Derivative Crime

If there's something I'm against, it's coercion. I especially can't stand seeing people coerced for no good reason. There's a category of crimes I call “derivative crimes” because the person committing them really isn't doing anything wrong – they're just deriving benefits from another's crimes. I'm sure many people will get upset by some of the things on this list, but I stand by them all.

The first such crime is that of possession of stolen property. This is completely counterproductive and is really just used as a gotcha by law enforcement in the same way that the Feds got Al Capone for evading taxes on his illegal income. It's a cop-out for poor crime fighting. If I buy something at a pawnshop, there's a good chance it's been stolen. I know this going in. This risk premium is what prices the goods there lower. However, the only risk you should really incur is that of having the property repossessed if it can be proven to belong to someone else. However, I don't think you should be prosecuted for merely holding it.

The next big area of abuse is when a blog or newspaper publishes leaks from the government and the government then uses its power to have the retract the story or otherwise. This happened with WikiLeaks.org which is an awesome site to publish leaks where the media people hang out to instantly report the findings. I think this is an amazing public service – of course the government thinks otherwise... It's funny when conservatives support these measures and say this has nothing to do with the 1^st Amendment – if it were regulations on the 2^nd I'm sure they'd be shouting. I'd like to see the policy of the US be that if anything is leaked there is no suppressive power. That is – the onus is on the government to keep its information classified – if it gets out it's free game.

The most controversial derivative crime is possession of child porn. Whoa – your mind just exploded! “You're supporting child porn?” you're asking me. No! I'm for prosecuting the people who take the pictures and video to the fullest extent. What I don't think is needed is to call the sickos who watch this stuff criminal merely for viewing or possessing something that's illegal to create. I've seen videos recorded by insurgents of their sniping of American troops, and I don't think I should be considered a criminal because I viewed heinous crimes.

I have an issue with government overstepping the intent of the law. Laws against stealing – fine, laws against owning stolen goods – fruitless. The same goes for leaked materials or child porn. The initial crime is all that needs punished – derivative crimes are just a drain on the system.

Any other examples? Any exceptions to bring to light?

Comments

[Fr. Brown]

What?

Do you not find child pornography incredibly morally objectionable? Do you not think that the demand for such images puts a great deal of children at risk? Or are they "just a drain on the system" as well?

I find it interesting that in today's society that someone could equate someone unwittingly buying a stolen watch to someone possessing child pornography. One has no knowledge of the unlawful event while the other is complicit. It is also pretty objectionable that you would consider the objects of the crime to have similar values, certainly the welfare of the children should be of more concern than the welfare of the watch in every instance. Maybe in today's society that is not the case.

[Nick Pinkston]

Fr. Brown,

Thanks a lot for your comment. I appreciate the debate.

I'd like to start by saying that I'm a moral relativist & rationalist, so my version of "morally objectional" will be based on what's objectively true - and will take into account differences amongst cultures.

In this case, I would say that other societies might not find exploiting children in child porn to be objectionable - or at least to the degree we do. In fact, I'm sure maybe cultures would consider sexual maturity to be the cut-off point of what's objectionable for pornography - of which is probably around 13 in humans.

With societal objections defined, we should look at, more importantly, how the children react to the exploitation. Of course, I'm sure child porn is very traumatic and hurtful of a child's short and long term development and will most likely leave scars for life - assuming they're under the age of sexual maturity.

The gray area seems in between what we define as adult 18 and a lower bound defined by sexual maturity. The latter limit should be based on whether the affects are traumatic or not. This is also a gray area because I'm sure most adult porn participants are at risk of psychological damage from their work.

This gets into the idea of when a human is accountable for their actions. I think 18 is too old of a limit for this. If a 15 year old can be tried as an adult - that means they're able to make adult decisions of some type. It's up to science to define where this limit exists for decisions of sex. My guess is that it's probably around 16.

Now, I'd like to change course from what is exploitive pornography to how we should enforce exploitive pornography.

Your argument of the demand creating supply definitely has some merit. I'm sure there are some of these effects. I'm unsure of the profit motive of child porn though, and I'd have to say that generally it's more of a file sharing amongst perverts than a real industry, but allowing for monetary motives you're at least somewhat correct.

However, the issue to me is the total cost of enforcement. If we make it legal to possess porn of this nature you could argue that internet sites would pop up, etc. that would lead to increased demand for pictures and so on.

This same argument could apply to a stolen watch or child porn, both involve reducing demand to decrease supply because the supply is always illegal.

You also make a good point that the pornography is apparently illegal (which I would argue is often untrue of the gray area of porn [14-17]) whereas the watch could be completely legitimate. I think this is a strong argument, but perhaps different reasons. I think it makes enforcement of child porn easier than the watch - meaning that the enforcement costs would be less.

