, no matter how provocative another comment was. The proper response is to flag it and ignore it—then the provocation fizzles out, as it should. The site guidelines put it this way: " Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead. " That's our euphemistic recoding of "Please don't feed the trolls." I realize this is not so easy when you belong to a group that's being put down, but w…

Understood, still learning.

As are we all :)

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#308

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

risyachka wrote: post #101

Though I agree that in most cases death penalty should not be used, in some very specific but not rare cases - like mass shootings with dozens dead - where you have a lot of video and DNA evidence and dozens of witnesses - I just can't find a single argument against it. If I find any - I would gladly change my mind.

[deleted]

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#309

Post by Broken_Hippo » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:58 PM UTC

iR5ugfXGAE wrote: post #283

Why stop there? Is 39 years behind bars for an innocent less ridiculous than killing them?

Both are ridiculous, but only one can be somewhat rectified. Death is pretty final most of the time. (Some folks technically die, but are revived).

Re: The real reason to end the death penalty

#310

Post by User23 » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 7:59 PM UTC

bluecalm wrote: post #79

wideareanetwork wrote: post #2

I think no other justification is needed to end the death penalty than “it’s inhuman and barbaric”. Even discussing other factors arguments and considerations dilutes the core point that’s it’s straight up wrong unethical and inhuman to murder others in the name of the law. Paul Graham has a valid point, but if you say “it’s wrong cause it’s inaccurate”, implies it’s right if it’s accurate. And it’s not... the death…

This argument is useless because what inhuman and barbaric my means depends on your belief system. Abortion is inhuman and barbaric to significant % of the population and death penalty isn't. They use murder argument as well. Of course death penalty is not murder nor is abortion if you're honest about what the word means but here we are with those absolute statements about ethics. If we just use this argument and don…

Opposition to abortion and capital punishment is pretty basic moral reasoning and really not challenging. The premise is killing innocent human beings is wrong. In the case of abortion the innocence of the person being killed is assured. In the case of capital punishment that’s not necessarily true, but since we can’t truly know for certain the convict isn’t innocent we ought to err on the side of caution to avoid the possibility of killing an innocent person.

It’s odd to me how controversial both issues are when the moral reasoning required is so easy. Taking any other position requires denying the premise that it’s wrong to destroy innocent human life. One can, but accepting that has some very nasty consequences.