Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!kim From: kim@watsup.waterloo.edu (Kim Nguyen) Newsgroups: ont.general Subject: Re: Lawbreakers (was Radar Detectors (was Highway Driving Rules)) Message-ID: Date: 16 May 89 18:25:05 GMT References: <9584@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <3217@looking.UUCP> <3225@looking.UUCP> <264@sickkids.UUCP> Sender: daemon@watcgl.waterloo.edu Distribution: ont Organization: PAMI Group, U. of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 30 In-reply-to: mark@sickkids.UUCP's message of 16 May 89 11:06:14 GMT In article <264@sickkids.UUCP> mark@sickkids.UUCP (Mark Bartelt) writes: [hypothetical discussion] (1) I frequently drive 10 or 20 mph over the speed limit, for the simple reason that it gets me where I'm going more quickly. (2) I often cheat on my income taxes, for the simple reason that it leaves me with more money to spend. (3) I like to shoplift, for the simple reason that it permits me to acquire more possessions at a lower cost. I suspect that many people would find nothing remarkable about #1, whereas most people would find #2 ethically questionable, at the very least, and would be rather shocked by #3. But what's the difference, really? I think the difference is that the consequences of (2) and (3) are directly measurable (you know you are harming the country or a store, and it is easy to tell by how much [$$$]), whereas the negative consequences of (1) are not so easily determined -- speeding to get somewhere faster may make a heck of a difference if you spend many hours on the road and you may never endanger ANYONE at all if you know what you are doing. On the other hand, you may injure someone more seriously (including yourself) if you actually hit a car. The big diff, then, is that consequences of (2) and (3) are deterministically measurable, and (1) has only probabilistically measurable returns. -- Kim Nguyen kim@watsup.waterloo.edu Systems Design Engineering -- University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada