Good news!

Quote: MonkeyMonkey

Currently in Nevada (in the counties in which it is legal) a condom must be worn when partaking of the services of a legal prostitute. AFAIK, there has only been 1 case of an STD being given to a customer.

You've entered into a hall of mirrors that I don't think I can follow you into.

Pretty harsh penalty, care to expand on that line of thinking?

You didn't mention that upfront, I assumed we were working in a semi-realistic framework. This renders several of the other areas of discussion moot.

In order:

1.) You could definitely do that, I guess, but condoms basically only protect against AIDS, do they not?

2.) Fair enough. I thought it might be a good idea for something relatively common, like HIV. Should people with HIV not be allowed to engage in legalized prostitution if there were a lucrative way to facilitate such?

3.) Most criminal offenses result in the death penalty in my model, it's more economical than imprisonment.

4.) I'm happy to engage you in this discussion based upon current laws concerning adultery, if you like. I was simply explaining why I got on the subject in the first place.

Quote: Mission146

1.) You could definitely do that, I guess, but condoms basically only protect against AIDS, do they not?

Incorrect, condoms can provide protection from STD's including HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), chlamydia, genital herpes, genital warts, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, and syphilis. You can get them through having sex -- vaginal, anal, or oral.

fda.gov

Quote: Mission146

2.) Fair enough. I thought it might be a good idea for something relatively common, like HIV. Should people with HIV not be allowed to engage in legalized prostitution if there were a lucrative way to facilitate such?

Personally, I think the risks outweigh the benefits, but I can see how within a framework where the penalty for transgression is death, this could skew the risk distribution.

Quote: Mission146

3.) Most criminal offenses result in the death penalty in my model, it's more economical than imprisonment.

In the US we've found that LWOP is actually more economical than the death penalty, but your model doesn't sound like it has a lot of wiggle room for appeals.

Quote: Mission146

4.) I'm happy to engage you in this discussion based upon current laws concerning adultery, if you like. I was simply explaining why I got on the subject in the first place.

I think makes it a lot easier to discuss when the possibility of pulling wildly unlikely variations on reality out of nowhere is minimized.

Quote: MonkeyMonkey

Incorrect, condoms can provide protection from STD's including HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), chlamydia, genital herpes, genital warts, gonorrhea, hepatitis B, and syphilis. You can get them through having sex -- vaginal, anal, or oral.

fda.gov


Personally, I think the risks outweigh the benefits, but I can see how within a framework where the penalty for transgression is death, this could skew the risk distribution.


In the US we've found that LWOP is actually more economical than the death penalty, but your model doesn't sound like it has a lot of wiggle room for appeals.


I think makes it a lot easier to discuss when the possibility of pulling wildly unlikely variations on reality out of nowhere is minimized.

1.) Cool.

2.) Exactly, and I'm not sure what the risks would be. The only real risk I see is if a customer claims to have HIV (or whatever the case) when the customer does not. Of course, the customer would have to sign something stating he/she has the disease.

3.) No, you would get one appeal legally required to be adjudicated within three months.

However, I should also mention a higher standard would be used to convict. Specifically, a hung jury is a, "Not guilty," the individual cannot be retried. Juries would consist of eighteen individuals, all of whom would have to be college educated, as well.

4.) That's fine.

Quote: Mission146

What would be great is if it were profitable to have a prostitute specifically because the prostitute has a certain disease, and then customers also having the disease could choose to use the services of that prostitute.

Back in the 1980s I used to wonder if anyone would set up a matching service for AIDS carriers. I think the stumbling point would be that just because both people have it does not make the act any safer, both could get worse infections.

I am surprised the male-brothel thing has not taken off more. As a guess I would say promiscuous gay males have plenty of other options and to be found having gone to one would open lots of blackmail possibilities to those otherwise closeted.

I think it would have been a good idea, and it is true that they could get worse infections, but that is the case with having intercourse with anyone else with AIDS (prostitute or otherwise) and they are certainly free to have sex with infected people who are not prostitutes as it stands now.

I'm not sure why such brothels wouldn't have taken off, but the reason you suggest seems quite possible.

...wait, you're serious.

Let me laugh even harder.

At your continent-wide, centralized totalitarian utopia.

