Punishing future crimes

Bongo

Here's an edited version of a puzzle from the book "Chuck Klosterman four" by Chuck Klosterman.

It is 1933. Somehow you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Adolf Hitler's wallet. The theft will not effect his rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty dollars and completely ruin his evening. You don't need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing the crime are negligible. Do you do it?

When should you punish someone for a crime they will commit in the future? Discuss.

Here's an edited version of a puzzle from the book "Chuck Klosterman four" by Chuck Klosterman.

It is 1933. Somehow you find yourself in a position where you can effortlessly steal Adolf Hitler's wallet. The theft will not effect his rise to power, the nature of WW2, or the Holocaust. There is no important identification in the wallet, but the act will cost Hitler forty dollars and completely ruin his evening. You don't need the money. The odds that you will be caught committing the crime are negligible. Do you do it?

When should you punish someone for a crime they will commit in the future? Discuss.

If it appears to be happening "for no reason", most people will infer a much more plausible causal explanation than time-traveling punishment — for instance, that this type of hardship contributes to people becoming criminals.

Wasn't there some Twilight Zone episode about this, where a Jewish time traveller used a mind-control device to torment Hitler, which caused his anti-semitism?

1Bongo15y

Of course it wouldn't be time travel. People who were especially good at predicting other people's life paths would just do so and punish accordingly, or something. Edit: I accept your point that future consequences don't suffice to justify time-travelling punishment.

10Dorikka15y

Upvoted. If my wallet is stolen, there has got to be an amazing amount of evidence before the hypothesis 'a time traveler is punishing me for future crimes' would even enter my consciousness. I think that this actually might have an Occam prior low enough that I should start seriously doubting my own sanity before I assign a significant probability to it.

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