Assuming both false-positives and false-negatives exist at meaningful rates and the former cannot be zeroed while keeping an acceptable FN rate, this seems obviously true (at least to me) and only worthy of a full post if you’re willing to ponder what the balance should be.
ETA: An edgy but theoretically interesting argument is that we should compensate the probably-guilty for the risk of error. E.g., if you are 70 percent confident the person did it, boot them but compensate them 30 percent of the damages that would be fair if they were innocent. The theory would be that a person may be expected to individually bear a brutal cost (career ruin despite innocence), but the benefit (of not allowing people who are 70 percent likely to be guilty be running around in power) accrues to the community from which the person has been booted. So compensation for risk that the person is innocent would transfer some of the cost of providing that benefit to the community. I’m not endorsing that as a policy proposal, mind you...
I am confused by the parenthetical.
Assuming both false-positives and false-negatives exist at meaningful rates and the former cannot be zeroed while keeping an acceptable FN rate, this seems obviously true (at least to me) and only worthy of a full post if you’re willing to ponder what the balance should be.
ETA: An edgy but theoretically interesting argument is that we should compensate the probably-guilty for the risk of error. E.g., if you are 70 percent confident the person did it, boot them but compensate them 30 percent of the damages that would be fair if they were innocent. The theory would be that a person may be expected to individually bear a brutal cost (career ruin despite innocence), but the benefit (of not allowing people who are 70 percent likely to be guilty be running around in power) accrues to the community from which the person has been booted. So compensation for risk that the person is innocent would transfer some of the cost of providing that benefit to the community. I’m not endorsing that as a policy proposal, mind you...