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This year we can end the death penalty in California

paulgraham.com

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Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#101

Post by jernfrost »

gxs wrote: post #22

I like his message mainly because I agree with the death penalty in principle. If you want to be a shitty human being, with 7B people on the planet we don't really need you. But, in practice, we will never get it 100% right. Probability of killing an innocent person will always be >0. For that reason alone, we should get rid of it.

That was my perspective as well before, but what I never paid much attention to is the fact that every person is part of a network of relationships which gets affected by that person's death.

The importance of that I think is clear with respect to the dynamics for terrorism and war. People who experience their loved ones dying easily get vengeful and radicalized.

If I lost somebody dear to me, I don't think the execution of the killer that my increased satisfaction from this would likely pale compared to the sadness inflicted on those who cared about the killer.

This is a fundamental thing in human psychology. We react more to losses than gains. If e.g. the boss takes money from you and gives to me as a bonus, then my joy from this will be significantly less, than the dissatisfaction you will feel from this loss. The sum is lesser than its parts so to speak ;-)

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#102

Post by scarmig »

mibbiting wrote: post #57
gxs wrote: post #22

I like his message mainly because I agree with the death penalty in principle. If you want to be a shitty human being, with 7B people on the planet we don't really need you. But, in practice, we will never get it 100% right. Probability of killing an innocent person will always be >0. For that reason alone, we should get rid of it.

Nothing is 100% certain. If you perform a heart operation, there's a chance you'll kill the patient. Does that mean we should get rid of heart operations? If you put a serial killer to death, you can be 100% sure they won't kill any more people. If you put him in prison, you can't. He may escape, or he may get released early and kill again. Or as often happens, he'll kill other prisoners whilst in prison. It's a ques…

If there's a serial killer, even if you put a person accused of being that serial killer to death, you can't be sure that serial killer won't kill any more people. This isn't just an edge case: serial killers often claim credit for any and all crimes that might be attributed to them. Kill them off, attribute all the murders to them, and the actual serial killer is more likely to stay in the wild.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#103

Post by jernfrost »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #23

Execution is cathartic but hardly effective. Clearly it does not deter murderers as they believe they will either get away with it or they simply don't care as long as they satisfy their need to kill. The wrong people can be executed and unlike a prison sentence, there's no going back. Appeals can last for decades and waste enormous amounts of time and money. End the death penalty. It's just not worth it.

I think research shows, that what people care about is the likeliness of getting caught. The length of the sentence doesn't really have that deterring effect. If it did then the US with each extremely long sentences should not be having magnitudes higher homocide rate than European countries with rather mild sentences.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#104

Post by xiaoma »

jernfrost wrote: post #50
jsjohns2 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of an "undo" button is not exclusive to the death penalty, many serious forms of punishment are irreversible. Why, in your view, is it much worse for the state to jail an innocent person for a long time (say, their entire adult life) instead of killing them?

That is bad, but you can compensate an wrongfully jailed person afterwards. But I think it is a fair point, which is why I am also against harsh prison conditions. I think prison should mainly be about rehabilitation and shielding society from the danger of the person. If prison mainly means losing freedom, you aren't necessarily ruined mentally when you get out.

>That is bad, but you can compensate an wrongfully jailed person afterwards.

How do you compensate someone for being imprisoned (and likely raped) from the age of 28 to 45?

In many cases, the death penalty is more humane.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#105

Post by jacquesm »

jsjohns2 wrote: post #97
jacquesm wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a single minute of my time wasted can not be un-done. So if you accept the arrow of time points forward and that no single action can ever be truly un-done there are some actions that are worse than others. And so it would be good to aim for the least harm done.

Sure, some actions are more harmful than others. Killing a person is worse than imprisoning them indefinitely. But the degree to which it is worse (and whether it is enough to ban the death penalty) seems quite subjective. Seems to me that you could use an identical line of reasoning to conclude that prison sentences longer than N years should be banned. Is it a matter of degree? Or is there something fundamentally d…

Death is final, everything else is on a gradient, death is an absolute. So yes, it's fundamentally different. That's why we hold parties on New Years Eve to mark the passing of time but we also hold funeral wakes when someone dies.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#106

Post by pmoriarty »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
jernfrost wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I am astonished that there is no debate around this. Drone killing ought to be regarded as a war crime. When you go around performing targeted killing of people in peace time, then that is unlawful execution.

> Drone killing ought to be regarded as a war crime. It is a war crime. That doesn't mean any drone wielders will ever be brought to justice, but the same goes for all those Blackwater (oh, sorry 'Xe', oh, sorry 'Academi', it's hard to keep track of these scumbags) contractors during the Iraq war. War crimes as a rule will only see their day in court if they are committed by relatively powerless people on the losing…

And let's not forget all the torturers and their enablers and protectors. Torture is a very serious crime. But will the people who commit it and those who order it ever be held accountable? Nope. The US government just stamps "legal" on it after it makes a splash in the press, and then people mostly forget about it. Now Trump is promising to "bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding".

This is just the tip of the criminal iceberg in the US. But crime is really the wrong word when the people who commit and order the crime and those who protect them are the same people who write and enforce the laws.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#107

Post by jacquesm »

paulddraper wrote: post #98
jacquesm wrote: post #21

The single best reason why the death penalty should be abolished is because it does not have an 'undo' button. It's bad enough if people get jailed for a long time when they are innocent, it is much worse when they're murdered by the state for crimes they did not commit. Other important work done: http://www.innocenceproject.org/ edit: sad to see this thread flagged off the homepage.

There's no undo button for imprisonment. Your life was taken, and no one can give it back. It's a difference of degree only, not kind.

I think that viewpoint was already covered elsewhere in this thread.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#108

Post by murtnowski »

mikeash wrote: post #55
murtnowski wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not making an argument. I'm stating facts. I never said I was OK with it.

I don't believe it. Bringing up Charles Manson and using loaded language to describe his avoidance of it clearly makes an argument for the death penalty.

It is a fact that Charles Mason was relieved from execution. Just like it is a fact that because of the court rulings around 1972 he became eligible for parole.

Charles Manson and other 106 inmates on death row in 1972 were all convicted killers who were relieved from the death penalty.

Many victim's family members were upset by the courts decision.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#109

Post by WillPostForFood »

jernfrost wrote: post #78
murtnowski wrote: post #7

California already removed the death penalty in 1972 then later reinstated it. This resulted in killers like Charles Mason being relieved from execution and denying many victim's family member from obtaining a measure of justice they wanted. Since being reinstated only 13 people have been executed. And none in the past 10 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Californ...

Why can't people speak in honest terms? What you mean isn't justice, but revenge. Killing a killer will not undo the damage they have done. It will not bring a life back. If people require revenge for emotionally healing then that is because society has promoted this as justice. I've never heard of victims desiring death for killers in my home country, but we are not so big on revenge and don't. The American justice…

Imprisoning a killer will not undo the damage they have done, but that doesn't make imprisonment revenge.

Re: This year we can end the death penalty in California

#110

Post by justabee »

jacquesm wrote: post #87
justabee wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> We shouldn't be coddling those who commit violent acts against others. How is spending a lifetime in prison coddling? > The derrent of death alone would save far many more people. That isn't true, criminals as a rule have a hard time tying consequences to their actions, have a high incidence of mental issues. If deterrence would work at all it would be nice but it rarely does. http://nij.gov/five-things/pages/deter…

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