Quote: Mission146

However, I should also mention a higher standard would be used to convict. Specifically, a hung jury is a, "Not guilty," the individual cannot be retried. Juries would consist of eighteen individuals, all of whom would have to be college educated, as well.

I don't see why bother. Is crowding more people together going to make them smarter? What if an individual spoiled with college education refuses death penalty for minor offenses on principle?

Three men who have completed their military service is well enough for any jury. They can also rotate the roles of the prosecutor, the judge and the executioner.


But haven't you considered some leniency for adultery not resulting in inception, like punishing it in kind - with one rape per count of adulterous act, or a month's service in opposite gender's death row if counts can not be enumerated?

Quote: P90

I don't see why bother. Is crowding more people together going to make them smarter? What if an individual spoiled with college education refuses death penalty for minor offenses on principle?

They'd be asked that, why wouldn't someone without a college education potentially do the same thing? In any event, anyone with a Philosophical problem with the death penalty would be automatically excluded.

I'd crowd them together just to make a non-conviction more likely, if I'm going to have the death penalty for the vast majority of felonies, I'd prefer to err on the side of not executing people.

Quote:

But haven't you considered some leniency for adultery not resulting in inception, like punishing it in kind - with one rape per count of adulterous act, or a month's service in opposite gender's death row if counts can not be enumerated?

I have not considered that.

I tend to favor the death penalty for most things because I think it would act as a sufficient deterrent to many crimes. There is some argument as to whether or not it deters people from committing murder, but murder is often a crime of passion, anger or some nefarious scheme by which someone has to die. There are rare cases where someone who commits murder didn't actually mean to kill the other person.

However, take something like the death penalty for second offense DUI. I think that would be a deterrent. The current penalty for DUI is such that someone essentially performs a cost/benefit analysis and decides, "Well, I think I am good enough to drive." I don't think you see as much of that if the cost of a first time offense is never having a driver's license again and a second offense is death. Same thing with armed robbery, burglary, and things of that nature. If the mere act of armed robbery were to result in the death penalty, I doubt if as many people try it. Some people just don't have enough to lose (with the current penalties) to be sufficiently deterred from taking the risk, now they would risk losing their lives.

They tried that in England a few hundred years back. Didn't go so well.

The thing is, beyond a point, most people don't know or care what the penalty is, they just know there is one, and that's either enough or it isn't. DUI is probably punished too leniently (largely because the definition is, depending on jurisdiction, either too strict or unknowable), but when you get to more serious crimes, someone who won't be deterred by a year or three behind bars and a lifelong record probably won't be deterred at all. Punishments other than for the most minor offenses are already meant to short-circuit cost-benefit analysis, and they do; they're scaled to the extent the surrounding world has become disenchanted with the notion of this person's sanctity. (This is also why having every aspect of law micromanaged by a single body up to three thousand miles away is a really bad idea.) An eye for an eye doesn't leave the whole world blind; it keeps them hearing. You may be happy to decorate the brothels with the entrails of horny teenagers, but frankly, that makes me more likely to wonder what rights you should have.

Quote: Mission146

In any event, anyone with a Philosophical problem with the death penalty would be automatically excluded.

Presuming they'd tell you. Going to do deep analysis?
For this to work, you have to limit the selection to people who have already killed others, in military or police service.

Quote: Mission146

I'd crowd them together just to make a non-conviction more likely, if I'm going to have the death penalty for the vast majority of felonies, I'd prefer to err on the side of not executing people.

Then it's "The harshness of our laws is balanced out by their lack of enforcement".

Quote: Mission146

If the mere act of armed robbery were to result in the death penalty, I doubt if as many people try it.

There mere act of armed robbery does result in a death penalty in the states that have it, and in a highly likely self-defense death elsewhere.

If it was an automatic death penalty, I guarantee you that exactly as many people would do it as they do now. Not a single person per century would be deterred. It's already a high risk of death, making the risk higher by a tiny amount doesn't change anything at all.

But there is one thing that it changes. If theft, burglary and armed robbery are all the same, DP, I'm going to try and make sure I'm not caught. If I clear out a home, I'll make sure to check out the bedrooms, smother anyone asleep, then set it on fire. Fewer fingerprints, fewer witnesses, all that.