- 19 Apr 2023 22:17
#15271782
One of the popular ideas with the left right now is to use things like mass surveillance, social credit scores and digital currencies to "withhold subsidies" from people instead of sending them to jail when they commit crimes or engage in wrongthink. I think there's a lot of problems with this idea that haven't been discussed and so I wanted to post it somewhere on the internet.
First, are subsidies going to be the only way to get certain things? Because if the subsidies aren't the only way to get certain things, you have basically created two legal systems: one for people who actually need the subsidies and another for people who don't need the subsidies. As such, you will either still need jails for rich (or more likely, white) people who engage in wrongthink but can use a completely different criminal justice system to punish people who actually need the subsidies to live. There are a lot of potential problems with doing this, notwithstanding the fact that having two different criminal justice systems doesn't mesh with basic concepts of equality under the law.
Second, even if people did successfully institute such a system, I am not sure that it really makes sense on its face. Consider for example, the withholding of a food subsidy: if the subsidy is the only way to get food, now the punishment for committing a crime is starvation? Such a thing is way harsher than existing punishment systems. But let's say that the subsidy being withheld doesn't apply to things like food, only to your ability to buy things like consumer items. So you are going to cut someone's consumer item subsidy as a punishment for them stealing consumer items. Yet the entire problem in the first place was that they were getting consumer items they could not get normally, so the idea that pulling their funds for such things will be a punishment when they are already engaged in the practice of stealing those things seems unlikely to work out.
Supposedly in China these days they will cut your ability to use public transportation or enter certain buildings if you do something that the authorities don't like. I don't know what the specifics of this system are or what the long term ramifications are supposed to be but if that impacts someone's ability to get to their job etc., it sounds pretty counter-productive. Also, are they going to do anything besides sit there and stew? It seems unlikely that they will come to a conclusion besides hating you. I can't imagine that encouraging this as a regular event will have positive outcomes.
First, are subsidies going to be the only way to get certain things? Because if the subsidies aren't the only way to get certain things, you have basically created two legal systems: one for people who actually need the subsidies and another for people who don't need the subsidies. As such, you will either still need jails for rich (or more likely, white) people who engage in wrongthink but can use a completely different criminal justice system to punish people who actually need the subsidies to live. There are a lot of potential problems with doing this, notwithstanding the fact that having two different criminal justice systems doesn't mesh with basic concepts of equality under the law.
Second, even if people did successfully institute such a system, I am not sure that it really makes sense on its face. Consider for example, the withholding of a food subsidy: if the subsidy is the only way to get food, now the punishment for committing a crime is starvation? Such a thing is way harsher than existing punishment systems. But let's say that the subsidy being withheld doesn't apply to things like food, only to your ability to buy things like consumer items. So you are going to cut someone's consumer item subsidy as a punishment for them stealing consumer items. Yet the entire problem in the first place was that they were getting consumer items they could not get normally, so the idea that pulling their funds for such things will be a punishment when they are already engaged in the practice of stealing those things seems unlikely to work out.
Supposedly in China these days they will cut your ability to use public transportation or enter certain buildings if you do something that the authorities don't like. I don't know what the specifics of this system are or what the long term ramifications are supposed to be but if that impacts someone's ability to get to their job etc., it sounds pretty counter-productive. Also, are they going to do anything besides sit there and stew? It seems unlikely that they will come to a conclusion besides hating you. I can't imagine that encouraging this as a regular event will have positive outcomes.
Lmao, I guarantee you no fund manager is driving an ETF based purely on spite. -- some guy out there actually believes this.
- By Tainari88
- By wat0n