I think punishment should be based on codified rules. If you leave it up to individual discretion, that will lead to a lot of witch hunts and conformity.
This does not appear to follow—enforcing conformity is the entire precept underlying a system of law for punishment. In general, why would a more variable basis of punishment lead to more consistent outcomes?
One aspect of laws and rights is a kind of agreement between people to not punish each other for wrongthink. Without such an agreement, people will jump on the opportunity to punish wrongthink.
enforcing conformity is the entire precept underlying a system of law for punishment. In general, why would a more variable basis of punishment lead to more consistent outcomes?
This question makes me wonder what you think the benefits of a system of law are at all. If it’s fine for any random person to punish you based on their personal opinion of good and bad, then why have standardized laws enforced by third-parties?
My answer is:
Having standardized laws lets people actually know what the rules are, instead of having to guess for each individual they interact
Having standardized laws ensures you have rules that are consistent (i.e. I don’t have to worry about Group A punishing me for doing x and Group B punishing me for doing not-x)
Having the laws enforced by a third-party helps to avoid bias (i.e. it’s bad for the alleged-victim and judge to be the same person)
Having standardized laws enforced by a third party seems to reduce cycles of violence (Group A hurts group B which hurts group A to get back at them..)
The proposed currency seems to lose these benefits by effectively importing violence into the currency. Note that you can already use any currency the way the OP proposes, by paying someone to break into your target’s bank account and rob them), but that’s illegal for good reason.
Perhaps a nitpick detail, but having someone rob them would not be equivalent, because the cost of the action is offset by the ill-gotten gains. The proposed currency is more directly equivalent to paying someone to break into the target’s bank account and destroying their assets by a proportional amount so that no one can use them anymore.
As for the more general concerns:
Standardized laws and rules tend in practice to disproportionately benefit those with the resources to bend and manipulate those rules with lawyers. Furthermore, this proposal does not need to replace all laws, but can be utilized alongside them as a way for people to show their disapproval in a way that is more effective that verbal insult, and less coercive than physical violence. I’d consider it a potential way to channel people’s anger so that they don’t decide to start a revolution against what they see as laws that benefit the rich and powerful. It is a way to distribute a little power to individuals and allow them to participate in a system that considers their input in a small but meaningful way.
The rules may be more consistent with laws, but in practice, they are also contentious in the sense that the process of creating these laws is arcane and complex and the resulting punishments often delayed for years as they work through the legal system. Again, this makes sense when determining how the coercive power of the state should be applied, but leaves something to be desired in terms of responsiveness to addressing real world concerns.
Third-party enforcement is certainly desirable. In practice, the glory system allows anyone outside the two parties to contribute and likely the bulk of votes will come from them. As for cycles of violence, the exchange rate mechanism means that defence is at least twice as effective as attack with the same amount of currency, which should at least mitigate the cycles because it won’t be cost-effective to attack without significant public support. Though this is only relevant to the forum condition.
In the general condition as a currency, keep in mind that as a currency functions as a store of value, there is a substantial opportunity cost to spending the currency to destroy other people’s currency rather than say, using it to accrue interest. The cycles are in a sense self-limiting because people won’t want to spend all their money escalating a conflict that will only cause both sides to hemorrhage funds, unless someone feels so utterly wronged as to be willing to go bankrupt to bankrupt another, in which case, one should honestly be asking what kind of injustice caused this situation to come into being in the first place.
The proposal is for a system to replace karma, defined by the ability to spend the karma you have. The goal is to allow a person publicly to punish another person publicly. Paying someone to break into their bank account is worthless, because no one on the forum would know. Further, if it was not clear to the other party why they were being punished, it would defeat the purpose.
That being said, the answer you provide for why a system of laws is good fails to satisfy:
People do not know what the rules are. They navigate mostly by it not occurring to them to do obviously bad things, like murder or arson. Any interaction with the legal system requires hiring people whose job is specifically to know the law: lawyers.
The rules do a bad job of being consistent, varying wildly in their application depending on the details of interaction with law enforcement and how good your lawyer is.
Third parties do not reduce bias, they introduce it; there’s sense in which two people or groups having a fight being biased toward themselves is meaningful.
This last point is the best one, but there is no confusion about why: it is because we give enforcers greater powers of violence than any of the subject groups.
I feel about the rule of law the way Churchill did about democracy: it is the very worst form of conflict resolution, except for every other form.
In the broader case, the reason directly reimporting honor culture fails is because honor is about regulating relationships; in the modern world most of our interaction is one-offs with strangers or with agents of a party. In the cases where honor culture works, any random person is not a phenomenon that occurs with any frequency.
