> The claim was a descriptive one: "This policy has this bad side effect."
That claim is provably false. I explained why, using examples.
> You seem to have taken it as a prescriptive one: "We should do the exact opposite of this policy, as hard as we can."
That cannot possibly be concluded from what I said.
My claim is that when it's proven that people lie (i.e. fraudster, as I said), ignoring those lies is corrupting the justice system.
The thing is, perjury is a criminal offence. I don't think you'd disagree.
The mistake you're making is assuming that because I say some people are proven to lie, you think I'm claiming that all people lie. That's a logical fallacy, and basically assumes I'm an asshole or an idiot.
Your claim seems to be that we should never prosecute liars, because it will dissuade real victims from coming forward. I think that claim is horrific, for reasons I explained.
To counter your next comment.. no, I don't think claimants should be charged when their claims cannot be proven to be true. Again, making an unsubstantiated claim is not legally perjury, and is not a criminal offence.
My claim is that provably false claims should be punished.
I'm not interested in talking about your claim. I'm talking about how you replied to someone else's claim.
> That claim is provably false. I explained why, using examples.
No you didn't. You gave some examples where the proposed policy would not have the side effect. You didn't show that it would never have the side effect.
> That cannot possibly be concluded from what I said.
"The exact opposite of this policy", in context, would be letting people off for false accusations. Why were you talking about "the idea that those people should be let off" if you agree that peteretep never suggested letting people off?
> You didn't show that it would never have the side effect.
I used the example of insurance fraud. Please pay attention.
Do we prosecute insurance fraud? Yes. Do such prosecutions dissuade victims from making real claims? No.
Or maybe you think that sexual assault is somehow magic. That prosecuting proven fraudsters in that case will somehow dissuade real victims from making claims. If so, you have to prove your position.
I've already proven that no such correlation exists in other situations.
> Why were you talking about "the idea that those people should be let off" if you agree that peteretep never suggested letting people off?
He did implicitly. If he's against charging fraudsters (for whatever reason), he's for letting them off.
Dropping the "proven" thread because it's not what I want to focus on.
> Or maybe you think
I'm deliberately avoiding taking an object-level position.
> If he's against charging fraudsters
You're still turning a descriptive statement into a prescriptive one. peteretep did not advocate any policy in the comment you replied to. Among the policies he did not advocate is "we should never charge any fraudster". Another policy he did not advocate is "we should be extremely careful which fraudsters we prosecute, to avoid of chilling effects".
He did not advocate a policy, but you took his comment as advocating an extreme policy.
> He did not advocate a policy, but you took his comment as advocating an extreme policy.
That's pedantically true, and more honestly false.
Are you honestly going to claim that his description of "putting off victims" advocates for no position? That's ridiculous. He explicitly said ... which is generally thought to be not a good thing.
Are you next going to claim that he thinks putting off victims is not a good thing... but he isn't really advocating against punishing fraudsters even if it "puts off" victims?
And this is all ignoring the point that his claim was false.
Honestly, I find this nit-picking to be utterly ludicrous, to the point of irrational.
> Are you honestly going to claim that his description of "putting off victims" advocates for no position?
No specific policy, certainly. There are many policies consistent with what he said. I gave one already; another would be we should punish false accusations of sexual assault, but not as severely as sexual assault itself.
But you leapt to the most indefensible one. And you didn't even seem to notice that you were making this leap. I don't think it's nitpicking of me to point this out.
> His position was that any punishment of false claims was "putting off" victims from making real claims.
Not true. He was replying to a post that said "False accusations should be punished with the same penalty as the accuser tried to put upon the innocent." He said "This has the side-effect..." The referent of "this" is clearly not "any punishment of false claims".
And even if true, that is still not a policy proposal. I've given two alternative interpretations of the original comment. Here's a third: I have no particular policy proposal myself, but I wonder whether you've thought through the implications of yours?
> downvotes
Not that it matters, but right now my comments are all upvoted/neutral.
> Your insistence on taking me at an extreme position
I don't think we disagree on what your position is? We just disagree about whether or not you're correct.
That is, I'm accusing you of accusing peteretep of making a specific policy proposal. You insist that your accusation is correct. So I don't think I'm taking you at a position that you'd call extreme; I think I'm taking you at a position that you actually openly hold. If you disagree then we're wildly talking past each other.
> I don't think we disagree on what your position is?
Yes, we do. Go back and read the history. I started off with a particular position, that you then misconstrued, and mis-characterized.
> I think I'm taking you at a position that you actually openly hold
No, you're not. You've managed to twist what I say, and my defense of my position, to an extreme position.
My position is that people should be punished for breaking the law. And, that saying such punishment (whatever the form) somehow "puts off" innocent people from making claims is wrong.
So I think I've been pretty clear that I've been taking about what peteretep originally said versus what you think he originally said. E.g. "I'm accusing you of accusing peteretep of..."
And I think you've been pretty explicitly talking about what he originally said. E.g. "His position was that..."
But now you seem to be denying that you said anything about what he originally said, or you seem to think that what you said about what he said isn't relevant, or... I don't know. Your comment does not make sense to me. All I can think is that you seem to be mixing meta-levels.
Anyway, I'm not exactly proud of how easily I get sucked into crap like this, so I'm going to try to tap out after this comment.
> My position is that people should be punished for breaking the law. And, that saying such punishment (whatever the form) somehow "puts off" innocent people from making claims is wrong.
So long as enforcement does not perfectly avoid false positives even in beginning prosecution (even if no false convictions occur) it increases the expected cost of a true report, and is a rational disincentive.
It may be that the particular punishment regime minimizes this cost and/or has benefits that offset the cost, but it's implausible that any real punishment scheme could avoid it altogether.
You seem to have taken it as a prescriptive one: "We should do the exact opposite of this policy, as hard as we can."