Well, of course I don’t think that allowing murder without restriction is going to make everyone fun-theoretically better off, let alone maximally satisfy their preferences over the utilitarian criteria I actually believe in. My original claim was a lot narrower than that, and in any case I’m mostly playing devil’s advocate at this point; although I really do think that fun-theoretic optimization is best approached without reflexively minimizing things like fear or pain on grounds of our preexisting heuristics. That said, I’m not sure this is always going to be true:
A simulated threat prompts an immediate response, but killers on the loose prompts a lot of worrying over a long period of time. While fighting off a murderer might spike your adrenaline, that’s not what killers on the loose will do. Instead people will lock their doors [...] People will have a lot of cortisol, depressing immune systems and promoting obesity.
We know about a lot of societies with a lot of different accepted levels of violence. The most violent that I know of present up to about a 30% chance of premature death, so much higher than anything Western society presents that it’s scarcely conceivable (even front-line soldiers don’t have those death rates, although front-line service is more dangerous per unit time). But there’s very much not a monotonic relationship between level of violence and cultural paranoia, or trust of strangers, or freedom given to children. Early medieval Iceland, for example, had murder rates orders of magnitude higher than what we see now (implicit in textual sources, and confirmed by skeletal evidence); but children worked and traveled independently there, and hospitality to strangers was enshrined in law and custom. The same seems to go for more contemporary societies if the murder rates I’ve seen are at all accurate, although I don’t have as rich a picture for most of them. Our cultural fears of violence are very poorly correlated with actual expectations, as even a cursory glance over the most recent child molestation scare should show.
If studies of relative cortisol levels have ever been performed, I don’t know about them; but the cultures themselves don’t seem to show evidence of that kind of stress. I’d expect to see more paranoia following a recent uptick in violence, but I wouldn’t expect to see it well correlated with the base rate.
Early medieval Iceland, for example, had murder rates orders of magnitude higher than what we see now (implicit in textual sources, and confirmed by skeletal evidence); but children worked and traveled independently there, and hospitality to strangers was enshrined in law and custom. The same seems to go for more contemporary societies if the murder rates I’ve seen are at all accurate, although I don’t have as rich a picture for most of them.
Okay. What kind of murder are we talking about? What made up most of the extra—was it all sorts of things or was it duels? And was it accepted or was it frowned on? Were murderers prosecuted? Did victims’ families avenge them?
I’d expect to see more paranoia following a recent uptick in violence, but I wouldn’t expect to see it well correlated with the base rate.
Okay. What kind of murder are we talking about? What made up most of the extra—was it all sorts of things or was it duels? And was it accepted or was it frowned on? Were murderers prosecuted? Did victims’ families avenge them?
I’m not historian enough to say for sure, unfortunately. Judicial duels were part of the culture there, but the textual sources indicate that informal feuds were common, as were robbery and various other forms of informal violence. You could bring suit upon a murderer or other criminal in order to compel them to pay blood money or suffer in kind, but there was much less central authority than we’re used to, and nothing resembling a police force.
Yes. Don’t get too hung up on the specific example, though; I chose it only because it’s a time and place that I’ve actually studied. The pattern (or, really, lack of a pattern) I’m trying to point to is much more general, and includes many cultures that don’t have a strong emphasis on honor.
Well, of course I don’t think that allowing murder without restriction is going to make everyone fun-theoretically better off, let alone maximally satisfy their preferences over the utilitarian criteria I actually believe in. My original claim was a lot narrower than that, and in any case I’m mostly playing devil’s advocate at this point; although I really do think that fun-theoretic optimization is best approached without reflexively minimizing things like fear or pain on grounds of our preexisting heuristics. That said, I’m not sure this is always going to be true:
We know about a lot of societies with a lot of different accepted levels of violence. The most violent that I know of present up to about a 30% chance of premature death, so much higher than anything Western society presents that it’s scarcely conceivable (even front-line soldiers don’t have those death rates, although front-line service is more dangerous per unit time). But there’s very much not a monotonic relationship between level of violence and cultural paranoia, or trust of strangers, or freedom given to children. Early medieval Iceland, for example, had murder rates orders of magnitude higher than what we see now (implicit in textual sources, and confirmed by skeletal evidence); but children worked and traveled independently there, and hospitality to strangers was enshrined in law and custom. The same seems to go for more contemporary societies if the murder rates I’ve seen are at all accurate, although I don’t have as rich a picture for most of them. Our cultural fears of violence are very poorly correlated with actual expectations, as even a cursory glance over the most recent child molestation scare should show.
If studies of relative cortisol levels have ever been performed, I don’t know about them; but the cultures themselves don’t seem to show evidence of that kind of stress. I’d expect to see more paranoia following a recent uptick in violence, but I wouldn’t expect to see it well correlated with the base rate.
Okay. What kind of murder are we talking about? What made up most of the extra—was it all sorts of things or was it duels? And was it accepted or was it frowned on? Were murderers prosecuted? Did victims’ families avenge them?
Good point.
I’m not historian enough to say for sure, unfortunately. Judicial duels were part of the culture there, but the textual sources indicate that informal feuds were common, as were robbery and various other forms of informal violence. You could bring suit upon a murderer or other criminal in order to compel them to pay blood money or suffer in kind, but there was much less central authority than we’re used to, and nothing resembling a police force.
Was it by any chance a culture of honor?
Yes. Don’t get too hung up on the specific example, though; I chose it only because it’s a time and place that I’ve actually studied. The pattern (or, really, lack of a pattern) I’m trying to point to is much more general, and includes many cultures that don’t have a strong emphasis on honor.
Okay.