And Singapore has a very punitive legal system, while featuring a recidivism rate around 20-25%.

You can't just take two cherry-picked examples and proclaim the ‶idea of punishment as [...] dead and buried″.

You argue against cherry-picking, and then you think you can prove something with one single example?

My dude, the other guy provided 100% more data than you!

There is a big difference between proof and falsification. The grant-parent wants to establish a general rule, whereas the parent only wants to falsify it. Usually, a single example is enough for falsification. -- There is only one caveat (that's why I said "usually"): The evidence used for falsification must be true, which in itself is a deduction from many detailed observations.

The real flaw in the argument of the parent is, that in a direct comparison between Singapure and Norway Norway still wins: If roughly the same recidivism rates are achieved in a very punitive and a very supportive system, the supportive system is superior according to utilitarian principles.

Surely you realise that the original point works equally well with any of the three given examples?

If the recidivism rate is 20% regardless of if the punishment is harsh or not, I don't see why the conclusion should be that the harshness is supremely important. The harsh punishment does not better than the lenient ones!

Likewise: with the rate is 70% and 20%, but the punishments are equally hard in both places, why on earth is the conclusion that clearly the punishment is universally effective at keeping the rate of recidivism low?

What the original posted was arguing is that harsh punishment is not an effective way of reforming criminals, as measured by the recidivism. The example merely needs to illustrate that recidivism and harshness don't go together.

What shakow did was simply adding another example proving this point, and then acting like they'd provided a contradiction.

>The real flaw in the argument of the parent is, that in a direct comparison between Singapure and Norway Norway still wins: If roughly the same recidivism rates are achieved in a very punitive and a very supportive system, the supportive system is superior according to utilitarian principles.

Wouldn't that depend on subjectively balancing costs and benefits of the other involved factors? For example, Singapore's system may (or may not, frankly I don't know and it's not important to the logical point I'm making) cost less than Norway's system. In that case, the question would be what value the society places on finding solutions that are supportive rather than punitive.

Right?

Perhaps. My argument contains an unspoken "ceteris paribus" clause, which is typically the case, when we compare things: that all relevant factors are on the table and everyone agrees on them. To generalise your argument: From a logical point of view, no conclusion is ultimately settled, because it cannot be ruled out that not someday someone comes up with a new and better argument.[1]

So when I pointed out a "flaw in the argument", I meant the argument as presented, without additional refinements (as you are trying to develop).

A minor detail: When discussing a normative question, it is important to carefully distinguish between normative and descriptive aspects. The descriptive aspects are everything that is the case. The normative aspects are everything that should be the case. Therefore, the question is what value a society should place on finding solutions that are supportive rather than punitive. -- And the idea that norms are up to a certain point "subjectively" is in itself a description whose normative relevance asks for an intense debate.

[1] There might exist a few exceptions, such as fundamental logical theorems. But this is too far off from our case.

> You argue against cherry-picking, and then you think you can prove something with one single example?

Yes, that's the whole point of a counter-example...

If I try to prove the all odd numbers are prime (look, 1, 3, 5, 7, ... – it works!), you telling me that 9 is not is enough to disprove my theory.

I'm sorry to say, but if you think that you can provide a counter example to the statement "there is no strong correlation" with one single additional data point, you've grievously misunderstood how correlations work.

>You argue against cherry-picking, and then you think you can prove something with one single example?

Well... he can! He can prove, with one example, that the other person's thesis doesn't fit the facts.

And he did that.

So, yeah.

Can you please explain your understanding of the word correlation? I'm very curios to hear how your reasoning for how statements about these can be proven by a single data point.

A single data point can be sufficient to contradict a thesis.

A correlation is an observation that seemingly unrelated events occur in proximity to each other, temporally or otherwise.

Some theses can be disproved by a single data point, not all, and I asked about a specific type of thesis.

I repeat: can you show how a single data point can contradict a statement about the absence of correlation originally claimed?

What? I feel like one of us has forgotten how we got here.

>The idea of punishment as a deterrent is hopefully dead and buried at this point.

That's an absence of correlation claim?

Yes: if punishment was an effective deterrent, then the natural expectation is that there is strong correlation relationship between the level of punishment used and the deterrence effect. Saying punishment doesn't provide deterrence only claims that punishment is not correlated with deterrence.

Maybe the examples shown gave the impression that an anti-correlation was claimed, but that is purely an invention of the reader.

I think recidivism is more correlated to opportunities for rehabilitation than punishment . When I was at a boxing gymnear Baltimore there were kids from poor families talking about their life. In the US if you are poor you are pretty much screwed once the legal system has you. Your background check will exclude you from decent jobs and it’s just a never ending downward spiral. The courts often add some kind of bullshit fees which unemployed people can’t pay so they go back to prison.

The US has managed to set up a cruel and heartless system that punishes poor people, costs enormous money and destroys the social fabric of whole communities.

Only the most naive people think that "punishment as a deterrent" is dead.

It only takes a simple thought experiment to see why that idea is stupid. How many additional murders do you think there would be if the punishment for murder was a day in prison instead of 10 or more years? How many aggrieved ex-spouses, neighbors, and coworkers would turn to violence to solve their problems?

