> And personal integrity isn't tied to one's bank account balance; it's about character and the robustness of political and legal accountability systems.

Absolutely disagree with this—you can't acquire a billion dollars without sacrificing major ethics.

I'm not so sure of that. What ethics has, say, JK Rowling sacrificed? Warren Buffett?

This is a good question, it’s not like Warren Buffett ever offered predatory loans for mobile homes

Rowling isn't a billionaire. She probably could of been, but she's made a ton of charitable donations thanks to her having ethics.

Last I heard she had about £800 million which I'm sure keeps her and hers very very comfortable.

Which ethics and how does one determine if they are major or not?

I’ve seen statements in this vein a lot. It’s quite vague and often confusing one’s relative morals for what society has collectively deemed acceptable.

Well, what do you consider ethics? I was coming from a place of you should give away all the money you don't need because the world would be better for it.

Notional wealth is just a number. A fair number of billionaires started something, retained equity, but exited their business that then went on to be wildly successful. Further many billionaires are born into their wealth. I think this pervasive attitude erodes both the standard the extremely wealthy should be held to and is overly simplistic. There are many billionaires who are at their core unethical. There are many who are very ethical but their outsized influence puts them in situations to make decisions with no easy answers. And there are many that are simply people that happened into the wealth randomly.

I'd much prefer the private and public sectors remain as separate as possible. The alternative is difficult to distinguish from corruption.

Interesting timing—Target claims consumers' discretionary spending is down, "both in dollars and units". I wonder if this points towards food prices climbing faster than inflation.

> deterrence is also a key pillar of the justice system

Oh is that why our justice system is so terrible at actually reducing crime?

Is it terrible? If we were to remove the system and keep it gone for some set amount of time, once people realize it was really gone, would crimes not come back?

We can compare to other countries and see their rates of crime, but such comparisons are difficult to make accurately because you are judging all social differences at once, not just a different legal system. Including things like how much lead has the population been exposed to, effect of poverty and sense of community. Things far beyond the legal system.

> If we were to remove the system and keep it gone for some set amount of time, once people realize it was really gone, would crimes not come back?

Why are you comparing it to a lack of a justice system rather than to a more competent justice system?

> We can compare to other countries and see their rates of crime, but such comparisons are difficult to make accurately because you are judging all social differences at once, not just a different legal system. Including things like how much lead has the population been exposed to, effect of poverty and sense of community. Things far beyond the legal system.

Poverty is absolutely a part of the legal system—it takes the legal institution of private property, for instance, to ensure wealth stays unequal.

Terrible at reducing crime compared to what? Is there another justice system which is better at reducing crime (without introducing a police state)?

> Is there another justice system which is better at reducing crime (without introducing a police state)?

Many other countries—especially countries nearly as rich as us—manage a lower crime rate with a lower proportion of spending on policing and lower sentencing times. I have full faith we can improve on those systems, too—there's boatloads of evidence showing that financial safety nets invested in over decades is a much more cost-effective way of reducing crime.

Regardless, even in justice theory there are other ideologies, such as restorative justice. This is not just idle windbagging.

They don't want to invest in actual hardware to control the machine that might require repairs and additional labor to assemble.

Apologies if this was a rhetorical question.

> not now taking a closer look at one’s followers list shows that a large chunk had ghosted the place or haven’t posted in months.

That's pretty much the norm on twitter, idk about other social networks. On some social networks (including twitter) it's quite normal to just lurk and not contribute anything.

> It's shocking how laggy modern chat apps are by comparison.

Also how little content they can actually fit on screen. When you optimize for press release photos everyone suffers.

Yes, we in the US have a punitive justice system, which emphasizes punishment under the dubious concept of punitive deterrence over remediation and other forms of deterrence (eg poverty reduction, though that is obviously irrelevant here).

Anyway, a law institution certainly has an incentive to push their own agenda when it comes to the theory of justice.

> amateur hour and a lack of seriousness to me.

These things seem unrelated—experienced people are allowed to have fun too. I don't see how this correlates with lack of experience at all. This just speaks to your personal bias against having fun.