The trick is to assign a penalty so severe that all people, no matter how many
trillions they have, will not want to pay it, and that, having paid the penalty,
they will absolutely not make the choice to do that again. I can only think of
one such penalty, though there are many ways of administering it.
For example, if the fine for speeding were 100% of all your personal holdings,
irresprctive of how much that might be, including clothing and other personal
belongings, and 95% of all you earn or otherwise acquire for the next 30 years,
assuming you can survive that long on only 5% of what you acquire, you might not
choose to speed, particularly since it would require you to watch your children
starve, if they hadn't already. It would be costly and diffucult to exact that
penalty, while a quick bullet between the eyes would be easy and simple. If a
mistake were made, well, a posthumous apology would have to suffice.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jeff Hellige" <jhellige_at_earthlink.net>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 10:14 PM
Subject: Re: Celebration (intended to be offensive, possible humor)
> >There's clearly a second alternative, which is to be
> >prepared to pay the penalty. For example, I often speed,
> >but if caught I don't complain about having to pay a fine.
> >I have assumed the risk.
>
> That's called person responsibility, and with the way lawyers
> have made everyone believe that they are the victim, it's a rare
> thing to see. I do the same thing though...if I'm doing something
> like speeding it's because I conciously decided to and if I'm stopped
> for it, I'll pay the price for doing so.
>
> Jeff
> --
> Collector of Classic Microcomputers and Video Game Systems:
> Home of the TRS-80 Model 2000 FAQ File
> http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/lakes/6757
>
>
Received on Sun Jul 08 2001 - 01:01:25 BST