I think punishment should be based on codified rules. If you leave it up to individual discretion, that will lead to a lot of witch hunts and conformity.
This does not appear to follow—enforcing conformity is the entire precept underlying a system of law for punishment. In general, why would a more variable basis of punishment lead to more consistent outcomes?
One aspect of laws and rights is a kind of agreement between people to not punish each other for wrongthink. Without such an agreement, people will jump on the opportunity to punish wrongthink.
This question makes me wonder what you think the benefits of a system of law are at all. If it’s fine for any random person to punish you based on their personal opinion of good and bad, then why have standardized laws enforced by third-parties?
My answer is:
Having standardized laws lets people actually know what the rules are, instead of having to guess for each individual they interact
Having standardized laws ensures you have rules that are consistent (i.e. I don’t have to worry about Group A punishing me for doing x and Group B punishing me for doing not-x)
Having the laws enforced by a third-party helps to avoid bias (i.e. it’s bad for the alleged-victim and judge to be the same person)
Having standardized laws enforced by a third party seems to reduce cycles of violence (Group A hurts group B which hurts group A to get back at them..)
The proposed currency seems to lose these benefits by effectively importing violence into the currency. Note that you can already use any currency the way the OP proposes, by paying someone to break into your target’s bank account and rob them), but that’s illegal for good reason.
Perhaps a nitpick detail, but having someone rob them would not be equivalent, because the cost of the action is offset by the ill-gotten gains. The proposed currency is more directly equivalent to paying someone to break into the target’s bank account and destroying their assets by a proportional amount so that no one can use them anymore.
As for the more general concerns:
Standardized laws and rules tend in practice to disproportionately benefit those with the resources to bend and manipulate those rules with lawyers. Furthermore, this proposal does not need to replace all laws, but can be utilized alongside them as a way for people to show their disapproval in a way that is more effective that verbal insult, and less coercive than physical violence. I’d consider it a potential way to channel people’s anger so that they don’t decide to start a revolution against what they see as laws that benefit the rich and powerful. It is a way to distribute a little power to individuals and allow them to participate in a system that considers their input in a small but meaningful way.
The rules may be more consistent with laws, but in practice, they are also contentious in the sense that the process of creating these laws is arcane and complex and the resulting punishments often delayed for years as they work through the legal system. Again, this makes sense when determining how the coercive power of the state should be applied, but leaves something to be desired in terms of responsiveness to addressing real world concerns.
Third-party enforcement is certainly desirable. In practice, the glory system allows anyone outside the two parties to contribute and likely the bulk of votes will come from them. As for cycles of violence, the exchange rate mechanism means that defence is at least twice as effective as attack with the same amount of currency, which should at least mitigate the cycles because it won’t be cost-effective to attack without significant public support. Though this is only relevant to the forum condition.
In the general condition as a currency, keep in mind that as a currency functions as a store of value, there is a substantial opportunity cost to spending the currency to destroy other people’s currency rather than say, using it to accrue interest. The cycles are in a sense self-limiting because people won’t want to spend all their money escalating a conflict that will only cause both sides to hemorrhage funds, unless someone feels so utterly wronged as to be willing to go bankrupt to bankrupt another, in which case, one should honestly be asking what kind of injustice caused this situation to come into being in the first place.
All that being said, I appreciate the critiques.
The proposal is for a system to replace karma, defined by the ability to spend the karma you have. The goal is to allow a person publicly to punish another person publicly. Paying someone to break into their bank account is worthless, because no one on the forum would know. Further, if it was not clear to the other party why they were being punished, it would defeat the purpose.
That being said, the answer you provide for why a system of laws is good fails to satisfy:
People do not know what the rules are. They navigate mostly by it not occurring to them to do obviously bad things, like murder or arson. Any interaction with the legal system requires hiring people whose job is specifically to know the law: lawyers.
The rules do a bad job of being consistent, varying wildly in their application depending on the details of interaction with law enforcement and how good your lawyer is.
Third parties do not reduce bias, they introduce it; there’s sense in which two people or groups having a fight being biased toward themselves is meaningful.
This last point is the best one, but there is no confusion about why: it is because we give enforcers greater powers of violence than any of the subject groups.
I feel about the rule of law the way Churchill did about democracy: it is the very worst form of conflict resolution, except for every other form.
In the broader case, the reason directly reimporting honor culture fails is because honor is about regulating relationships; in the modern world most of our interaction is one-offs with strangers or with agents of a party. In the cases where honor culture works, any random person is not a phenomenon that occurs with any frequency.