Bay 12 Games Forum

From my basic understanding, there are three basic schools of thought for "justice:" Retaliation, rehabilitation, or preventing recurrences. Revoking a drivers license for a DUI falls under preventing recurrences. Eye for an eye is retaliation. I am rather against retaliatory "justice."

Throw "reparation" in there, too. T'me, the ideal system is one combining reparation, rehabilitation, and preventing recurrence (though note the last is largely a matter of the second, in the majority of cases).

In the case of accidental eye loss, the one inflicting it covers medical fees -- either explicitly through civil fines, or incidentally through a universal health care system the one causing the harm pays in to.

For something like a DUI wreck, the one inflicting the harm would cover any medical or property damage -- either out of pocket, or through the government covering it and the one that did the deed performing community service until the debt is paid back -- then go through rehabilitation and likely temporary or permanent license loss. Potentially blacklisted from purchasing alcohol, as well.

The trend would continue upwards. Rape, covering cost of therapy/medical one way or another -- and likely further fines to cover loss of productivity, quality of life, etc. -- extensive rehabilitation, likely means of preventing recurrence afterwards (surveillance, relocation, etc.).

Murder would be about the only potential exception, since there's not really a way to meaningfully offset the harm done by such. It would likely entail imprisonment and remaining lifetime being spent on some form of useful community service.

Overall, the way I've come to see it is sort of transactional. A crime (ideally, when the designation isn't being abused) is something that draws from the overall account you could label "Societal Good". The base purpose of justice is to offset that transaction so the net effect on the societal good account is zero, and hopefully (in an absolutely ideal scenario) adjust the situation such that the ultimate results is a net gain. A criminal is still a member of society, and their well being part of the societal good -- a sub-account, if you will. Punishment is a withdrawal from their particular account. If it is not offset by something -- an improvement in behavior, some form of physical reparation, etc. -- then all you have accomplished is to make the overall account shrink further. There has been no gain, and the net loss is made even greater. The goal is to balance harm -- shift resources from the one who has caused it to those who were harmed -- and adjust the asset (the criminal, or the overall situation) such that it brings a net gain to the overall good in the future.

A punishment is only effective if its severity is equal to or outweighs the benefits of the crime comitted, so as to make comitting said crime to be unappealing and thereby preventing it.

I'd disagree here, to an extent. Part of the problem of retributive justice -- making sure the punishment exceeds the benefit of the crime -- is that it doesn't work in many situations. Executing or imprisoning someone who commits a crime of passion does little to nothing insofar as preventing further crime of that nature. Killing off or imprisoning the criminally insane does little to nothing insofar as preventing further crime from such individuals. For a great many crimes and a great many criminals, severity of punishment is literally irrelevant -- it has no bearing on their decision making. For many (most, to my understanding) others, it's still not a very good deterrent -- societal pressures are more effective by a huge margin. Punishment as a deterrent just isn't very good at what it sets out to do.

Nope. But "It's been a while" works just fine.

Not sure what someone without emotions would be called. Apopath?

Well, a limited or lack of emotional expression is blunted affect. There's some stuff in the "related symptoms" bit for other stuff.

Heh. No, I think the west does have a fairly solid understanding of the concept of necessary sacrifice, and it's not necessarily a negative one. See it crop up in relation to military and emergency response service all the time, personally. West just tends to use words besides "sacrifice" to describe involuntary sacrifice. Words trending toward tragedy or atrocity, generally

I'm surprised to hear that as past doctors have warned me to keep an eye on getting my vitamins because I'm a vegetarian. The other thing I considered is diabetes as I eat too much sugary food. I know it can cause vision problems because it has with my grandmother. This was only a passing thought as other than my more poor diet I couldn't be much less at risk.

Diabetes would be an edge case At the same time, I've got family with the condition that's not seeing any (extra -- they were already using glasses and whatnot) deterioration. Do understand it's a known symptom, though.

And a vitamin supplement would be plenty for just about anyone in a modern society -- most wouldn't really need that to keep their eyes going, but your average multivitamin is basically full assurance that if your eyes are going kaput, it's not your food.

Could be wrong again, but I was under the impression high light levels were more dangerous than low. Where I work they started lowering the light levels to save money and because they claimed it causes less eye stress.

I definitely wouldn't be surprised, heh, but it's also definitely not what the zeitgeist in this area has internalized as true, ha.

Though re: eye stress, there's also particular issues with specific forms of lighting. Florescent lights are known to cause headaches and additional eye strain, moreso than equal lighting from several other sources, from what I understand. I definitely know I feel better after a day under sunlight or LED/incandescents -- or even just smaller (or at least better concealed, so the bulbs aren't directly visible) florescent stuff than they tend to use in, say, schools -- than I do under ubiquitous florescent conditions. Damned flickery buggers.

There is no difference between what Russia has done in Crimea and what the United Kingdom did in Northern Ireland. The same could be said of what the USA did in Hawaii, California, Texas and Oklahoma.

Yeah... it's kinda' painfully obvious that people's will this referendum wasn't. Or at least not even remotely an accurate representation of it. More than a bit of a shame, as has been noted.

I'm sorry, but why would you ever want to lick another persons eyeball? Is it a kinky thing or something? I really don't get this.

Fetish is a fetish *vague shrug*

They can get kinda' odd. Eyeball licking is fairly tame, as things go. And they are pretty sensitive, plus letting someone near your eyes in such a way is a incredibly major trust signal. It makes a degree of sense.