In his book Predictably Irrational, economist Dan Ariely applies the tools of economics to human behaviour, which often appears irrational. As Ariely shows in these essays, based on his research and subsequent research papers published in journals, much of our seeming irrational behaviour is at least predictably so.
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Questions to respond to
Review the summary of our responses to the survey on the costs of crime in the US.
Respond to the following questions in a comment.
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| What we think for Thailand |
- How much agreement is there in our guesses? What is your explanation of this?
- Of the various types of activity on the survey, which do you think that the law should punish most severely? Why?
- And which should be punished the least severely? Why?
- Finally, brainstorm examples of similar crimes. Your examples might be more specific, such as Ariely's example of retail clothing fraud.
- How serious do you think these crimes are?
- What should the punishment for criminals who commit such crimes be?
- How common are these crimes?
- How socially accepted is such crime in your culture?
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Reference
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ReplyDeleteour ideas are various because there are guesses based on our perception, which no one don't know what the right answers are.
ReplyDeleteI also don't how severe of the US law about those criminal so I don't have any idea that they should punish more or least.
when peter mentioned about the crimes at the end of the class. it reminded me of one example in the book that I read but I cannot remember what the title of that book. In that book, there are the conversation between the father and his daughter. The father was reported from his daughter's school that his daughter had stolen a rubber from her friend. So he told his daughter if the daughter want a rubber, why she didn't tell him, he could get a free rubber from the office, because it is the employees' benefit. That means he also steal the rubber from his employer. That rubber should be used in his job, not for personal usage.
another example of crime that people accept is photocopy. I think most student in Thailand think that photocopy from the book is acceptable. It, however, is one types of crimes which we think it is not.
I think those crime are not the serious thing because most people think that it is only small amount of money. However, when many people accept it and if we combine those money together, it will be a big amount of money.
The crime of buying illegal computer software or DVDs is one that annoys me. A lot of my friends do it, but I can't agree with them that its not stealing. It is stealing from the people who create those products, and I think that if you value something because its useful, such as a computer program, or because it gives you pleasure, such as music, then you should be willing to pay the creators for the value you get from their product, instead of paying cheap amount to a criminal. As Topp also points out, each particular case might seem small, but they add up to a lot, with harmful consequences for many other people, like me and you.
DeleteAnd my thanks to Topp for good start to this discussion, although I'm not sure I agree with his ideas in the second paragraph. But disagreement is a good thing - it's not only the basis of scientific progress, but is healthy in every area, without exception, however much religious bigots with blasphemy and other morally evil laws might disagree with me.
DeleteI think most of us agree that US has more than 50 billion in tax fraud. May be because US is a high tax rate country which may make many people try to avoid paying tax.
ReplyDeleteI think that all robbery, burglary, larceny-theft and car theft should be punished the most; however, retail clothing fraud should be punished the least.
When you mention about tax fraud, it remind me about tax that tutorial schools need to pay for government. In Thailand most of tutorial schools don't pay tax because of many regulations that prevent them for paying tax legally. That's why most of them need to open tutorial schools and don't pay any tax to government.
At first, I surprised and curious to know that why they avoid to pay tax and make it like a normal things. After I had done research about how to open a tutorial school, I found that open a school has a lot of regulations such as minimum size of school, quality of teacher, or safety system that hard for many schools to follow. Moreover, Thai government don't strict enough to these regulation. That's why many schools avoid paying tax.
Should the government even be interfering in how private schools are run?
DeleteI think that they should pay taxes like any other organization, whether a bank or a temple (or a Christian church), but it's probably better to let free markets do the rest. I know AUA pays tax because I do a tax return every year. Rather, the office staff kindly do my tax return for me. Compared to Australia, my personal tax filing is very easy in Thailand. But I have no idea what it's like for businesses filing tax returns.
One reason that we predicted the percentage of people who commit crime in our society differently is that different personal background and knowledge. For our classmate who choose 0-10%, he or she may be surrounded by those who have never commit any crime. In addition, during guessing the percentage, he or she might think about only big crimes that few people commit such as bank robbery or car theft, but he or she did not think about small crimes that lots of people commit such as buying a copy computer software.
ReplyDeleteI think robbers should be punished the most severely because it is likely that innocent people get injured or dead during the robbery process. But, for other crimes, victims only loss their asset or money, but not get injured.
Retail clothing fraud should be punished the least severely. Honestly, I have no idea with this kind of crimes because I have never heard it before. However, I believe that stores can adapt new policy and government may enact new laws to prevent retail clothing fraud.
I am not sure whether listening to musics on Youtube that the publisher channels are not official record label company is defined a crime or not. I
There is not much agreement in our response. In my view, we disagree in the estimated statistics for two reason. First, we have limited information about crime in the US. After all, we live in Thailand. Second, we based our judgement on our experience. For instance, a person who never have his or her wallet stolen is more likely to be optimistic and assumes that the cost might be low because there are only a few thiefs in society. Furthermore, the security in the States could be safer than in Thailand. He or she would guess that the cost is low.
ReplyDeleteOf the various types of activity on the survey, all robbery, burglary, larceny-theft and car theft should be punished most severely. For one reason, it is a real crime. In my view, it is the most immoral crime in survey. In the survey some crime might be deemed acceptable for some people.
Insurance fraud should be punished the least severely. First, in my view there is no party getting hurt from the policy. Does insurance company really hurt? Not necessarily. It will increase insurance premium eventually.
A cunny thief going to a store on grand sale day changes price tag of full-price item and replace the pricetag with a discounted one. It is a serious crime. Just that no one has noticed. The punishment should be imprison.
In our complex world now a day, the number of criminal around the world increase more and more.Some people say in our society more than half people are in the habit of stealing. However, others argue that they are least a quarter.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think robberies should be punished most severely because they deliberate or plan to do it.Turning to the least severely punishment my position is malfeasance in school and college because they can change behavior if someone advise right ways to them.
The more and more people would like to download and copy free books that make me annoy when I buy a new book, my friend say it available download on the internet.Moreover some friends ask me for copy it, I don like it so much , it is a copyright infringement.