When I mention costs, I'd like to state that I'm not really talking about monetary costs but social costs. I don't want witch-hunts of people who've possessed but never produced child-porn.

I think the most acceptable form to the public this policy would take is the decriminalization of possessing child porn. Meaning, there's the deterrent of a fine, but not jail time or "child predator" status. Even with this though, I think the child porn will, like today, remain a very accessible medium that will be accessed by those looking. The internet breaks down all barriers that would otherwise have made choke points possible.

Thoughts?

[Fr. Brown]

I have yet to speak to a mother who would desire this for their child, so I am not sure what societies you are speaking about.

"In fact, I'm sure maybe cultures would consider sexual maturity to be the cut-off point of what's objectionable for pornography - of which is probably around 13 in humans."

Is this a fact or something you think could maybe be what people are thinking?

I understand that you main concern is total cost of enforcement. And, it is a nice model for the moral relativist and rationalist. I would also suggest that maybe your equation have too little value on people themselves and too much value on monetary costs. Have you ever tried making you model a little more concrete, with actual numbers that show the actual worth of that child that is being abused?

I pray that when or if you have children that the number with be pretty high. There are a great number of people who could not put a value on them because the number is too high. They would be willing to offer their lives for the protection of their child. No calculation of total cost needed.

[Nick Pinkston]

The societies that practice child marriage are nearly all non-Western, so unless you're friends with natives of these societies - I can understand why you wouldn't know mothers who desire this either. The wikipedia article on child marriage has some good background for this practice in many countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage

Sorry for the typo, "maybe" should be "many". Yes, it is a fact that many cultures consider sexual maturity younger than 16 - refer to the above article. The 13 year old mark is a guess on my part due to sexual development itself.

For the enforcement issue, the value experienced on people goes both ways. One is the trauma inflicted on the kids, and the other is the coercion of viewers of child porn.

Of course there isn't a humane way of pricing the value of life. If you want to be very utilitarian, you'd say it's the sum value of their production & consumption over their lifetime. I don't like to value things in this way, but I could see the issue answered by taking the aggregate sum total of these costs and benefits for each age of sexual maturity.

On the parental value of children, of course parents value their children very much - this is definite mammalian instinct. However, it's not fully rational for society as a whole. The rationality behind it is that every animal species survives because it has enough survivable children to carry on and multiply the species. Hence, all species either have a lot of children, so the odds are on their side, or they have an instinct to protect their young - like humans do. This issue comes when we have incremental choices to make: like with the issues around abortion. If life were of infinite value, we're always opt for pro-life, but people value the other side of debate as well - hence there is no in-born moral compass.

In the end, we're making a value judgment either way. If you believe that killing one child to cure all the worlds diseases is wrong, then you're consistent - yet going against what's best for the species. All policies are made at the margin - there are no black and whites - even with children.

[Fr. Brown]

So, when looking at society as a whole, no single life has any real value. Do you submit yourself to these calculations as well?

This is certainly not something I believe. Instead, I see a uniqueness and value in each individual.

"If you believe that killing one child to cure all the worlds diseases is wrong, then you're consistent - yet going against what's best for the species."

The nice thing about statements like this is that they are so absurd that you do not need to be answered. Who is giving you this guarantee? I believe in One who could, do you?

[Nick Pinkston]

When looking at policy you have to look at society as a whole - it's the sum total of the parts. It's not really an idea of self. However, I do submit myself to the calculation of providing society more value than I consume - it seems like basic courtesy.

We can all speak beautiful language about the "uniqueness and value in each individual", and it's true: we're all unique, etc. However, we don't all have equal capabilities. Someone who's smarter, healthier, more driven, etc. in aggregate will be better than people who are average in most categories. "Better at what?" you ask, providing value to society - as measured by priced input / outputs.

You might "believe in One who could", however you've never seen any evidence of any sort of guarantee. However, the thought experiment deserves answered because its result tells something about your morals and rationality. It's interesting when Christians appeal to a "higher power" when they've never seen anything other than coincidence - which they attribute to divine power.

What evidence would it take for you to NOT believe in this "One?"

[Fr. Brown]

There was a time in my life that I did ask that very same question. I have not found the evidence that you ask for, evidence that clearly shows that there is no God, and therefore do not know what it would take. If you have some to offer, I would gladly consider it.

Does your list of qualities put you in the providing value to society side? How about me? I am not particularly smart, my health is not that good, I do not physically produce anything for the world. Do I provide a measurable benefit for society?

[Nick Pinkston]

In my own deconversion experience, which you can see in this post:

http://njp12.typepad.com/nickpinkston/2008/10/my-journey-continues.html

I used Occam's razor approach. First, I confirmed that there was no god needed to make the world and that science has good evidence for evolution of life from chemicals and astrophysical formation of the chemicals and bodies of the universe.

