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Originally Posted by HarryT
There's nothing complex about teaching children that "it's wrong to take stuff without the owner's permission unless you pay for it". This is the basic stuff of ethics; no need to involve the law.
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By the same token, however, "ethical" people are less competitive in a laissez-faire capitalist environment. They wouldn't be as likely to choose an option that would cause the suffering of millions that would give them billions or even trillions of dollars in profits, for example. A less ethical capitalist would, and would be seen as the better person for doing so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mr ploppy
Apart from anything else, have you thought about the logistics of putting 10% of the population in jail? Taxes would need to increase by a massive amount to pay for it. You're talking about £40,000 per year for each prisoner, and that's not including the cost of building all the new prisons you would need to fit them all in. Or the cost of policing the internet and gathering together enough evidence to convince a jury of their guilt.
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It'd arguably be easier to create a slave caste using existing mechanisms. College debt would be a good place to start once you run out of criminals. If you've starved the governments to death by requiring them to make ever-increasing payouts while cutting off tax revenue, there won't be anyone to stop you.
Sounds like the premise for an excellent cyberpunk novel.