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gwern comments on A Story of Kings and Spies - Less Wrong
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Comments (33)
I don't think that's right.
If he's wrong he pays 1000 coins. If he's guilty of treason he gets executed (or whatever). Nothing in the story suggests to me that the king is giving some sort of immunity even if Orin was deliberately misleading.
As I pointed out, that's not possible to find. Also, I think 'treason' usually only applies to foreigners.
I'm confused. I'm sure it's not possible to determine for certain whether Orin is guilty of treason, but whyever should it be impossible to know, say, beyond reasonable doubt?
Quite the reverse, I think. E.g., definition 2a in the OED says
(Definition 1a is "The action of betraying; betrayal of the trust undertaken by or reposed in any one; breach of faith, treacherous action, treachery." which is very broad and includes 2a as a special case. 1b is the very special case "treason of the clerks == trahison des clercs".)
How would you do that in practice? Even if you had a way to do that, how would you stop Orin from, say, going back to his patron and never leaving his native country again and enjoying the fruits of a grateful country's gratitude? There's just tons and tons of holes to this whole scenario which is why it was a bad idea if it wasn't intended to be a commentary on existential risk.
Yes, my bad. I meant to write 'only applies to citizens'. As a foreigner, Orin may be chargeable with things like espionage, but 'treason' makes little sense.
Search his house for incriminating correspondence. Talk to his bank manager and find out whether he's had a surprising influx of money recently. (If so, then in court you can ask Orin to explain where it came from; if it was really a bribe from a foreign enemy, he'll have to make up something that you may be able to refute.) Ask his neighbours whether unexpected people have been seen going in and out of his house. (If so, then maybe their descriptions match up to those of known foreign agents. Or their conversation might have been overheard.) All the same sorts of things you do when investigating any alleged crime. If a sufficient quantity of evidence of malfeasance piles up, you're done.
In any case, we seem to have shifted from "obviously the king was granting Orin immunity from prosecution for treason" to "of course it might be difficult to convict him of treason if guilty". Which, yes, it might. (So I should have said: "If he's found guilty of treason he gets executed (or whatever)"; my apologies for the inexactitude.)
He's already in custody.
I thought it obviously was intended to be a commentary on existential risk.
[EDITED to add: but I now see that the author has specifically said it wasn't. Oh well.]
I'm confused again. In the story, Orin isn't a foreigner, he's a citizen of the Kingdom under discussion. At least, there's every indication he is and none he isn't that I can see.
[EDITED shortly after posting, to make it clearer that the point of the evidence-gathering would be the aggregate evidence, not that you necessarily look for a single smoking gun, and to clarify the nature of some of the possible evidence.]