Licit blackmail at scale wouldn’t just punish people for hypocrisy—it would reveal the underlying rate of hypocrisy.
I’m not sure this works. If blackmail is common then people will know how often certain blackmail demands aren’t paid but in order to know the underlying rate of hypocrisy you also need ratios for (hypocrisy):(blackmail) and (blackmail):(non-payment).
As those ratios depend on a number of variables I would imagine people would have very limited information on actual base rates.
Second, once people find out how common certain kinds of illicit behavior are, we should expect the penalties to be reduced.
Can you expand on the mechanism for this? Is it just that the a person threatened with blackmail will be less likely to pay if someone else has already been outed for the same thing?
I’m not sure this works. If blackmail is common then people will know how often certain blackmail demands aren’t paid but in order to know the underlying rate of hypocrisy you also need ratios for (hypocrisy):(blackmail) and (blackmail):(non-payment).
As those ratios depend on a number of variables I would imagine people would have very limited information on actual base rates.
Can you expand on the mechanism for this? Is it just that the a person threatened with blackmail will be less likely to pay if someone else has already been outed for the same thing?