And what if your child, who you save at that time, goes on to be an elite police officer specialising in child kidnappings and saves dozens of later children's lives without paying ransoms?
These situations involve complicated moral dilemmas, but thought experiments never take into account all possibilities, and at some point idealistic principles about the general problem have to give way to pragmatism about the immediate problem.
To give an extreme example, if someone had a button they could push that would end the world as we know it, and they demanded you pay them $1B or they'd push it, are you really going to argue that paying that billion dollars is the incorrect response because it would encourage future people with the ability to end the world as we know it to demand ransoms?
> And what if your child, who you save at that time, goes on to be an elite police officer specializing in child kidnappings and saves dozens of later children's lives without paying ransoms?
Well he wouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place if we disincentivized ransoms!
> To give an extreme example, if someone had a button they could push that would end the world as we know it, and they demanded you pay them $1B or they'd push it, are you really going to argue that paying that billion dollars is the incorrect response because it would encourage future people with the ability to end the world as we know it to demand ransoms?
Your example is indeed extreme. It posits a game with 2 players, the world, and the entity trying to end the world. In a 2-player scenario where you lose if you don't do some requested action then you would have no choice but to do it. However, in an n-player scenario where n > 2 and player "x" being the one wanting to win by ending the world, and assuming all other players can win by cooperating, then yes the world government should indeed forbid all players from paying the $1B ransom.
It's a well established fact that if ransom demanders know that ransom payers are subject to significant fines and penalties, their power to demand ransoms drastically diminishes.
No it doesn't. It just changes form. See money laundering and the mob.
Can't collect in cash? That's a-ok. Do me a favor and you get your kid back.
You are not talking a lick of sense. Crime finds a way. It always will. You can't tax law abiding people to invalidate criminal economic models. All you do us disadvantage the victims, undermine the legitimacy of your legal edifice by implicitly raising it above those it serves in importance, and completely do away with any semblance of sanity, and maximize tge cost in human lives exacted from the pool of the falsely accused and victimized. Game theory doesn't apply. Rational Actor Theory doesn't apply. Addressing crime via draconian laws doesn't work if you're at all interested in any State even nominally centered around the concepts of Freedom and Liberty.
And a Ransom tax? Do you want tax collectors tarred and feathered? Or are you just trying to ensure that any remaining credibility in the government is irrevocably lost? Taxes lend legitimacy to things. You're basically admitting that a ransom is even a valid transaction by enshrining it in your tax code.
Well he wouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place if we disincentivized ransoms!
This is a bizarre and emotive discussion, so I'm not sure how much more it's worth saying, but I will leave you with one final question. What law could you possibly make and what "severe criminal penalty" could you possibly impose that would be greater than the natural law that parents would do almost anything to protect their children and what a parent would suffer if they lost a child? I don't believe anyone could ever implement the policy you've been advocating effectively, and at that point, the entire deterrent argument collapses anyway.
Simply increase the cost of the ransom. I don't think it's necessary to make it even a criminal thing, it could just be a tax: Ransom Sales Tax. Of course if you try to pay under the table then it'd become a criminal tax avoidance issue.
These situations involve complicated moral dilemmas, but thought experiments never take into account all possibilities, and at some point idealistic principles about the general problem have to give way to pragmatism about the immediate problem.
To give an extreme example, if someone had a button they could push that would end the world as we know it, and they demanded you pay them $1B or they'd push it, are you really going to argue that paying that billion dollars is the incorrect response because it would encourage future people with the ability to end the world as we know it to demand ransoms?