[jules]

All this does is provide random and selective justice for those who can pay the bribe.

What about the visum expiring the day before you leave? Two days? The law has to draw a line somewhere. It is the obligation of the person to stay clear of that line. If the visum duration is too short, just make all visa valid for 16 days rather than 15 days, and then enforce that line equally for everybody. Once corruption has taken a hold it tends to encroach on everything.

[whack]

> "All this does is provide random and selective justice for those who can pay the bribe."

That was actually the most heart-warming part of the tale. The guy initially tried to bribe the police and get out of trouble, but the new computer systems prevented him from doing so. The cop who initially tried to collect a bribe from him, then returned the money, befriended him, and went to bat for him, with no financial incentives whatsoever.

[coldtea]

>All this does is provide random and selective justice for those who can pay the bribe.

The ability to pay your way out of it, usually comes together with the ability to talk your way out of it, and with the ability of police and such to bend some things on their discretion if they seem BS.

[addition] To quote John McAffee's guide on the matter:

"In order to make the most of your travels, you need to first understand that, throughout much of the Third World, there is a smoothly functioning “system” in place that has evolved over centuries. From the First World perspective it is a “corrupt” system, and indeed, at the higher levels there is no other word for it (...) at the lower levels, however, the system contains an element of grace and humanity, and this lower lever is all that most people will ever encounter. You might still call this lower level “corruption”, but that’s not a helpful word if you want to acquire the most effective attitude for dancing with it. I prefer “negotiable”."

>What about the visa expiring the day before you leave? Two days? The law has to put a line somewhere. It is the obligation of the person to stay clear of that line.

And it's an attribute of a good attitude towards the legal system to not be jerks about it, since "expired last day and I'm on a train leaving the country" is just as good as "it will expire after I leave".

Even if the "law must put a line somewhere", people should be served by the law, not be slaves to it, and enforce it according to its spirit, not merely its letter.

Of course with this mindset you don't get to be 4% of the world's population but have 25% of it's prison population.

There's a name used in some parts of Europe for the kind of legal anal retentive mindset that everything must be 100% according to the letter (and not the spirit) of the law, that someone is like "Javert" (from Les Miserables).

He ends like that in the book, btw (spoiler alert):

For the first time in his life, Javert is faced with the situation where he cannot act lawfully without acting immorally, and vice versa. Javert is unable to find a solution to this dilemma, and horrified at the sudden realization that Valjean was simultaneously a criminal and a good person—a conundrum which reveals deep flaws in his ethical system, and suggests to him the existence of a superior moral system. He feels that the only possible resolution for himself is in death, and— after leaving for the prefect of police a brief letter addressing lapses in the Conciergerie— he drowns himself in the river Seine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javert

[jules]

> The ability to pay your way out of it, usually comes together with the ability to talk your way out of it

No it doesn't. Hardly anybody would pay a large bribe if they could simply talk themselves out of it instead.

> Of course with this mindset you don't get to be 4% of the world's population but have 25% of it's prison population.

No, that is the result of crazy harsh sentences. That is a problem, but applying justice selectively to rich people is not the solution to that problem. The solution is to decrease the punishment for crimes that aren't serious, and then apply it equally. A prison sentence for a 1 day visum overstay is ridiculous, of course.

[coldtea]

>No it doesn't. Hardly anybody would pay a large bribe if they could simply talk themselves out of it instead.

That's the case in game theory terms.

Fortunately real people don't act like that.

"Corrupted" third world officials and such are not profit-maximizing automata (well, a few are. Most are regular people trying to make a buck for the family on top of meagre salaries).

Even if you can afford a bribe and they know it (e.g. you look rich westerner etc), there's often tons of room for negotiation on the price. Including talking your way out of it, them getting a liking for you and just letting you go etc.

But I primarily talked about people who can't afford to pay and it shows. Sometimes what started as a probe as to whether you can pay them a bride even ends up as them getting out of their way to help you for free, if they see you cannot pay and they take sympathy on you.

Aside from "corruption" which might be all some westerner can see, those places also have ages old codes of hospitality and such.

>A prison sentence for a 1 day visum overstay is ridiculous, of course.

Well, if you can't change the law, another way is to selectively enforce it on someone's discretion (bribe or not). It might not benefit 100% of the people but it benefits massively more people than strictly following the ridiculous harsh law.

[dragonwriter]

> You might still call this lower level “corruption”, but that’s not a helpful word if you want to acquire the most effective attitude for dancing with it. I prefer “negotiable”."

The people I know who have lived significant periods of their life in these systems would describe them as "corrupt", not "negotiable".

Though "negotiable" does correspond to the way I've usually heard wealthy Americans who've encountered these systems describe them.

[oneloop]

You have a few typos there. The singular is "visa" and the plural is "visas". Don't be discouraged, your English is already quite good. You'll get there.

[zeroer]

> visum

Is this supposed to be some kind of faux-Latin plural? I defy you to find an English dictionary that contains this word.

[jules]

It's what we call it in Dutch. Singular: visum, plural: visa. It does indeed come from Latin. I didn't know that it is different in English.

[blowski]

Apparently, it is the singular of visa in German.

[kaeluka]

German, singular: visum or visa, both work. Plural: visa or visas.

[lotsofcows]

It's a pretentious but arguably valid Latin singular.

"Arguably" because the word comes to English from French not straight from the Latin.

[eric_h]

It's only pretentious if you're a native English speaker.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12142643

"I didn't know it was different in english"