For perhaps a millions years, humans did justice mainly via gossip: the rule was that when you saw a rule violated, you were to tell of it to others, talk together on what to do, and then do it. Problem was, gossip has long been known to be unreliable. When you hear someone rely an accusation that another person did something terrible, there’s a social “rush to judgment”
I like the idea of broader exposure to structured evidence based decision processes, but not to (my understanding of) Nickname Courts specifically.
I do see that CMs could be a compelling application domain. But if NCs attempt to make decisions based on only veracity, then, while we may get fewer Stupid Sams and Ugly Irmas than now, the ones we *do* get would be a) sanctioned by the adults and b) further legitimized to the extent that the Court's decisions were regarded as objectively true. The experienced cruelty level of negative nicknames would thus be significantly higher than now, and I don't see benefits which could outweigh this ( certainly not ones which couldn't be achieved by other, more cruelty-free, flavors of Court)
The general concept of trying to find a way to better regulate reputation in social groups that exceed a manageable size is an important one, that I've been considering for a while (with zero headway). Our societies have scaled larger than our historical social mechanisms can cope with.
In any case, I think the main problem, with both the idea of nickname courts and every other idea I've considered, is that of enforcement. Criminal and civil courts work because there's a large group of powerful people to enforce the judgments. In fact, enforcement is one of the core functions of society as a whole - putting some force behind the shared social norms (which in modern society are explicitly recorded as laws).
But individual communications, whether face-to-face or via social media, have no enforcement mechanism other than social pressure. And without a more physical means of enforcement (all real enforcement is ultimately backed up with threats of violence), there will always be sub-groups that feel free to ignore the norm or "ruling".
That's why there's no way to stop gossip. And without an enforcement mechanism, I don't see how nickname courts could work either. Even if you set it up so that someone called an unsanctioned nickname could sue for libel or slander, it still wouldn't work as a deterrent, because the cost of pursuing that route would exceed the benefits of it for too many people, meaning it still would go unenforced most of the time.
The basic concept, though, of giving a small group of people the "power" to enforce some kind of consequences on improper might work in general. That is, after all, what happened when our societies were alot smaller and more insulated. But I think some new form of enabling and enforcing it would be needed, and I have no idea yet what that might look like.
Have you ever been a teenager? Or hung around teenagers? At best you'll replace calling someone X with an initially even funnier "motion to declare person X"
It's unclear that this scales any better than the current recursive mechanism (you're free to shame anyone who's inappropriately shaming others). Having a central authority requires a LOT of infrastructure to keep it's enforcement powers acceptable to the supermajority needed to keep it going.
Typo: NCs not CMs,
I like the idea of broader exposure to structured evidence based decision processes, but not to (my understanding of) Nickname Courts specifically.
I do see that CMs could be a compelling application domain. But if NCs attempt to make decisions based on only veracity, then, while we may get fewer Stupid Sams and Ugly Irmas than now, the ones we *do* get would be a) sanctioned by the adults and b) further legitimized to the extent that the Court's decisions were regarded as objectively true. The experienced cruelty level of negative nicknames would thus be significantly higher than now, and I don't see benefits which could outweigh this ( certainly not ones which couldn't be achieved by other, more cruelty-free, flavors of Court)
The general concept of trying to find a way to better regulate reputation in social groups that exceed a manageable size is an important one, that I've been considering for a while (with zero headway). Our societies have scaled larger than our historical social mechanisms can cope with.
In any case, I think the main problem, with both the idea of nickname courts and every other idea I've considered, is that of enforcement. Criminal and civil courts work because there's a large group of powerful people to enforce the judgments. In fact, enforcement is one of the core functions of society as a whole - putting some force behind the shared social norms (which in modern society are explicitly recorded as laws).
But individual communications, whether face-to-face or via social media, have no enforcement mechanism other than social pressure. And without a more physical means of enforcement (all real enforcement is ultimately backed up with threats of violence), there will always be sub-groups that feel free to ignore the norm or "ruling".
That's why there's no way to stop gossip. And without an enforcement mechanism, I don't see how nickname courts could work either. Even if you set it up so that someone called an unsanctioned nickname could sue for libel or slander, it still wouldn't work as a deterrent, because the cost of pursuing that route would exceed the benefits of it for too many people, meaning it still would go unenforced most of the time.
The basic concept, though, of giving a small group of people the "power" to enforce some kind of consequences on improper might work in general. That is, after all, what happened when our societies were alot smaller and more insulated. But I think some new form of enabling and enforcing it would be needed, and I have no idea yet what that might look like.
My first impression is that this seems like it'll lead to officially sanctioned bullying of unpopular kids.
Motion to declare Yo'momma fat.
Have you ever been a teenager? Or hung around teenagers? At best you'll replace calling someone X with an initially even funnier "motion to declare person X"
I don't see a central authority here.
It's unclear that this scales any better than the current recursive mechanism (you're free to shame anyone who's inappropriately shaming others). Having a central authority requires a LOT of infrastructure to keep it's enforcement powers acceptable to the supermajority needed to keep it going.
So... Instead of impeaching the President, we could sentence him to be known as Donald Grump.
Something more specific, but not in conflict.
It sounds a little like you're saying Be Nice, At Least Until You Can Coordinate Meanness, with a specific mechanism for coordination.