Slashdot Mirror
The Economics of Executing Virus Writers
applemasker writes "Slate.com has an article titled Feed The Worms Who Write Worms to the Worms which argues based on economic theory (and somewhat tongue-in-cheek) that it is a 'better investment' to execute the creators of worms, virus and trojan authors, than murderers. Anyone who has tried to resurrect a network or computer after a nasty infection may agree. Although the author does not seriously argue for capital punishment for the script kiddies, it does raise some interesting issues about how much 'value' society puts on certain types of harm and the author's view of a government's role in protecting us from it."
If cost-effectiveness ruled us, we'd quickly euthanize all with Alzheimers, mental and emotional disabilities not to mention those with chronic addictions like tobacco, heroin etc. -- they just COST too much.
Because casualties tie up needed resources on the battlefield, all wounded (both sides) would be killed.
This would be cognitive Darwinism at its most extreme -- eliminate the ineffective and inefficient. So what if we lose a Hawking here or there.
OTOH, this has been tried before: By the Third Reich and through the sterilization of "mental defectives" in the U.S. in the first few decades of the last century.
The decision to extend MERCY, to make a decision to be compassionate in the face of raw efficiency is the essence of what makes us human.
Society has a right to protect itself, but there are better ways of doing it than checking our humanity at the door.
and people who still insist on making lame "imagine a beowolf cluster" and "I, for one, welcome our new overlords."