Mastodawn

Well, those are my objections on moral grounds. From a practical point of view, surely it’s obvious that to punish thieves and murderers in precisely the same way is not only absurd but also highly dangerous for the public.
   If a thief knows that a conviction for murder will get him into no more trouble than a conviction for theft, he’s naturally impelled to kill the person that he’d otherwise merely have robbed. It’s no worse for him if he’s caught, and it gives him a better chance of not being caught, and of concealing the crime altogether by eliminating the only witness.
   So in our efforts to terrorize thieves we’re actually encouraging them to murder innocent people.

   [Non licere putem. Quam uero sit absurdum, atque etiam perniciosum reipublicae furem, atque homicidam ex aequo puniri, nemo est, opinor, qui nesciat.
   Nempe quum latro conspiciat non minus imminere discriminis duntaxat furti damnato, quam si praeterea conuincatur homicidij, hac una cogitatione impellitur in caedem eius, quem alioqui fuerat tantum spoliaturus. quippe praeterquam quod deprehenso nihil sit plus periculi, est etiam in caede securitas maior, & maior caelandi spes sublato facinoris indice.
   Itaque dum fures nimis atrociter studemus perterrefacere, in bonorum incitamus perniciem.]

Thomas More (1478-1535) English lawyer, social philosopher, statesman, humanist, Christian martyr
Utopia, Book 1, ch. 1 “Discourses of Raphael Hythloday” (1518 ed.) [tr. Turner (1965 ed.)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/more-thomas/83554/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #thomasmore #utopia #penalsystem #capitalpunishment #crime #criminal #cruelty #deathpenalty #execution #hanging #killing #nothingtolose #punishment #severity #stealing #theft #thief #thievery #unintendedconsequences

More, Thomas - Utopia, Book 1, ch. 1 "Discourses of Raphael Hythloday" (1518 ed.) [tr. Turner (1965 ed.)] | WIST Quotations

Well, those are my objections on moral grounds. From a practical point of view, surely it's obvious that to punish thieves and murderers in precisely the same way is not only absurd but also highly dangerous for the public. If a thief knows that a conviction for murder will get…

WIST Quotations

Big Blu Gnu Apr 17

How the war of choice in Iran is fueling the electric vehicle boom:
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/energy-world/how-the-iran-war-is-inadvertently-boosting-our-energy-transition

#electricVehicles #energy #energyIndependence #energySecurity #energyTransition #EV #EVs #foreignPolicy #fossilFuels #greenEnergy #Iran #IranWar #renewableEnergy #renewables #unintendedConsequences

Paul R. Pival (he/him)Apr 15

The overdose spike that alarmed NPR was a model trained on old data https://boingboing.net/2026/04/14/the-overdose-spike-that-alarmed-npr-was-a-model-trained-on-old-data.html

That's kind of fascinating. #UnintendedConsequences

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Deepak Kumar Vasudevan Apr 2

#SupremeCourt #MonkeyMenace #UnintendedConsequences #UrbanEcology

Tea time.Mar 2

Really, what kind of war would it be without a little Hezbollah, amirite?!

#missioncreep #blowback #unintendedconsequences #terrygilliam

Tea time.Mar 1

Meanwhile, in Yemen...
A massive show of solidarity with Iran.
#blowback #unintendedconsequences

Evan Genest Feb 28

Use the word "peatslide" in a sentence, LOL.

"Since the peatslide, AWS has remained quiet about its involvement, but in the run-up to the construction work the company was in full green PR mode, advertising the agreement as a historic breakthrough for both its ambition to run a service powered completely by renewables by 2030 and for contributing to Irish green-energy infrastructure without costing the taxpayer a penny. "

https://thebaffler.com/salvos/bog-trouble-doherty

#unintendedconsequences #sustainability #esg #aws #wind #ireland

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Rowena Ball Feb 24

@ARC_Tracker
16 months? Too late! Cat's out of the bag! I could get heaps of research done with all me north Korean collaborators during that 16 months, publish a stack of papers, patents and all, before the actual funding application is sent to the bottom of the harbour on national security grounds.

#UnintendedConsequences #PerverseEffects