The answer is: a lot.

> How many aggrieved ex-spouses, neighbors, and coworkers would turn to violence to solve their problems?

This isn't the real problem, most people aren't murderous, they're kind. The problem isn't retaliation against mundane grievance, which is taken up by people with no sense of proportion and consequence anyway, but the response to crime.

If a hit-and-run drunk driver runs over my child, and the legal system refuses to punish them, I (and most people) are going to take on that punishment as my responsibility. I may not carry it out, but if I don't I'll take the guilt for not punishing that drunk driver to my grave. There's a ton of pressure on me to hurt that person. After I do, their loved ones may retaliate against me in the same way. If I fail and I'm killed myself, that raises the level of grievance among my family and friends. Even people on the sidelines have to become involved.

You’re gonna have to back up that “though experiment” with some data. Or at least a logical explanation, as to why you think the majority of the population are homicidal maniacs, held in check by the threat of prison time.

Otherwise your comment is little more that a dark speculative fantasy.

> Or at least a logical explanation, as to why you think the majority of the population are homicidal maniacs, held in check by the threat of prison time.

You don't need the MAJORITY of the population to be homicidal maniacs, only held in check by the thread of punishment to see a marked rise in homicides.

I'd guess that even with a low rate of one out of every thousand people being homicidal maniacs only kept in check by the threat of force, you'd get 200x or more homicides than you have now.

After all, a homicidal maniac will, almost by definition, kill repeatedly, and since (in this hypothetical situation) they are not punished for it, there's simply no reason for them to stop doing it.

Again, you’re gonna need some data. I would consider 1 in every thousand people being a homicidal maniac held in check by the the threat of force to be an extraordinary high incidence rate. Such a rate doesn’t even vaguely match up with my experiences of people.

One in a million I could believe, but numbers lower than I have difficulty believing.

Even if the state doesn’t punish anyone, and even if there was no physical retaliation. I imagine that murdering people would quickly result in your social ostracisation. Who the hell wants to spent time with a nutter who’s gonna kill you for rubbing them up the wrong way? I think most people would find better friends and colleagues.

> Again, you’re gonna need some data. I would consider 1 in every thousand people being a homicidal maniac held in check by the the threat of force to be an extraordinary high incidence rate.

I wasn't making a claim about the actual rate, I was contending your claim that

>>>> Or at least a logical explanation, as to why you think the majority of the population are homicidal maniacs, held in check by the threat of prison time.

The GGP only claimed that the homicide rate will rise if there was no punishment for it. You decided that he meant that the majority of the population are homicidal maniacs.

I was merely pointing out that even with a small percentage (0.001%) being homicidal maniacs, the rise in homicides will still increase by two orders of magnitudes or more.

> Such a rate doesn’t even vaguely match up with my experiences of people.

Well, of course - people are punished for being homicidal maniacs so I don't expect them to go around advertising the fact. Your experience of not knowing very many matches the reality that those that do get found out are removed from society.

One in a few hundred will murder someone in USA with todays rules. Don't you think those people would murder a bit more liberally if they weren't punished for it?

This is a straw man. Obviously people who are inclined to murder need to be removed from situations where they might do more murders. I didn't say there should be no consequences.

The question is whether harshness and cruelty themselves are deterrents, or if a humane rehabilitation scheme would do better at reforming murderers into non-murderers. The evidence suggests the latter.

Much of crime is a matter of impulse control. Most people don't do a cost benefit analysis, weighing the odds and severity of punishment. They get angry or greedy or whatever and they act.

I wish I could find a video where a specialist in criminal rehabilitation says that most of the guys he works with ruined their lives in 10 seconds, with just one bad impulsive decision.

> This is a straw man.

No, it isn't. Your claim is "punishment as a deterrence is dead".

I am claiming that:

If the punishment for murder is 20 years in prison, there will be X murders per capita. If the punishment for murder is nothing, there will MUCH more than X murders per capita. How much exactly? I don't know. But I know damn sure there will be a lot more.

You can have a real debate about where the point of diminishing returns and how it models. Is it linear or does it decay exponentially? Is one year sufficient or does it take five or ten?

You come here with a bold claim like "punishment as a deterrence is dead". It absolutely, unequivocally is not. If you want to have a more nuanced conversation, you need to make a more nuanced claim. Because the one you made is ignorant and obviously false.

Your examples do not support the proposition that punishment is not a deterrent, unless Norway's prison is such a nice experience that being imprisoned there can't even be considered punishment. They more support the proposition that punishment that is too harsh is counterproductive or punishment not accompanied by rehabilitation efforts (which Norway puts much more into the US) is is not effective.

For a comparison between two places that are more similar than the US and Norway that took different approaches to punishment due to the pandemic, see this article comparing Albuquerque, New Mexico and Wichita, Kansas [1]. It suggests that what is important is the speed and certainty of punishment rather than how severe that punishment is that serves as a deterrent.

Here's an interview with the author of that article about this [2].

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/two-cities-took-different...

[2] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/24/1113281623/pandemic-court-clo...