[philwelch]

Follow-up point I forgot to add:

> If the fine is double what you gained but you are less than 50% likely to get caught, logic dictates you should commit the crime.

It turns out that people’s decisions whether or not to break the law have very little to do with any rational economic calculation about the probability of being caught. Consider how shoplifting is basically not enforced in San Francisco anymore. People just steal things from the store in broad daylight and nobody bothers even trying to stop them. Sure, this does result in a lot of shoplifting, but the question is, why does anyone bother paying when they could just brazenly take their desired merchandise out the door with no risk of ever facing any consequences?