I’m no historian, but I cannot fit your exiling/killing theory to any recent society I know of.
I know the most about Sweden, so I’ll discuss that society. Thinking about Sweden made several things obvious:
First, an alternative mechanism with similar effect as exiling/killing: simply making the next generation better, and watching the stats improve over time.
It’s not just a question of good norms or correct education, as if these could develop in any direction independent of the government and system in general. Sweden underwent a transformation over many decades of social democracy (1930-1980), and it seems widely accepted now that crime rates went way down because society provided for every last member. Crime is habit-forming, and if no one ever needs to get into the habit, then you get your high-trust society. In fact, I’ll add the hypothesis that you don’t even need high education nor attempt to directly influence culture.
But some people are born as psychopaths and no amount of social democracy can change that. What happens to those in Sweden? I assume it’s prison if they do something bad, just like at most places.
There are also other mechanisms for making the next generation better, for example forced sterilization.
...perhaps it works best when you do all of this, because different people become criminals for different reasons? Some people are driven to crime by desperate circumstances; some people have low self-control and would also commit crime in Utopia.
Even if something is good, it can be further improved. The question is how, and what is the cost.
There are places where people do not lock their doors. There are places where people leave their bicycles without a lock, and they find them there on their way home. Perhaps we could do even better.
We could do better quantitatively: maybe you trust your neighbors to leave your bike alone, but you wouldn’t trust them to leave your purse alone… but it is possible to imagine a society where if someone forgets a banknote in a park, someone will post a message on facebook “hey neighbors, someone forgot some money in the park, if you know who it was please tell them” and the money would stay there until the owner takes it.
We could do better qualitatively: maybe you consider your streets safe enough that no one would hurt you or steal from you… but perhaps you could similarly feel sure that no one will ever hurt you emotionally, or that no business would even take advantage of the information asymmetry.
Finally, high-trust societies can break down, so it is important to understand what keeps them running.
I advice you to be careful with that line of thinking. It may backfire.
I noticed that racism was slowly disappearing precisely until the western world made racism out to be a terrible, terrible crime.
I find that it’s precisely the societies with moral policemen telling eachother to be better people which are the least moral.
That it’s the communities with the most rules which tend to be the least tolerant, especially when there’s multiple rules telling people to be tolerant “or else”.
That it’s the best and kindest people in the world that hates rules, hates being told what to do, hates telling other people what to do. It’s precisely the non-conformists who are the most tolerant and the most open to diversity, and they generally don’t like bullying/witch hunting/cancelling people. (That said, it’s possible that this type of person is rare, and that the difference is mostly genetic)
You need to arrive at good communities organically, or at least without the use of force. You cannot possibly design a good system and implement it in reality. A community has to regulate itself as it grows, if you try to control it, you will likely make it worse. Tyrannical means can only mask problems, they can’t remove them.
If you want an explanation for the above observations, it’s likely this: The groups which take things less seriously are less judgmental, less afraid, less cruel and less worried.
I noticed that racism was slowly disappearing precisely until the western world made racism out to be a terrible, terrible crime.
I thought the backlash started when some people turned “anti-racism” into “anti-white racism”. Telling people to be “colorblind” didn’t have this effect, IMHO. Telling them that “colorblindness” is just another form of racism, did.
Possibly just my opinion; I didn’t make a survey, and I am not sure whether people would report truthfully. But from my perspective, if you tell me “if you treat everyone fairly, that’s all we expect from you”, I am on the board. And if you tell me “you are white, therefore guilty”, you have lost me.
That did happen, and at the same time, the ideal of equality was replaced with that of equity. So instead of making things fair and unbiased, people started promoting the opposite kind of unfairness and bias, in order to balance the two. But the psychological driving force behind this tendency is that of revenge. They will go past the balance point if they can, likely saying something along the lines of “Now it’s your turn, it’s only fair”. I wonder if equality or equity will win in the future, they seem mutually exclusive.
I’m also on the side of equality/fairness/neutrality, but I think we’re in the minority on that.
In any case, if one takes something seriously enough that they start to fear it, I think all rational thought goes out the window. I’ve seen the same thing happen with drugs, sexual topics, and mental health, leading to ridiculous myths on all topics. The majority of these myths and flawed understandings only went away 10-20 years ago, before that, the average persons take on them was a complete joke. I think the same goes for a range of different topics today
I’m no historian, but I cannot fit your exiling/killing theory to any recent society I know of.
