Most justice systems seem to punish theft on a log scale. I’m not big on capital punishment, but it is actually bizarre that you can misplace a billion dollars of client funds and escape the reaper in a state where that’s done fairly regularly. The law seems to be saying: “don’t steal, but if you do, think bigger.”
And relatedly, I’m not sure about capital punishment, but it seems obvious to at least attempt to make fines proportionate to net worth or something. Ie. Bill Gates shouldn’t get the same sized speeding ticket as John Doe on welfare.
This feels like it’d be political policy that is low hanging fruit. I suspect that it isn’t because of EMH reasons, but I don’t understand the reasons why it isn’t.
I don’t agree with the take about net worth. The fine should just be whatever makes the state ambivalent about the externalities of speeding. If Bill Gates wants to pay enormous taxes to speed aggressively then that would work too.
Hm, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I was just thinking that the goal of the fine is some combination of 1) punitive and 2) deterrent, and neither of those goals are accomplished if you fine Bill Gates $200. But yeah, I guess if you make the fine large enough such that the state is ambivalent, maybe it all works out.
Theft of any amount over a hundred or so dollars is evil and needs to be punished. Let’s say you punish theft of $100 by a weekend in jail. Extrapolate that on a linear scale and you’ll have criminals who non-violently stole $20,000 doing more than double the jail time that a criminal who cold-cocked a stranger and broke his jaw would get. Doesn’t really make sense.
It strikes me that I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to lose $20,000 or have my jaw broken. I’m pretty sure I’d prefer to have my jaw broken than to lose $200,000, though. So, especially in the case that the money cannot actually be extracted back from the thief, I would tend to think the $200,000 theft should be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaking. And, sure, you’ve said that the $20,000 would be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaker, but that’s plausibly just because 2 days is too long for a $100 theft to begin with.
With billion dollars you can probably hire better lawyers.
Do other crimes, for example murder, follow a similar pattern? Like, at some moment they might execute you, but what are they going to do if you kill 10 times more people?
Can they cancel you more if you post 10 times more offensive tweets?
Maybe everything is (sub-)logarithmic, because that’s how people think.
In which case, a group of rationalist criminals should precommit that if they get caught, they will randomly choose one of them, who will accept the blame for everything.
With billion dollars you can probably hire better lawyers
This isn’t the source of the trend; the sentencing guidelines for fraud are actually literally, explicitly logarithmic. The government recommends directly that sentences follow a curve of 2x price --> 2 more years.
Do other crimes, for example murder, follow a similar pattern? Like, at some moment they might execute you, but what are they going to do if you kill 10 times more people?
There seems to be a MAX_PUNISHMENT in the justice system (we don’t devolve into torture, etc.), which is reasonable. But with things like armed robbery you would get convicted for each individual count, not on a log scale.
In which case, a group of rationalist criminals should precommit that if they get caught, they will randomly choose one of them, who will accept the blame for everything.
This is (I suspect) a very common strategy among even regular criminals. You can think of it like a trade between law enforcement and gangs; the government gets their clearances and avoids the potential embarassment of a partially-solved case, and the serial killers send only the John Wayne Gacy to jail.
Most justice systems seem to punish theft on a log scale. I’m not big on capital punishment, but it is actually bizarre that you can misplace a billion dollars of client funds and escape the reaper in a state where that’s done fairly regularly. The law seems to be saying: “don’t steal, but if you do, think bigger.”
Yeah. It’s really weird.
And relatedly, I’m not sure about capital punishment, but it seems obvious to at least attempt to make fines proportionate to net worth or something. Ie. Bill Gates shouldn’t get the same sized speeding ticket as John Doe on welfare.
This feels like it’d be political policy that is low hanging fruit. I suspect that it isn’t because of EMH reasons, but I don’t understand the reasons why it isn’t.
I don’t agree with the take about net worth. The fine should just be whatever makes the state ambivalent about the externalities of speeding. If Bill Gates wants to pay enormous taxes to speed aggressively then that would work too.
Hm, I hadn’t thought about it that way. I was just thinking that the goal of the fine is some combination of 1) punitive and 2) deterrent, and neither of those goals are accomplished if you fine Bill Gates $200. But yeah, I guess if you make the fine large enough such that the state is ambivalent, maybe it all works out.
Theft of any amount over a hundred or so dollars is evil and needs to be punished. Let’s say you punish theft of $100 by a weekend in jail. Extrapolate that on a linear scale and you’ll have criminals who non-violently stole $20,000 doing more than double the jail time that a criminal who cold-cocked a stranger and broke his jaw would get. Doesn’t really make sense.
It strikes me that I’m not sure whether I’d prefer to lose $20,000 or have my jaw broken. I’m pretty sure I’d prefer to have my jaw broken than to lose $200,000, though. So, especially in the case that the money cannot actually be extracted back from the thief, I would tend to think the $200,000 theft should be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaking. And, sure, you’ve said that the $20,000 would be punished more harshly than the jaw-breaker, but that’s plausibly just because 2 days is too long for a $100 theft to begin with.
With billion dollars you can probably hire better lawyers.
Do other crimes, for example murder, follow a similar pattern? Like, at some moment they might execute you, but what are they going to do if you kill 10 times more people?
Can they cancel you more if you post 10 times more offensive tweets?
Maybe everything is (sub-)logarithmic, because that’s how people think.
In which case, a group of rationalist criminals should precommit that if they get caught, they will randomly choose one of them, who will accept the blame for everything.
This isn’t the source of the trend; the sentencing guidelines for fraud are actually literally, explicitly logarithmic. The government recommends directly that sentences follow a curve of 2x price --> 2 more years.
There seems to be a MAX_PUNISHMENT in the justice system (we don’t devolve into torture, etc.), which is reasonable. But with things like armed robbery you would get convicted for each individual count, not on a log scale.
This is (I suspect) a very common strategy among even regular criminals. You can think of it like a trade between law enforcement and gangs; the government gets their clearances and avoids the potential embarassment of a partially-solved case, and the serial killers send only the John Wayne Gacy to jail.