> The other billionaire is Trump, of course.
I understood that you were referring to Trump. I was (and still am) uncertain if you were referring to Paul Graham as the (other) "other billionaire", or whether this role was being played by a third party. I haven't previously seen Paul referred to as a billionaire on this site, although I suppose he might be one.
> For example, switching to the Japanese criminal justice system:
Whether a good or bad idea, I don't think there is a reasonable mechanism for switching our justice system in a wholesale manner. Alex Kozinsky (a US 9th circuit judge) has an excellent paper (mentioned in another comment and previously discussed here) on possible ways to improve rather than replace the system:
http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/2015/06/Kozinski_Prefa... > Judging by comparative crime rates, this would probably
> save 10,000 to 15,000 innocent lives per year.
There is a great deal of confounding between societal norms and criminal behavior. I'd expect (for example) that if we somehow transplanted the US system to Japan, that crime rates would remain low. I don't know what the effect would be if we somehow switched the US to a Japanese system of justice while leaving the other elements of US society in place.
> Of course, it would be a reform in more or less exactly the
> opposite direction than you and everyone on this thread is
> suggesting. That's why I posted this under a throwaway.
I think you underestimate the degree of diversity of opinion on HN, and that your sense of "you and everyone" is misguided. Consider your own example of serving on a jury: the visible average opinion may not adequately reflect the individual views. I'm also surprised that you would feel that posting this under a throwaway account is necessary.
> Which raises the question: if minimizing the number of
> innocent lives taken unjustly isn't the source of the
> general concern for Glossip, what is?
I don't have a particular concern for Glossip, and had not heard of him before reading the parent article and the counter-article that you posted (which I appreciated). My concern is not for preserving the lives of murderers (if they are) but for preserving societal faith in the expectation of an impartial and fair system of justice.
Having such an expectation is today commonly considered naivetee, but I think a lot of the progress made in America in previous generations was because there was a belief that such a system was possible. I'd like to try to restore some of that faith, and avoiding high profile miscarriages of justice (I don't know if this is one) is an important part of that restoration.