Comment by hiAndrewQuinn
5 days ago
This is a phenomenal application of how fine-based bounties can be used to rapidly improve compliance with the law. Incredible work. I would absolutely use this if I lived in NYC; I'll recommend it to my friends there.
>This is a phenomenal application of how fine-based bounties can be used to rapidly improve compliance with the law.
This type of thing can get out of hand quickly. Without me giving controversial examples, just imagine for yourself the types of things that different states can make a crime, add a fine, then offer to give other citizens part or all of that fine if they turn in others. After that, think of how unscrupulous businesses could use it against competition.
Compliance with the law is a separate issue from the contents of the law. If switching to a fine-based bounty system like this suddenly causes an uproar over a given law, then I submit the proper thing is to look over that law and perhaps tear it down. Any "law" that people put up with because it isn't enforced 9 times out of 10 is little more than a tax upon those too honest to get away with it.
As for businesses using it against one another in competition: Same deal, I think that's an excellent thing. If this idling law causes NYC businesses to shift en masse to faster loading and unloading practices because their competitors are watching them like hawks, I don't think that's a bad thing.
>Compliance with the law is a separate issue from the contents of the law.
Agree. More of my thought is what happens when everyone is incentivized with money to spy on everyone else? How can you misuse this as a government? How can unscrupulous businesses misuse this?
>If switching to a fine-based bounty system like this suddenly causes an uproar over a given law, then I submit the proper thing is to look over that law and perhaps tear it down.
I would submit that there is the danger that people might want to keep a bad law if they continue to make money by snitching. In fact, money is the exact wrong incentive for this sort of thing.
>Any "law" that people put up with because it isn't enforced 9 times out of 10 is little more than a tax upon those too honest to get away with it.
Think a little harder and see if you can imagine why a law that isn't strongly enforced still might exist.
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spoken like a person who’s never had to load/unload a truck before
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Love the app; will use.
Scared of MAGA targeting brown people with this type of social enforcement
Compliance with the law is a separate issue from the contents of the law.
Not really. If perfect, ubiquitious enforcement were possible, our laws would probably look very different.
> just imagine for yourself the types of things that different states can make a crime, add a fine, then offer to give other citizens part or all of that fine if they turn in others
You mean if a red state (like Texas) potentially handing out bounties for snitching on abortions? Texas already passed that law in 2022[1]. We are already way down the slippery slope you alluded.
1. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/11/1107741175/texas-abortion-bou...
Yeah, this is the worrying bit. US constitutional law only seems to restrict the government, so they can delegate it to private actors who can then do unconstitutional things. Something similar happened with the book-objecting laws.
You're actually better off if it's a crime because then you can force the issue to go through a court, be made public record, etc.
A lot of civil penalties carry fines in excess of what you get for a first offense for a violent but not professional criminality type crime. It's absolutely insane. NYC's idling laws are just the tip of the iceberg in this regard. And the fact that these are "civil" penalties means the due process requirements are basically nil and when they do exist (like they do for traffic infractions) they basically only exist so far as they need to to keep the racket going.
Like you'd be hard pressed to wind up with tens of thousands of of fines doing actual criminal stuff, they'd just throw you in jail. But a government official can notice (or be tipped off to) some violation then go look back at their info sources and decide unilaterally when the violation started and fine you for presumed months of violation and you often have no recourse but to sue.
One needn't imagine. Texas's strange attempt to twist civil law such that providing or facilitating an abortion is an injury to anyone who claims it is (and is thus a cause of action where the "injured" person can sue the person providing or facilitating the abortion) has taken this discussion out of the theoretical. Regardless of where you stand on whether abortion should be allowed, the idea that anyone who performs one is liable to the first person to notice that they did is an intentional perversion of civil law.
Or if you need to avoid the a-word because of the particular fruit that falls from that tree when shaken, just look at predatory towing.
I think an important wake-up call is that bounties now exist in an ecosystem where people who would normally be indifferent to wanting/knowing how to collect bounties, could be driven by techniques from the predatory-gambling-app world into becoming gamified enforcers.
We’re already sliding down the slope, to be sure, but this is an acceleration that we should expect with our eyes wide open.
Yes, and? It's a good thing to get crimes reported more often, faster, and with more and higher quality evidence. (That last statement doesn't directly follow from bounties in the short term, but it does once you start considering the competitive pressures crime detectors face in such a market.)
You can run a thought experiment to confirm this. Suppose 1/2 of all crimes committed in your area currently get reported. You are offered the option to move to two new places, identical in every way to your starting point, except New Town A has 3/4 of the crimes committed get reported*. New Town B has only 1/4 of the crimes committed get reported. Do you move? Where to?
The important thing to notice is less that New Town A seems like a pretty good deal, than that New Town B seems like a really bad one. Plenty of people would move to New Town A for the obvious additional security. Some of people would elect to stay, for reasons like New Town A isn't guaranteed to be exactly like where you currently are into the future, and home is home. But almost nobody would move to New Town B. The people who would jump for joy at moving to New Town B may even be criminals themselves trying to escape charges or just hedge their futures.
* For the sake of completeness, you can consider this property preserved across different types of crime. E.g. if 90% of homicides get reported in your current locale, 95% do in New Town A, and only 45% in New Town B do. If 20% of money laundering schemes get reported, 60% do in New Town A, and 10% in New Town B. Etc. The general idea of everything being more or less detectable is more important than the specific numbers.
Yeah, like the ADA for example. We should not have started down that slippery slope. Repeal the ADA!
Reminds me a snitchers during communist regime in our country. There was a lot of those who report to STB (state security, like KGB) all kind of misbehaving of citizens that could threat a state.
I'm curious, when there will be apps to report citizens that threat democracy. Like those who wear red hat. Or sleepong on street. Or make weird talks at home...
I wish it was was more common around the world. Not just with parking though, but everything in the context of cars.
Like letting the police install a permanent speed trap on your property or even pay for the privilege of them doing so. I'd bet that'd curb a lot of speeding in short order
There's no need for violence. In fact, the capital outlay would be inefficient.
If you want to curb speeding, the solution looks much the same: Pay reporters some portion of the fines collected from the speeder. You will very quickly see a cottage industry of Internet connected dashcams and on-board AI solutions spring up, because it's practically free money if you drive safely yourself for long enough. Pretty soon nobody will be speeding, simply because you never know who or what is watching.
This is a set of economic-legal policies I've been writing about here and there for a long time. It's great stuff.
Peasant bounty hunting really concludes the picture of a nation slowly failing under applause and cheers.
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>There's no need for violence.
Then what what underpins the fines?
Uh, did someone advocate for violence?
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“More Dunkin”? Is that an auto correct type for “more common”?
Oof, yes. I edited it
There always has been some kind of problem with any snitching app there was. I don't see how this will be different. I don't think it will see broad adoption, but there will be "power users", who usually pose a problem as well.
I hate people leaving cars idling, but I don't like any form of bounty app. This is the wrong kind of law enforcement.
What's the problem? Why is this the wrong kind of law enforcement?
Now in addition to hoping the police aren't corrupt, we have to hope this guy is not corrupt, and that everyone who uses his system isn't corrupt. Not great (but our starting point wasn't great, either).
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Because it loses nuance. If it was a meat truck trying to maintain temperature of the items while being stuck in a delivery paper work - now potentially being fined for keeping the meat at right temp!
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