We seem to be incapable of creating a perfect predictor - there will always be false positives. How do you square the moral implications of killing people by chance?

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antonymoose 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve long seen this class of conversation on HN and my answer is always the same: introduce a higher burden of proof, maybe even “no doubt,” for capital punishment.

Imagine a scenario where the Pulse nightclub shooter surrendered to police and was on death row now. There is no doubt at all that he did the killing. Why waste calories concerned for a demon like that?

	▲	worried4future 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm fine with that if we can remove the technical error rate and barriers to actually executing these people. If you're caught in a situation like this you should not be in jail on death row for twenty years waiting for your execution while your lawyers try to find some narrow legal loophole to postpone your execution. E.g. Iryna Zarutska's killer (Decarlos Dejuan Brown). He should be dead already.

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worried4future 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I do not seek perfection.

We have a justice system which makes those determinations, its not about perfection, it never has been.