Re: Death Penalty Article
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A lot of people seemed to be getting tripped up by the Horrbleness points.
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Count me in the bunch getting "tripped up" by the Horribleness Points. For instance, you assign 50 HPs to send a murderer back on to the streets, but 600 HPs to giving an innocent man the needle. But what if the murderer we wrongly set free kills another 15 innocent people? Then wouldn't that be a far greater mistake?
Murderers who are unlikely to be repeat offenders should be assigned fewer HPs than giving an innocent person the death penalty, but murderers who are likely to be repeat offenders should be given more HPs than those innocents.
As you point out, the actual numbers you assigned are arbitrary, but my point is that there would be a GREAT deal of variables to consider in order to come up with reasonable numbers to determine the probablilities that would be in society's best interests. I do not think you have considered all of them.
Otherwise, it's an interesting idea you propose. As an aside, I would enjoy one (and probably only one) off-topic article like this per month.
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