• Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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          8 months ago

          Billionaires cause infinitely more problems than death sentences.

          I think, though, that it is a simple enough affair for a billionaire to stop being a billionaire, if they are sufficiently motivated to do so.

          If we make “acquiring and retaining a billion dollars” a capital offense, the billionaires will get rid of themselves; we won’t actually have to execute anyone.

          • no banana@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I don’t really think we need to compare them. Death sentences shouldn’t be a thing. Neither should billionaires. Billionaires are human beings, their wealth is a systemic issue we should do something about.

            • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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              8 months ago

              I disagree. It is not a systemic issue. It is a personal failing. They lack the self control, discipline, empathy, and compassion of fully-functional people. They have no internal sense of the harm that they are causing to all of society, and the only external feedback they get is from sycophants hyping them up to commit ever increasing atrocities.

              If there is a systemic failure, it is that we treat them as ordinary decent criminals, protecting them from oppression and discrimination, while ignoring that the only oppression they have ever seen has been the oppression they have perpetrated.

              They should be treated as hostile nations, not criminal defendants.

              • no banana@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                It’s a systemic issue in the fact that the system allows for it to happen. The system shouldn’t nurture such outcomes.

                • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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                  8 months ago

                  I’m not going to blame a system that works for ten thousand people for having been exploited by one person.

                  I’m going to declare that one person a criminal exception, rather than rebuilding the entire system to accommodate him.

                  The threat of the guillotine is the simplest solution to criminal affluence.

    • JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz
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      8 months ago

      I almost agree, as there are only very few crimes, and in absolutely certain circumstances, where I think a death sentence would be appropriate. As an example, cases like Anders Breivik.

      • Ross_audio@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Let’s set the sentence for executing an innocent man to, death.

        The first barrier to the death penalty is to make sure verdicts are right 100% of the time.

        After that you can begin the debate about **whether it’s moral at all.

        • Dojan@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Let’s set the sentence for executing an innocent man to, death.

          There’s no such thing as an innocent billionaire.

          • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            It’s true. America’s newest billionaire is ruthless boss of the Nashville underground, Taylor Swift, leader of the Swifties cartel.

            • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              She didn’t get there by paying the employees of her business empire the share they deserve of the profits they generated for her. If she had, she wouldn’t be a billionaire.

              That doesn’t even touch on the issues of constant private jets around the world, owning multiple homes, etc.

        • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          You can’t be certain 100% of the time, so one has to accept there will be instances of injustice.

          Or perserve it for instances where it is 100% certain only (video evidence, tons of eyewitnesses). I don’t care which personally, but latter is preferred.

          What I don’t want is a drawn out affair where it costs more to execute them than to keep them alive.

          When people deserve to die, they should be killed with haste, so we can forget they ever existed and move on. I’m not a fan of the slow torturous rot of keeping them alive until they die of natural causes part of the justice system we have come to embrace in western society.

          To be fair, I’m focused more on other crimes than the one this article is about. But anything that would end up being the rest of a person’s life, I’m okay with just ending prematurely. I’m morally flexible in this regard.

      • sepulcher@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        I agree, but not for financial crimes.

        She’s essentially being executed for screwing over, you guessed it, investors.

        That’s fucked up. I’d rather execute the investors.

        • Zyrxil@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          It’s a bank not a hedge fund. The investors would be the regular people that made deposits- you know, the victims of the fraud. So your knee jerk reaction is “investors bad” without thinking about anything?