My Honest Opinion

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Is it? Unless it's a really serious crime, no it isn't. Going to the cops to complain about your victims solicitation of prostitutes, violation of sodomy laws, littering and rolling stops won't get them to change their ways but it will get them to stop associating with Compulsive Tattletale. Ratting out someone planning a murder or a casino robbery...yeah I can see that particularly when the cops can interfere before the job

GURPS Honest is a compulsion. It interferes with the ability of the character to distinguish between serious crimes and the innumerable technical violations of laws that normal people engage in as part of normal life. It also comes bundled with a delusion, that other people also have this compulsion. GURPS Honest characters might very well believe that upon being arrested and punished for their 'crimes', people will be grateful for the opportunity. After all, whenever they break one law to prevent other lawbreaking, they themselves joyfully turn themselves in.

Besides, if lawbreakers are punished, it will usually interfere with their opportunity to break further laws. It might be immoral to execute members of ethnic or religious minorities, but it cannot be argued that it doesn't effectively stop them from continuing to be members of illegal groups. If someone is imprisoned and bankrupt because he solicitated prostitutes, it will make it hard for him to do it again, if only because they are too poor to afford even the few packets of cigarettes required.* And jailing litterers is going to make it hard for them to litter again, because prison guards really frown on that.

Reasonable people might doubt that there is any purpose in enforcing laws which legislate morality, where there are no victims other than the outrage of the majority using the machinery of the state to impose their morality upon others, but GURPS Honest people are not reasonable people. By definition, they are compelled to follow laws. In the absence of special circumstances or a legal position which requires confidentality, GURPS Honest characters will follow laws that state that if they are witnesses to a crime, they must inform the appopriate authorities.

*They might be turned out themselves, but that's a different matter and, in any case, in many jurisdictions, they wouldn't be the ones committing a crime in that case. So it's all good to the GURPS Honest character.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

Only to a limited extent. They could sell Rorex watches in a place where counterfeiting Rolexes isn't against the law, but they would have to just describe them as "watches" because promising to sell them a Rolex and not delivering on that promise would be disHonest. They'd have to let their customers fool themselves...or just buy a watch knowing it's fake but other people will have trouble telling from a distance.

Antitrust laws are a lot more recent than stock markets. In the vast majority of historical and even some current jurisdictions, a character may promise a certain number of stock certificates and deliver them, all right, but lie through his teeth about the value of the company. Nothing illegal about it.