21–30 of 52 posts
This article could use some nice infographics and charts. The way it is written makes it hard to see exactly how things have changed over time.
That color sketch of the goings-on at Old Bailey was way cooler than any infographic.
It is depressing, but perhaps expected, that an article about a quantitative approach to historical analysis includes one anecdote and no additional data. I was able to dig up this paper: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/26/9419.full which is sufficiently dense to require some time to read and consider.
Looks to me like nautil.us is aiming at a general readership that is interested in science. Many articles like this gloss over the numbers in favor of narrative and anecdotes, because that's what's interesting to general readership. The provides plenty of opportunity to delve deeper by seeking out the source material, as you have done. There's many people, myself included who you could send the original paper and I'd…
It's not exactly a new practice in the literary world.
This article could use some nice infographics and charts. The way it is written makes it hard to see exactly how things have changed over time.
Agreed. What I would really love to see is whether a "historical economist" (or whatever those are called) could estimate the statistical value of a human life as defined by people's own revealed preferences. This is the sort of calculation where we infer how much each of us values our own lives based on the amount we are willing to pay to avoid small chances of death. In the US today, the number is about $8 million…
The same probably applies to the social norms. The brain of human beings could not change too much in such a short period of time. So, most likely we did not become intrisically better. Yes, the social norms were improved significantly, but mostly thanks to the improvement of the quality of life.
I think, it's all about utility. Killing a person does not necessarily makes the murderer richer, most likely not; on the other hand, stealing something actually makes the thief richer, so the law in the past had to take coutermeasures. Nowdays, police works better, it's likely that you will be caught if you steal something, so the utility of stealing is pretty low, and the risk is high. On the other hand, a murder is frequently not about money, but hatred and personal relationships, this motive is less rational, and the utility of a murder can be rather high, even if it's likely that you will be caught. Of course, I did not do any analysis..
And it is very pleasing for us to think that we are much better than we were in the past, and out moral standards are higher compared to the crazy stuff we did before. But this bragging is just a reiteration of the words of William Blackstone cited in the article. In fact, we are not better, we just live in different time, and it is rather stupid to assume that just a few centuries ago we were less rational and less optimal. Most likely, the old cruel law was great and optimal in that historical period.
Murder is theft. The worst kind of theft
Not really. A life is not property. It cannot be acquired or given away. Even if we were to just go along with it and categorize life as personal property, a murderer does not take the victim’s life into their possession in any way I can tell. Murder ends life rather than appropriating it, so murder would be destruction of property, not theft.
That never stopped copyright holders from calling infringement "theft".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My view is that many people are quite domesticated- traditionally, would you not agree that society flourishes wherever the strong and fair have the capacity to exclude the psychopaths? Unfortunately, domesticated people often somehow get convinced to vote for open borders.
Borders are only one way to exclude people from society, and not a very efficient one if the only goal is to "exclude the psychopaths", which are no more likely to be on one side of the border than the other. Or maybe I missed your point?
Obviously there are many ways to 'remove people from society', but I think it's clear that the most ethical and economical method is exile.
Such a strategy doesn't scale very well for an enormous society, so globalists like 'jessaustin' call me racist- but I think my political agenda is apparent- curiosity and discussion of theory. It's pretty clear who's trying to derail what.
400 years ago justice systems were based on the desires of the crown and aristocracy and the needs of the aristocracy demanded they be able to buy their way out of murdering common folk but have their precious wealth protected at all costs. Murder of the ruling class was, obvs a different story [1]. Among other things the strengthening of the middle class is what slowly, reverses this. [1] http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~…
micropower breaks down when individuals start othering people (contrasting and disassociating others from themselves), particularly those we call criminals (recall zimbardo's prison experiment and milgram's as well). reformation efforts in the criminal justice system, then, have been focused on replacing punishment and coercive tactics with rehabilitative ones to bring offenders back into the fold so that normative forces rather than coercive ones can act to create social stability.
but our justice system has a ways to go on this front. minor offenses like petty theft can lead to months/years in prison and acute othering (yet we don't even prosecute those who brought our financial system to its knees and millions of livelihoods along with it). instead sentences for most offenses should not separate offenders by putting them into jail but instead should put them in the middle of a normative group of people. this surely requires a high degree of collective empathy and compassion though. but at least we no longer have debtors prison...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. What I would really love to see is whether a "historical economist" (or whatever those are called) could estimate the statistical value of a human life as defined by people's own revealed preferences. This is the sort of calculation where we infer how much each of us values our own lives based on the amount we are willing to pay to avoid small chances of death. In the US today, the number is about $8 million…
If you are interested in how much people have valued a human life, in money units, throughout history, I can give you at least one recommendation. Medieval Iceland lived for 300 years without a government. Murder was punished by fine or exile, or becoming a slave or worse, an outlaw, if they refused to pay their debt to the victim's kin. This period is very well documented. Maybe you could find the exact value murder…
And at one point in ancient Rome theft carried more severe punishment than murder.
Germania was a poor province, when Rome tried taxing it, they got very little. Maybe it seemed wasteful to Germans to kill yet another man after losing one, when they could profit instead. To the Romans, prevention was the priority.
"For instance, the law of England is much more severe upon offences against property than against the person, as becomes a people whose ruling passion is money. A man may half kick his wife to death or inflict horrible sufferings upon his children at a much cheaper rate of punishment than he can compound for the theft of a pair of old boots."
"Alan Quartermain", H. Rider Haggard
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. A life is not property. It cannot be acquired or given away. Even if we were to just go along with it and categorize life as personal property, a murderer does not take the victim’s life into their possession in any way I can tell. Murder ends life rather than appropriating it, so murder would be destruction of property, not theft.
Even if we were to just go along with it and categorize life as personal property, a murderer does not take the victim’s life into their possession in any way I can tell. That never stopped copyright holders from calling infringement "theft".