Which is worse?

[Flip McWho]

Yeah especially with the whole slashing of the drink thingy the water would run into the desert and evaporate leaving no trace of the poison. Expect maybe in some form of residue on the patch of sand, maybe, not sure if this is possible. Well the slasher it would depend on whether there was intent or not. But again, no witnesses, no evidence, unless they found the knife that did the slashing and it happened to contain some water bag fibres on the blade somewhere.

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Sava
Flubber: you are talking about in principle... I am talking about reality... there is not enough evidence to get a conviction... the victim died, this is in the desert, there are no witnesses

so both guys will go free

Sava

unless you assume that the "facts" stated can be proven, the question is nonsensical. Its always easy to say that "such and such can't be proven" but I don't think that was the intent of the hypothetical.

Since it would be onerous in the extreme to expect people to conduct a full trial of the hypothetical, to weigh all the evidence, I'll stick with my approach

[Sava]

Originally posted by Flubber


Sava

unless you assume that the "facts" stated can be proven, the question is nonsensical. Its always easy to say that "such and such can't be proven" but I don't think that was the intent of the hypothetical.

Since it would be onerous in the extreme to expect people to conduct a full trial of the hypothetical, to weigh all the evidence, I'll stick with my approach

sorry, you can live in your fantasy world

I live in a place called the real world



where ADA Jack McCoy deals with facts and evidence... not conjecture and hypotheses



In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two seperate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate the crime, and the district attorneys who prosecute the offenders. These are their stories.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Smiley
Plagiarism, which has its roots in laziness towards doing good research, has low consequences for most people, but scales with the amount of power the person has. Case in point: current Iraq war.

(Un)fortunately, His Toniness was quickly found copying stuff off the Internets.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Sava
plus, if those two guys can get in the desert to poison and slash the water pouch and escape, why can't the victim get out of the desert?

Because they travel at night?

[Sava]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Because they travel at night?

well, I wasn't thinking about that...

but I suppose...

[Drogue]

Re: Which is worse?

Originally posted by Sava
Kuci maintains that in choosing a political candidate, he thinks plagiarism is a far worse offense than drunk driving. And that such an offense reveals more about a person's character than drunken driving.

I agree completely with that. For a political candidate, plagiarism is worse, as people have to actively, consciously be dishonest. Drink driving has far worse effects, but it's a matter of negligence, not necessarily of character.

Drink driving is worse to do, as it's more dangerous. But given two political candidates with the same background, save one has been drink driving before and the other plagiarises, I'd pick the former.

What does that mean I should vote for on the poll?

[Stuie]

What Drogue said.

[Ming]

Sava... since Jack Waterston took over as Asst. D.A. Jack McCoy, they should make a change...


In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two seperate yet equally important groups: the police who investigate the crime, and the district attorneys who end up making deals with the offenders. These are their stories.

[Sikander]

Re: Re: Which is worse?

Originally posted by Drogue

I agree completely with that. For a political candidate, plagiarism is worse, as people have to actively, consciously be dishonest. Drink driving has far worse effects, but it's a matter of negligence, not necessarily of character.

Drink driving is worse to do, as it's more dangerous. But given two political candidates with the same background, save one has been drink driving before and the other plagiarises, I'd pick the former.

What does that mean I should vote for on the poll?

George Bush over Joe Biden.

[Ninot]

i think for a political candidate, BOTH should be major red flags.

One because then the person simply cannot be trusted.

The other because the person has proven themselves to be a reckless dumbass.

[Sandman]

As far as leadership goes, a liar is preferable to an idiot.

Clinton > Dubya.

[Mr. Harley]

Someone who is alchoholic (which Drunk Driving is a priori evidence for in the DSM IV, if your substance abuse leads to dangerous behavior, you have a substance abuse problem - in this case known as alchoholism) typically has problems with impulsive behavior, as a minimum. Another way of putting this is simply calling them irresponsible. This is NOT a trait that I would want in a leader.

Plagiarism is indicative of either laziness or a certain level of moral ambivalence, at best. I don't want that in a leader either. I would have to evaluate the individuals in question. For example, Dubya has one DUI (for non-US a drunk driving conviction, typically after 200 instances) while Cheney has two! For all my issues with Cheney, if I was a Neocon Cheney has definite leadership ability. Dubya never has.

[Dis]

DWI endangers human lives. You are cheating other people out of their life. With plagarism, you are really only cheating yourself.

[Immortal Wombat]

Re: Re: Which is worse?

Originally posted by Drogue
I agree completely with that. For a political candidate, plagiarism is worse, as people have to actively, consciously be dishonest. Drink driving has far worse effects, but it's a matter of negligence, not necessarily of character.

I don't think plagiarism is necessarily a conscious act of deception. If it's an isolated incident, rather than a habitual practice, then it's probably just laziness. Smiley is right, it depends on the power weilded by the plagiariser, and I would add that it depends on the motive of the plagiarism. If it's just laziness, then its wrong, but its not harmful. If it's a deliberate attempt to gain credit by someone else's work, then the dishonesty is proportional to the credit that would be received. This is why I'm not particularly fussed over that "intelligence" stolen from the internet. It shows a worrying sparseness of research, and probably an intel officer went out drinking rather than writing his own summary paper or whatever. So Biden failed to credit Neil Kinnock for his speech on one occasion. And gained what? Sod all. He was lazy and stupid, but (plausibly) not intentionally deceitful.

Anyway I think plagiarism is far more context dependant than drunk driving. It would have to be plagiarism on a really serious trust issue for the badness to outweigh the sheer thoughlessness of drink driving.