What If?

What if?

As a society, human beings have, by way of our own supposed intellect and civilized nature, outpaced our own ability to conduct ourselves accordingly.

Or have we?

We have adopted many civilized "rules" on how we are supposed to engage with each other. But as the decades and centuries pass, it appears as though only a select few of us humans choose to follow those rules, while other humans choose to ignore those same rules. Despite what language we communicate with, it is clear that evolution affects us all, because despite where you go in this world, all human beings have access to the same things, yet only some people are choosing to take advantage of the advancements of mankind. Other people are choosing a more "barbaric" lifestyle befitting that of the humans of Millenniums ago.

What can explain this cultural disparity, other than a lack of conscience amongst only some of us?

I have an opinion.

As humans have evolved and set up these "rules" for each other to engage in, that also set up a social structure that evolved with the humans. Along the way there were many who refused to evolve with those who readily accepted the social change, but they were quickly "dealt with," by swift punishment. As humans evolve, I also notice so do their egos. Their egos allow them to believe that they can accommodate man and his "whims" by way of "negotiation," rather than swift punishment. This has proven, over the centuries, to be entirely less effective than swift punishment.

What if any and all acts of violence of our social contracts were met with their exact act of punishment? If you murder someone, you are murdered, immediately. If you set something on fire, you are set on fire, immediately. If you shoplift something, your hands are cut off so you cannot lift anything, again, let along shoplift? If you physically assault a child, you are physically assaulted to the same degree? And so on. What if you receive the exact punishment of whatever act of social contract you break?

We all must live together, and if not all of us are following the rules, clearly it makes it difficult for those who are.

Those of you who believe that two wrongs don't make a right? How do you know? We have been handling society the "two wrongs don't make a right" way for at least 100 years, and it isn't working. The United States of America has one of the highest per capita prison populations in the entire world, and not one rehabilitated criminal to speak on behalf of your method. Empirical data suggests that those who are released from prison find their way back to prison, not assimilated back into society, successfully.

What if we tried a different approach to punishment, just for a decade, as a study in the biological response of humans? Just to gather data. What if we achieved far higher rehabilitation rates, with drastically reduced rates of crime?

What would you say, then?