There’s another largely-unaddressed element to the debate: underlying freedoms of transaction and of information-handling. All of the arguments about blackmail are about it as an incentive for something—why are we not debating the things themselves? Arguments against gossip and investigation are not necessarily arguments against blackmail.
Before addressing the incentives, you should seek clarity/agreement on what behaviors you’re trying to encourage and prevent. I still have heard very few examples of things that are acceptable without money involvement (investigating and publishing someone for spite or social one-ups) and become unacceptable only because of the blackmail.
Some things are acceptable on small quantities but unacceptable in large ones. You don’t want to incentivise those things.
This takes some unpacking. For things that are acceptable on small scales and not large ones, should we prohibit the scale rather than the act? The status quo is that blackmail is frowned upon, but not enforced unless particularly noteworthy. That bugs me from a rule-implementation standpoint, but may be ideal in a practical sense.
We do have some laws that are explicit about scale. For instance speed limits and blood alcohol levels. However, nor everything is easily quantified. Money changing hands can be a proxy for something reaching too large a scale
Many laws incorporate scaling in terms of damage threshold or magnitude of single incident. We have very few laws that are explicit about scale in terms of overall frequency or number of participants in multiple incidents. City zoning may be one example of success in this area—only allowing so many residents in an area, without specifying who.
There are very few criminal laws such that something is legal only when a few people are doing it, and becomes illegal if it’s too popular. Much more common to just outlaw it and allow prosecutors/judges leeway in enforcing it. I’d argue that this choice gets exercised in ways that are harmful, but it does get the job (permitting low-level incidence while preventing large-scale infractions) done.
There’s another largely-unaddressed element to the debate: underlying freedoms of transaction and of information-handling. All of the arguments about blackmail are about it as an incentive for something—why are we not debating the things themselves? Arguments against gossip and investigation are not necessarily arguments against blackmail.
Before addressing the incentives, you should seek clarity/agreement on what behaviors you’re trying to encourage and prevent. I still have heard very few examples of things that are acceptable without money involvement (investigating and publishing someone for spite or social one-ups) and become unacceptable only because of the blackmail.
Some things are acceptable on small quantities but unacceptable in large ones. You don’t want to incentivise those things.
This takes some unpacking. For things that are acceptable on small scales and not large ones, should we prohibit the scale rather than the act? The status quo is that blackmail is frowned upon, but not enforced unless particularly noteworthy. That bugs me from a rule-implementation standpoint, but may be ideal in a practical sense.
We do have some laws that are explicit about scale. For instance speed limits and blood alcohol levels. However, nor everything is easily quantified. Money changing hands can be a proxy for something reaching too large a scale
Many laws incorporate scaling in terms of damage threshold or magnitude of single incident. We have very few laws that are explicit about scale in terms of overall frequency or number of participants in multiple incidents. City zoning may be one example of success in this area—only allowing so many residents in an area, without specifying who.
There are very few criminal laws such that something is legal only when a few people are doing it, and becomes illegal if it’s too popular. Much more common to just outlaw it and allow prosecutors/judges leeway in enforcing it. I’d argue that this choice gets exercised in ways that are harmful, but it does get the job (permitting low-level incidence while preventing large-scale infractions) done.