Since god hasn't been proven scientifically needed for anything to exist, I then sought out to see how our knowledge of god was brought to humans at all. Where did I hear about god? A church of people. Where did they hear about it the Bible and other people. The Bible is the supposed word of god, so I sought to see how reliable the information in the Bible is.

When I reached further, to see how the Bible was formed I was appalled. Between the councils of Trent, Nicaea, and the Diet of Worms I saw how much man had changed and formed the canon. But, I wanted to see if the original documents were of godly origin.

I then looked into the original authors - most scholars believe that none of gospels were written by anyone who ever met Jesus. Then, I looked at Judism as perhaps the truth. I was disappointed again at the formation of the Jewish tradition being based on Mesopotamian folklore, Egyptian tradtion, etc. Looking more broadly at the genesis of all religions, it looked(s) that they are created as memes. Viral ideas - they resonate with people and hence spread quickly. The issue is that they're no proof for anything they speak of. That's when I ran into diminishing returns, and thought that there is no evidence for god, and in fact there is no true religion that is what it claims.

To your next question: Yes, my list of qualities does put me on the side of providing value. I can't answer the question about you specifically, however this measure can be calculated. That is - if you want some objective type of personal value, not that it's very flattering for most people.

This is actually very similar to valuing a stock. You take the difference between all the future revenues and expenses, and that gives you a figure. If the long term figure is at all positive, the person has left a net-gain to humanity. In order to value these "revenues" and "expenses", you have to value not only someone's fiscal income and expenses, but also their intangibles.

In stocks, this is done too. For instance, a company like Coke values their brand and "goodwill" in the billions, but no one can touch it. Likewise, there's some assets that humans build up from their deeds that benefit / hurt humanity. It's hard to account for those, but the objective measure is by what the person(s) you're doing an act towards realize that this is a beneficial gesture. It gets hard in this area, but this is what it would take to obtain a value.

Using this model as a rough estimation, you can determine your value to society if you wish. Let me know what you think.

[Fr. Brown]

"First, I confirmed that there was no god needed to make the world..."

This is both the first step and the last step all rolled into one. Nothing that you have posted here is evidence. It is your interpretation of the information that you have.

The exercise of calculating one's "value" in these economic terms has no meaning to me so I shall not go on with the exercise myself. You claim the exercise has meaning to you but are unwilling to put any true values on these intangible things. Once society puts these values on individuals, what do you propose should happen to those that are considered not to have positive value to society? According to your criteria, most of us will reach this point before we die.

A world governed by chance, well, ...

[NickPinkston]

I was only abbreviating the evidence for spacial concerns. Below is the evidence that I based my model of how humanity came into being.

1.) Firstly, let's look at the probable origins of the universe, matter, and Earth. In the beginning, you should look at the evidence for the Big Bang Theory(s).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#Observational_evidence

Of course it's not perfectly provable such as the temperature water boils in given conditions, however this is empirically observed evidence. The beauty of rationality & science is that we create models of these events that we know will change and improve over time, however they are useful models. At the end of the Bang, the gaseous plasma of particles cooled into matter. This matter condensed via gravity into nebula-like formations which budded stars and later planets: like Earth. These planets consisted of many elements derived from fusion reactions inside of cores of the stars - this explains the elements.

Now, we've got an Earth made of elements & compounds. It cools over time, water vapor condenses to form oceans, which disolve chemicals on the land into it. These later turned into pools containing amino acids. This was demostrated empirically by the Miller Experiment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment

These amino acids over a very long time turned into simple early life. Once life had evolved from several forms, it came to consist of 3 massives types of cells which experience heretetary gene transfer, and hence evolution started. Here is good video explaining that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MXTBGcyNuc

As far as this being an interpretation, it's really not subjective at all. This is the best evidence we have so far, and it all points towards natural forces developing the world we have around us - without the need for a god.

2.) To your second comment addressing the valuation of individuals - I find it interesting that you dismiss this technique while not providing any rational response - I'd like to hear that if you do. If you look at what I said here:

"Likewise, there's some assets that humans build up from their deeds that benefit / hurt humanity. It's hard to account for those, but the objective measure is by what the person(s) you're doing an act towards realize that this is a beneficial gesture. It gets hard in this area, but this is what it would take to obtain a value. "

..you'll see that I do show a system of valuating intangibles, however I admit it's hard to do the calculation because of the number of variables.

3.) So, if we did measure this for each person, we'd see the free riders. These people would be those who won't produce anything of net-value to society. I think that the ideal is for the measurements to be perfect and that all freeriders be dealt with in a humane way, however we know this isn't possible. In lieu of this, we can take the extreme cases and exile these people (like we do today with prisons).

There are probably many interesting ways of exiling these people so they're are forced by their situation to learn the value of hard work, or their purpose in life. Later, they can perhaps be reassimilated into society.