JohnBonaccorsi comments on The Amanda Knox Test: How an Hour on the Internet Beats a Year in the Courtroom - Less Wrong

42 Post author: komponisto 13 December 2009 04:16AM

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Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 02 February 2014 11:15:20PM -2 points [-]

I also doubt that criminalisation would change much.

It wouldn't hurt.

I'm also not sure what's supposed to be so extremely antisocial about it. It's not like the police will surely catch the responsible party if only you don't make that false confession to get a more lenient sentence.

Presumably, a false confession increases the likelihood that a case will be erroneously closed. That, in my estimation, makes it extremely antisocial, not least because it increases the likelihood that a criminal is not only at large but is unrecognized as such. Every person is obliged to avoid giving his or her fellow human beings false information about crime.

Comment author: Creutzer 02 February 2014 11:34:11PM * 2 points [-]

It wouldn't hurt.

Right, because the people making false confessions aren't under enough psychological pressure already...

That, in my estimation, makes it extremely antisocial

Can you give me an example of what you consider to be a mildly antisocial act?

Every person is obliged to avoid giving his or her fellow human beings false information about crime.

At arbitrary costs to themselves... ?

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi comment score below threshold [+] (4 children)

Comment author: Creutzer 03 February 2014 01:10:18AM * 1 point [-]

Are you a neurological outlier in some respect so that you could not grasp the implications of my question, or are you just being an annoyingly uncooperative communicator? By the way, I don't believe for your claim about thousands for a split-second. I wouldn't even believe it if you had said "hundreds". I'll be impressed if you manage in reasonable time for "tens".

Comment author: Aleksander 03 February 2014 01:16:27AM 3 points [-]

I think he answered your question by providing an example on the spot.

Comment author: Creutzer 03 February 2014 01:18:57AM * 0 points [-]

I had failed to generate this as a hypothesis, but now that you bring it up, it makes the second possibility appear much more likely since it provides a possible motivation for the non-cooperativity. (This looks a bit like the conjunction fallacy, but it's not really because possibilities that I had simply failed to think of play a role here...)

Comment author: JohnBonaccorsi 03 February 2014 01:32:38AM -2 points [-]

I responded to what I regarded as a ridiculous question. I've said enough to indicate my view of the seriousness of false confession. Do you really find it difficult to believe I could come up with countless examples of behavior that, say, you and I would agree is mildly antisocial--my neighbor's failure to trim weeds that were partly obstructing our block's common driveway, for one? You're being pointless.

JohnBonaccorsi comments on The Amanda Knox Test: How an Hour on the Internet Beats a Year in the Courtroom - Less Wrong

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