Ultimately, there’s a sort of homeostasis in people’s tolerance for crime. If you need video evidence for prosecution, those who want it prosecuted will produce video cameras. If you make warrants impossible to produce in a timely manner, the camera search will be warrant exempted.

Attempts to damage state power to ensure crime isn’t prosecuted will be likely met with methods that are immune to them.

Given the constraints we operate under, the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero. So being informed that either is non-zero is not of use to decision making in my opinion.

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pinkmuffinere 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero

I feel this is an _extremely_ good point, the kind that seems obvious only once you hear it. But i feel there’s an implication that could be made explicit here — we should be looking at the distribution of both apparatus-enabled-crimes and unsolved-crimes when we’re discussing this sort of thing. And if those metrics aren’t tabulated for easy access, they probably should be.

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arjie 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> And if those metrics aren’t tabulated for easy access, they probably should be.

I couldn't agree more. They're two different error rates for our society and measuring them accurately would help us go to where we should be on the curve.

	▲	pinkmuffinere 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Somebody should make a website visualizing the data we do have, perhaps with uncertainty bounds, and a recursive breakdown locale-by-locale… Nose goes!! Edit: wow I bet this is a project that would be _way_ too difficult to vibe code with AI, with well documented data sources and what not. Sure would be a shame if somebody proved me wrong.

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TZubiri 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think there's a bias in public discussion towards idealism, because most discussions will start by the argument that we need to reduce X, or we need to reduce Y. If there is a conflict and there needs to be a trade off, very few discussions and points will be about the tradeoff, but there will be a whole bunch of discussions about just plain reducing X or reducing Y.

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bigbadfeline 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Given the constraints we operate under, the ideal number of unsolved crimes is not zero and the ideal number of crimes committed using state apparatus is also not zero.

That statement doesn't make any sense. What's the ideal number? +Infinity? "Not zero" includes that too. There has to be a way to place a ceiling on the number, asking for a non-zero "ideal" doesn't do that, on the contrary, it hides the all important question of what will keep the numbers low enough.

Using this case an example, if the offender wasn't abusing the system hundreds of times in the span of 1.5 years, he would've never been caught. So, we don't even know the real, "non-zero", number of such cases. That's a big problem.

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alexpotato 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

To use a corporate example:

People act like the only options are:

- make it so hard to log in that no one can use a system

- just give everyone root access

You can build systems of approval that are fast, obvious who should be approving and are auditable.

	▲	evilduck 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You can also build systems that require secondary approvals without needing approval escalation up the chain. Creeping on women is a lot less likely if you need a peer or even a subordinate to review what you're doing.

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lazyasciiart 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

And if you need confessions, confessions will be made.

	▲	arjie 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Precisely! Illustrates the problem perfectly.