WilftheredJul 31, 2023
Alexis
Remember, kids: "Punishable by fine" is capitalist for "Legal if rich enough."
Jul 30, 2023 at 6:47pmWeb
Show threadDelta WyeJul 30, 2023

@LexYeen Agreed.

One exception - I’ve heard of countries (I think it was in Scandinavia) where some traffic fines were based off of income. So a $250 fine for one person was bumped to something like $250000 for someone with a much, much higher income.

Unfortunately, I don’t know of other countries where fines are levied that way. And a fine can seriously harm one person is chump change for another.

Show threadAlexisJul 30, 2023
@DeltaWye Income-based fine structures are less inherently unjust, this is true.
Show threadxWood 💖💜💙Jul 31, 2023
@DeltaWye Yeah progressive fines are a thing in for example Finland. But the minimum amount can still be burdensome to some people, so it's much better than the alternative but not perfect. It's probably not either just that someone with a high income get the additional punishment of the tabloids writing about you.
Show threadOliver Wiegers  Aug 1, 2023
@xWood4000 @DeltaWye the whole point of a fine is to be a burden. Because they're a punishment. And in Finland the fine rises with the income. So it is a burden for rich people too
Show threadOliver Wiegers  Aug 1, 2023
@xWood4000 @DeltaWye resulting in beautiful stuff like this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
Finnish businessman hit with €121,000 speeding fine

Anders Wiklöf fell foul of system based on severity of offence and offender’s income

The Guardian
Show threadTimjanAug 1, 2023

@DeltaWye @LexYeen
I've heard it claimed about Finland.

It's not the case in Sweden; I do not know the status of Norway/Denmark/Iceland.

Show threadclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 1, 2023
@timjan @DeltaWye @LexYeen Sweden absolutely has "dagsböter" for some things but sadly it is not used for e.g. speeding tickets.
Show threadTimjanAug 1, 2023

@clacke

@LexYeen @DeltaWye

True, but dagsböter are capped: the absolute maximum one can be ordered to pay is 150 000 SEK
(150 dagsböter @ 1000 SEK).

(That's on the order of 15 000 USD).

Show threadbigiainAug 1, 2023
@DeltaWye @LexYeen A nokia executive got fined 121,000 Euro for his speeding fine for being caught at 82kmh in a 50kmh zone in Finland recently: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine
Finnish businessman hit with €121,000 speeding fine

Anders Wiklöf fell foul of system based on severity of offence and offender’s income

The Guardian
Show threadDaniël Franke 🏳️‍🌈Jul 31, 2023
@LexYeen Yep, and in many cases it also means "designed to make sure poor people can never get out of being poor".
Show threadanubis2814Jul 31, 2023
@LexYeen I like the danish way, set the fine based on income and wealth so that everyone mostly feels the sting equally. Also more likely to actually enforce those fines for the wealthy because, yeah they may fight it with lawyers but the payoff for the state might end up being worth it.
Show threadTonya CanningJul 31, 2023

@LexYeen The nature of fines was an ongoing conversation when I taught an anthropology class about money...

whether theyre ever anything other than buying the right to do things we've all agreed aren't okay.

Show threadParJul 31, 2023
@LexYeen
Depends how fines are calculated. If done properly they are a set proportion of actual income, not a fixed sum. IIRC someone in Finland paid over €100k for speeding...
@esther
Show threadZeeshan Ali Khan  🇺🇦Jul 31, 2023
@LexYeen not if the fines are based on your wealth/income. Recently in Finland, a rich driver was handed a fine of hundreds of thousands of euros for a minor offence
Show threadSimon BrookeJul 31, 2023

@LexYeen The Finns have an admirable system of fining people a percentage of their disposable income. Although this isn't enough – we should be fining people a percentage of their total wealth – it's a much closer approximation to justice than anything you'll find anywhere in the English speaking world.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/06/finnish-businessman-hit-with-121000-speeding-fine

Finnish businessman hit with €121,000 speeding fine

Anders Wiklöf fell foul of system based on severity of offence and offender’s income

The Guardian
Show threadyujiri 🏴Jul 31, 2023
@LexYeen only if the fine doesn't scale to the wealth of the offender
Show threademurphy42Jul 31, 2023

@LexYeen Heck, we've had that debate even in Agora #Nomic (tl;dr long-running toy legal system / philosophical exercise).

Pretty much everyone in Agora agrees that some things (e.g. sockpuppets, unrepentant prejudice) warrant a ban or are otherwise genuinely bad. But in the general case, opinions are mixed on whether "doing X has a fee of Y" and "doing X has a fine of Y" mean that doing X is or should be considered equally acceptable. Here, X is usually something like "not publishing your report on time", or "publishing your report with the columns not lining up properly", or "using a bunch of if/thens and making others do too much work to figure it out".

Now you go out in the real world where there are *actual* stakes on the table, and it's no wonder that fines alone won't stop people with deep enough pockets.

Show threadmoved to tech.lgbtAug 1, 2023
@LexYeen "Cost of doing business"
Show threadanubis2814Aug 1, 2023
@LexYeen I find it interesting the number of people who can't see that they are posting the exact same thing as everyone else about northern Europe. Can't tell if its because of heavy defederation or if its just the nature of mastodon thread. Why I stick with Friendica, The layout of comments are way more like Facebook and less like old school twitter so I can always see every comment and who has said what.
Show threadclacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛Aug 1, 2023
@anubis2814 @LexYeen Just normal fedi behavior – if a@x and b@y are not being followed by someone on the other server they will not see each other's comment unless someone followed interacts with it (and if Someone is on Mastodon or derivatives, a Like doesn't count as interaction).
Show threadalastair87 (old account)Aug 1, 2023
@LexYeen I used to know a multi-millionaire who literally treated parking fines like fees.
Show thread Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑Aug 1, 2023
@LexYeen Fines for serious charges should always be a percentage of fortune, not a set number.
Show threadKen Fallon (PA7KEN, G5KEN)Aug 1, 2023
@LexYeen well there is Finland's fines based on income.
Show threadPirateJoieAug 1, 2023
@LexYeen WOW, yeah!
Show threadShadSterlingAug 1, 2023

@LexYeen there’s also the laws that are only enforceable by the victim(s) bringing a lawsuit - “enforceable if rich enough”

Not only do we need a civil analog to the public defender, we need to stop writing laws that law enforcement isn’t allowed to enforce

Show threadMorten Hilker-SkaaningAug 2, 2023
@LexYeen gotta scale that stuff
Show threadAtomic FoxAug 26, 2023

@LexYeen

So you've seen the move THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN?

Show threadAlexisAug 26, 2023
@tsukkitsune Never even heard of it.
Show threadAtomic FoxAug 26, 2023

@LexYeen

Peter Sellars and Ringo Starr. Among other things, Sellars' character pays a traffic warden £100 to physically eat a traffic ticket, and is taken aback when he eats the plastic envelope too.