I know the most about Sweden, so I’ll discuss that society. Thinking about Sweden made several things obvious:
First, an alternative mechanism with similar effect as exiling/killing: simply making the next generation better, and watching the stats improve over time.
It’s not just a question of good norms or correct education, as if these could develop in any direction independent of the government and system in general. Sweden underwent a transformation over many decades of social democracy (1930-1980), and it seems widely accepted now that crime rates went way down because society provided for every last member. Crime is habit-forming, and if no one ever needs to get into the habit, then you get your high-trust society. In fact, I’ll add the hypothesis that you don’t even need high education nor attempt to directly influence culture.
Removing poverty helps a lot.
But some people are born as psychopaths and no amount of social democracy can change that. What happens to those in Sweden? I assume it’s prison if they do something bad, just like at most places.
There are also other mechanisms for making the next generation better, for example forced sterilization.
...perhaps it works best when you do all of this, because different people become criminals for different reasons? Some people are driven to crime by desperate circumstances; some people have low self-control and would also commit crime in Utopia.
What is the goal? Why do you need to do more than what has already been sufficient to create high-trust societies?
Even if something is good, it can be further improved. The question is how, and what is the cost.
There are places where people do not lock their doors. There are places where people leave their bicycles without a lock, and they find them there on their way home. Perhaps we could do even better.
We could do better quantitatively: maybe you trust your neighbors to leave your bike alone, but you wouldn’t trust them to leave your purse alone… but it is possible to imagine a society where if someone forgets a banknote in a park, someone will post a message on facebook “hey neighbors, someone forgot some money in the park, if you know who it was please tell them” and the money would stay there until the owner takes it.
We could do better qualitatively: maybe you consider your streets safe enough that no one would hurt you or steal from you… but perhaps you could similarly feel sure that no one will ever hurt you emotionally, or that no business would even take advantage of the information asymmetry.
Finally, high-trust societies can break down, so it is important to understand what keeps them running.
I advice you to be careful with that line of thinking. It may backfire.
I noticed that racism was slowly disappearing precisely until the western world made racism out to be a terrible, terrible crime.
I find that it’s precisely the societies with moral policemen telling eachother to be better people which are the least moral.
That it’s the communities with the most rules which tend to be the least tolerant, especially when there’s multiple rules telling people to be tolerant “or else”.
That it’s the best and kindest people in the world that hates rules, hates being told what to do, hates telling other people what to do. It’s precisely the non-conformists who are the most tolerant and the most open to diversity, and they generally don’t like bullying/witch hunting/cancelling people. (That said, it’s possible that this type of person is rare, and that the difference is mostly genetic)
You need to arrive at good communities organically, or at least without the use of force. You cannot possibly design a good system and implement it in reality. A community has to regulate itself as it grows, if you try to control it, you will likely make it worse. Tyrannical means can only mask problems, they can’t remove them.
If you want an explanation for the above observations, it’s likely this: The groups which take things less seriously are less judgmental, less afraid, less cruel and less worried.
I thought the backlash started when some people turned “anti-racism” into “anti-white racism”. Telling people to be “colorblind” didn’t have this effect, IMHO. Telling them that “colorblindness” is just another form of racism, did.
Possibly just my opinion; I didn’t make a survey, and I am not sure whether people would report truthfully. But from my perspective, if you tell me “if you treat everyone fairly, that’s all we expect from you”, I am on the board. And if you tell me “you are white, therefore guilty”, you have lost me.
I agree that rules often come with a large cost.
That did happen, and at the same time, the ideal of equality was replaced with that of equity. So instead of making things fair and unbiased, people started promoting the opposite kind of unfairness and bias, in order to balance the two. But the psychological driving force behind this tendency is that of revenge. They will go past the balance point if they can, likely saying something along the lines of “Now it’s your turn, it’s only fair”. I wonder if equality or equity will win in the future, they seem mutually exclusive.
I’m also on the side of equality/fairness/neutrality, but I think we’re in the minority on that.
In any case, if one takes something seriously enough that they start to fear it, I think all rational thought goes out the window. I’ve seen the same thing happen with drugs, sexual topics, and mental health, leading to ridiculous myths on all topics. The majority of these myths and flawed understandings only went away 10-20 years ago, before that, the average persons take on them was a complete joke. I think the same goes for a range of different topics today