PROJET AUTOBLOG


Richard Stallman's Political Notes

Site original : Richard Stallman's Political Notes

⇐ retour index

Europe's repressive right-wing candidates

jeudi 8 décembre 2016 à 01:00

Europe is in danger of choosing the not-quite-extreme repressive right wing as a lesser evil than the extreme repressive right wing.

Both of them, like Trump, scapegoat immigrants for economic setbacks that most people experience as a consequence of concentration of wealth, and neither one proposes to end that concentration process.

Relations between US and UN strained

jeudi 8 décembre 2016 à 01:00

Relations Between US And UN Strained over Afghanistan War Reports.

Torture of suspects by Fiji thugs

jeudi 8 décembre 2016 à 01:00

Amnesty International says Fiji's thugs torture suspects, even kill them.

Boycott of Fyffes melons

jeudi 8 décembre 2016 à 01:00

Melon pickers in Honduras ask people to boycott Fyffes melons because the company blacklists those that join a union.

Dangerous drivers who kill

mercredi 7 décembre 2016 à 01:00

The United Kingdom plans to sentence drivers to life in prison if they kill someone by driving while speeding or holding a phone, or while drunk, etc.

If the goal is to discourage drivers from doing those dangerous things, this approach is big on harshness but low on effectiveness. Only a tiny fraction of people that today drive speeding, holding a phone, or drunk, will cause actual harm and be punished for it. The rest tell themselves, "Nothing will go wrong", so they don't worry about what the penalty would be if something did go wrong.
The effective way to discourage those dangerous behaviors is to apply a small punishment more often. If 10% of the people who did one of these things on any given day were sentenced to one night in jail, almost all of them would soon learn not to do it any more. Even 1% might be enough, since everyone would know people who were caught.