Hacker News Reader

Comment by venus | Hacker News Reader

Fair enough. Good advice.

I'm trying not to come across as some pro-authoritarianism masochist in this thread but am I really alone in thinking that there's some merit in deciding a set of laws, then enforcing them?

Overstay your visa? Is that really a minor crime? Does that happen by accident? When was the last time you "accidentally" stayed more than 90 days in a foreign country?

In my country, Australia, you'd be "punished" by being flown home at our expense. Wow. What a deterrent. That'll stop them .. er, using the same passport the next time they try.

There are a lot of things to love about western society but the blind adherence to this 1970s "never harm the child" ideology is fucking crap. Corporal punishment works. It's as simple as that. We have dispensed with it in western culture - without an effective alternative - to our loss.

View on HN

Are you familiar with what caning, as performed as intended in Singapore, actually entails? It is not merely the infliction of pain, not some glorified form of spanking, but rather the infliction of bodily injury so severe that it requires immediate medical attention. It is barbaric, there is no nicer way to put it. Any reasonable human would consider it torture.

Suggesting that it could ever be a suitable punishment for violating the terms of a visa is ludicrous.

If that is the sort of thing that you want to buy into, then I guess all I can say is that the rest of western society is better off without your perspective.

You exaggerate. It's not a slap on the wrist, no, but calling it torture is a very long stretch indeed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore#Medical_tre...

It is torture. It would be in clear violation of United Nations Convention Against Torture, but Singapore has not signed that.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=3c9_1304013159

Tell you what, if you think that isn't torture, then you go get caned. If you can tell me it isn't torture afterwards, provided you are not in shock, then I'll take it all back. But if not, then I get to watch you attempt to cram your apologetics up your ruined ass.

> Tell you what, if you think that isn't torture, then you go get caned

Yeah man. Why don't you say "Tell you what, if you think prison isn't inhumane, you go spend 25 years in prison"

Way to demand an unreasonable precondition to progress in an argument. Is there a name for this fallacy?

Anyway, that video is hard to watch, and I would be sympathetic to an appeal to reduce cane size and weight.

> Way to demand an unreasonable precondition to progress in an argument. Is there a name for this fallacy?

I don't know if it has an official name. I call it the "Jury Fallacy." The Jury Fallacy says that, to have the right to express an opinion or form a judgment about some behavior, you must have personally experienced, or taken part in, that behavior. Which would mean that, to serve on a jury in a murder trial, you must be a murderer. But it's neither true nor sensible -- to qualify for a jury, to be able to draw a conclusion, all you need is to be competent to evaluate evidence.

So ... the "Jury Fallacy."

Thanks for the reply. That's a good name, although I'd extend it to the "Jury of Murderers Fallacy".

I think your example is subtly different though, and is similar to what I think of as the "You Don't Know What It's Like Fallacy". So named because of its typical use when criticising or commenting on X: "How dare you. You don't know what it's like to be X". X being any group you care to name from Atheists to Zoophiles. Or, in your example, murderers.

This case is slightly different, since the fallacy is to claim that you cannot criticise A, where A is an act, process or tradition, unless you have a personal connection or experience with A. If I had used this fallacy against my adversary, I could perhaps have claimed that he has no right to criticise the Singaporean justice system since he is not Singaporean, or that he has no standing to criticise because he has not been a victim of violent crime.

Personal Experience Fallacy? Personal Connection Fallacy? Outsider Fallacy? Insider Fallacy? I'll think about this.

What the hell is your definition of torture, if that doesn't fit it?

One of my coworkers had an off by one error when booking a return flight and overstayed his visa by a day (not in Singapore). So yes, it happens by accident. The idea that he should be caned as a result is ludicrous.

You only get caned if you overstay by more than 90 days in Singapore.

Oh well then that totally makes it okay.

Just correcting the misinformation that you can get caned by overstaying for a single day...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com