> What is the point of the legal system if everyone is just going to apply extra-legal, -arbitrary- punishments on top of it?
To control the application of violence and to make sure the preexisting rules are being followed before it is applied.
If you don't have any verification that the rules are being followed, those in power tend to do pretty horrible things. At the same time, if those in power use no violence, the populace tend to resort to extra-legal violence to deliver what they see as justice, which results in a different class or horrible things happening (and threatens the government's monopoly on legitimized violence).
It's basically a local maximum that still kind of sucks, but works better than anything else we've tried at scale.
We've tried getting the government involved in social punishment, but it tends to work out very poorly and it seems best just to have them not enter that sphere.
> what's the point in trying to cooperate with a society that brands you as a criminal no matter
Potentially nothing, but that's a question for society, not for the government/legal system. Society is supposed to control the government, not the other way around (or at least that's the theory, practice is sometimes pretty spotty).
It should also be noted that there's no requirement for people to add these extra punishments. So, it should be pretty easy to turn around if people ever pull their heads out of their asses.
To control the application of violence and to make sure the preexisting rules are being followed before it is applied.
If you don't have any verification that the rules are being followed, those in power tend to do pretty horrible things. At the same time, if those in power use no violence, the populace tend to resort to extra-legal violence to deliver what they see as justice, which results in a different class or horrible things happening (and threatens the government's monopoly on legitimized violence).
It's basically a local maximum that still kind of sucks, but works better than anything else we've tried at scale.
We've tried getting the government involved in social punishment, but it tends to work out very poorly and it seems best just to have them not enter that sphere.
> what's the point in trying to cooperate with a society that brands you as a criminal no matter
Potentially nothing, but that's a question for society, not for the government/legal system. Society is supposed to control the government, not the other way around (or at least that's the theory, practice is sometimes pretty spotty).
It should also be noted that there's no requirement for people to add these extra punishments. So, it should be pretty easy to turn around if people ever pull their heads out of their asses.