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Comment by lotsofpulp | Hacker News Reader

The government knows the executives at MoviePass committed theft, but we will not see any criminal charges filed.

I don't think this necessarily precludes formal criminal charges. Even the dissenting opinion was like "this is clearly a crime, but outside of the FTC's authority".

It is a prediction based on how many times I see SEC/FTC/FCC/FAA/other government agency report on misdeeds, but it never results in any criminal charges against any person. The responsible parties are never even named, effectively making it so all these investigations and reports do not result in the slightest bit of deterrent.

Another even better example was linked in another comment in this thread:

https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/stein-waivers-granted-dis...

This is more of a failure on the justice department. Federal regulators are not prosecutors and it's probably for the best that they don't have the authority to lock people up. But it certainly feels like we don't have enough criminal law on the books for executive malfeasance.

This case may be a bit different though - they apparently left a pretty big paper trail:

> When Lowe and Farnsworth presented the disruption program to other executives of Respondent MoviePass, one executive warned that the password disruption program “would be targeting all of our heavy users” and that “there is a high risk this would catch the FTC’s attention (and State AG’s attention) and could reinvigorate their questioning of MoviePass, this time from a Consumer Protection standpoint.” (Emphasis in original).

> Another executive agreed, warning of “FTC Fears: All [the other MoviePass executive’s] notes about FTC and PR [public relations] fire are my main concerns as I think the PR backlash will flame the FTC stuff.” (Emphasis in original).

Crime is a social construct.

edit: A poor person who steals is charged. A rich person who steals behind the facade of a company is not. We call the poor person a criminal. It's entirely divorced from an actual moral framework, but simply constructed. I was agreeing with the commenter I replied to.

So are criminal charges.

So are movies.

Movies are real physical artifacts. Calling them a social construct is beyond specious.

I was just joining the thread

And the entire concept of ownership.

It's actually quite unbelievable how there can be societies that do have the concept of a death sentence, but don't have the concept of a property nullification sentence. "You may live, but you have to start at zero and any obligation someone might have to you is nullified". The inverse of bankruptcy, basically.

That's cause this idea is completely immoral

Moreso than the death penalty, in your opinion?

I don't understand why you are getting downvoted. When people say they support "Law and order" they are not talking about all crime—they are not referring to fraud or market manipulation for example (white collar crime). They are referring to enforcing laws on just a certain subset of society.

> They are referring to enforcing laws on just a certain subset of society.

Or enforcing a certain subset of laws on all society.

And it's not just the "bigbiz-friendly" reds, it's also the blues with their "lets not punish non-violent crime". The fact is laws in the US (and elsewhere) are written, but unevenly enforced, as such what remains is quibbling over priority. I want to see more punishments for white collar crime, but I also want to see less leniency for repeated blue-collar crime too.

The difference being "the blues" have never pretended to be the party of law and order.

Because, as you noted, the "bigbiz-friendly reds" do not actually support law and order either, the term "law and order" is in reality a dogwhistle.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_whistle_(politics)

> the term "law and order" is in reality a dogwhistle

funny that you brought it up then. You also provided a WP article to define "dog whistle", but nothing supporting "reds do not actually support law and order" which seems the crux of you argument.

Less leniency? "Blue-collar crime" in the US carries some of the most draconian penalties of any developed nation.

Some of, as in, cherry-picked tails. It has some unreasonably selectively-lenient places too, Just ask Seattle.

You also have to either take liberties with either "developed", or with "draconian", given some of the Asian and middle-eastern developed nations.

I think if I'd instead written "This is what people mean when they say 'Crime is a social construct'" it wouldn't have been downvoted from the outset. "X is a social construct" is heavily associated with a certain viewpoint that HN tends to reject. But I quite like the symbolism of being downvoted "superficially" until I edited to explain in more detail.

I avoid progressive jargon when talking on HN. It's actually kind of a useful exercise to be able to address the concepts directly but concisely without the vocabulary.

It does mean I lose access to a lot of the background support. Jargon, in every field, brings in a whole wealth of connected concepts and helps you communicate precisely. But some words get "skunked" (overloaded with confusing, contradictory, or pejorative meanings), and I avoid them when I think I won't be understood.

I don't fool myself into thinking I'm actually persuading anybody. The best I can hope for is a vague notion that somebody might remember that they read something once. And that works best if I'm not automatically downvoted -- which I know I will be if some people reject it out of hand.

Simplistic. A poor person is not usually trusted, so their thefts are often more egregious.

I disagree with the characterization that MoviePass’ theft is less egregious than a poor person’s theft, such as of a physical item.

MoviePass’ theft contributes to a weakening of trust amongst everyone in society, which is a much more difficult problem to address than theft of physical goods.

Not that society should be lenient on either.

If I steal an item I deprive a person of that item. But the manner in which it is stolen can also cause damage, e.g. breaking and entering. People in positions of trust are able to steal with minimal damage caused by the method of theft itself.

> a weakening of trust amongst everyone in society

That's a very vague accusation, and can apply to nearly anything immoral. MP should return any money due, have it's credit score damaged, and punished for wilful fraud - but I wouldn't compare it to violent theft, or B&E.

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