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Comment by nataliste | Hacker News Reader

I consider the disruption, stupidity, and clear intent to be a public nuisance to warrant a greater deterrent than the original two years, yes.

I'd be more inclined towards leniency if they were, say, actively putting soup in people's petrol tanks than this utterly irrelevant stupidity, as at least the property destruction would be tangentially related to the pursuit of an arguably noble goal.

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Four years in prison is a lot of taxpayer money you'd spend over this, several magnitudes more than the property damage they inflicted. I understand that you're making that calculation rationally, with the theory that this extremely harsh punishment would act as a deterrent to similar crimes. A lot of people would consider that to be outrageously disproportionate, and outrage generates publicity. These people who threw soup in the museum, weren't they hoping to become martyrs? Is there nobody who would imitate them and purposefully go to prison for a moment in the news?

That would result in actual property and financial damages. What they've done here is 20 minutes with a rag and detergent to clean up. As others have pointed out, the actual paintings are not affected.

You mean actually engaging in activism with consequences rather than inane disagree-and-commit passivism? I'd punatively jail them longer for their cowardice and stupidity than the actual cost to the museum and the general public.

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