Comment by Afterimage on The case for the death penalty · 2025-02-25T14:25:39.819Z · LW · GW

Thanks for clearing that up, I think I was confused because it's hard to imagine putting compassionate crime prevention strategies together with a strict death penalty for repeated shoplifting. 

It would be far more moral and cost-effective to focus on prevention, through increased policing, economic opportunities or similar interventions.

Executions and lifelong prison sentences both suffer from leaving families seperated which leads to more crime and other negative externalities many of which can only be speculated upon. 

For example, American culture seems to be resistant to overreach from the government. I can imagine far more civil unrest from a heavy handed execution policy than in a country such as Singapore. 

Comment by Afterimage on The case for the death penalty · 2025-02-23T09:05:26.175Z · LW · GW

I'm curious about the purpose of this post. I think I understand the concept of steelmanning, but I’m struggling to see the specific goal here.

The post doesn’t address countries with low crime rates that don’t use the death penalty, and just seems to double down on executing vast number of criminals rather than any number of other possible options to reduce crime. Also speculating here but I imagine the impacts on social cohesion and flow on effects from ease of executions (political prisoners etc) would make the cure worse than the disease. 

Is excluding these concerns part of the steelmanning process? I think the post could have been a bit clearer on what is being steelmanned and what are arguments you are making.