I cannot believe there are so many comments with a lack of understanding of what 100/1 is. I cannot believe one of them has been modded +3 interesting.
100/1 means if you bet £1 and the bet wins, you get your £1 stake back and your winnings of £100. Their winnings aren't 1%, they are 100x i.e. 10000%. So if contact was made, the bookmaker would lose £100 on a £1 bet, and hence would have somehow had to turn that £1 into £101 beforehand in order to not make a loss. Forget the people talking about how 3% is impossible, there is NO savings account or bond that'll let you do that in a year.
I think you misread the quote above, he was talking about people who were taking the other side, ie Betting that contact wasn't made..... so 1/100 odds, or 1%.....
And therefore arguing that it was brilliant by the bookie, he keeps the nut job's money outright, and he only has to pay 1% to the people the bet the other way...... As he said...Brilliant!
I think in many ways it is better to have all this information stored forever. As with most decisions, the more information you have the more informed a decision you can make...
I think the argument that people forget and therefore can forgive is true, but I think we need to then adapt how we forgive. If we accept that people change, then it doesn't matter that we have a store of someone's past actions - we can let then 'reinvent' themselves while still knowing where they came from.
Right now that may be difficult, but that's because the internet is still a relatively new phenomena in Human history. As we progress, I assume we'll evolve to accept that all our actions are remembered indefinitely, and mature to not let past events completely out way current ones.
(1) Never draw what you can copy. (2) Never copy what you can trace. (3) Never trace what you can cut out and paste down.