Makes me wish we could do proper punishment adjustment, taking into account the percentage of criminals punished, using this app. Let's say punishment X would deter phone theft. Now take the phones stolen, and how many are recovered with criminals punished, 1 in N. To actually deter theft, the punishment needs to be X*N; I'm pretty sure for realistic X (e.g. 6 months in jail?) and N (huge), the proper punishment is death. Every now and then, track one random phone thief down using these apps, and execute them with some fanfare (I use the term "them" loosely; more like, "it"). Deter phone theft, and also make the world a better place.
Why is humane "under-punishment always preferable to over-punishment" top priority? You can construct a mathematically absurd example - e.g. if we under-punish a psychopathic attempted murderer and he gets an opportunity to actually murder, we've done strictly more harm than if we over-punish an execute him.
But even in regular case, why should we be humane to someone who refuses to be humane to others? I don't get this logic at all.
Easy now Rorschach, would you really want to live in a society like this? I could imagine finding out my cousin got murdered because he didn’t realize he was selling old iPhones that were stolen with a plan like this. This is comic book levels of absurdity and extremism.
It's called Saudi Arabia. (Okay, well, you don't get executed there; your hand just gets chopped off.) Some people do want to trade freedom/rights for safety, yes. Most people, even, going by history and the state of the world today.
Yeah, you could imagine all kinds of scenarios. We do have beyond reasonable doubt standard for punishment, so it's just that - fantasy; or rather, a gotcha that is simply an worthwhile tradeoff. The "absolute" values that do not recognize tradeoffs is what's, pretty much by definition, extremist.
I can only respond with an echo: "The fact that people like you exist is far more damaging for the world than phone thieves."
Unreserved compassion is by far the most harmful atavisms of human evolution. More evil, even, than tribalism and tall-poppy syndrome. The combination with the latter, in a sense of being reluctant to punch down, produces the likes of you - active fellow-travelers to psychopaths. The logical result is either societal collapse or someone like Duterte or Bukele restoring order. I think it's much better to have the right amount of retributive justice to being with.
