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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3653 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 21, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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Is it legal for a community to create something like a social credit score to exclude people who aren’t part of the community?

For instance, say the requirements of the community are you must attend church regularly and not commit certain crimes (like theft). After you attend church for a while and avoid being convicted of any crimes then you are considered a member in good standing within the community.

The community has businesses like a grocery store where the market value of everything is multiplied by 100 (so an item that normally sells for $3 is priced at $300). If you are a member in good standing you get a 99% discount and are only charged $3.

Also, in this community you agree that if you sell property (such as a house) you will use the same pricing scheme so effectively it can only be sold to members in good standing of the community. If you fail to maintain good standing in the community then you agree that you will physically leave the community.

IIRC the mormon church operates kind of like this- member's behavior is tracked and the benefits available to members(which do exist) are contingent on meeting the expectations of the community.

I was thinking of this when I wrote the post, but I wasn't sure how the Mormon community operationally does this. It seems like it is more of a social norm to shun/socially-stigmatize ex-members than it being an explicit code of conduct that is causing this.

I'm wondering if you could explicitly achieve this legally with a financially incentivized code of conduct that all members agree to (as opposed to being an unwritten social norm).

Then I'm wondering if you could legally use a code of conduct like this in a secular community. People just want to agree to shared moral values and exclude people who don't agree with those values, without needing to have any shared religious beliefs.

Our code of conduct is basically:

  1. Keep the law of chastity (sex only within heterosexual marriage, no porn, etc.)
  2. Keep the word of wisdom (no beer, recreational drugs, coffee, tea)
  3. Tithe (10% of income)
  4. Generally don't do big evil things such as murder, abuse, or fraud
  5. Generally, believe in God and keep the commandments, of course.

There are 2 levels of violation. If you do something minor like swear, lie, slack off, insult someone, etc., you're fine. The least bad thing that will lead to consequences is generally a violation of the law of chastity, meaning you looked at porn and then confessed this to the bishop. This may, but usually doesn't, lead to certain consequences for a few weeks, which we call disfellowship. Despite the name, it's a private matter, but while disfellowshipped you're not supposed to take the sacrament (our name for what Catholics call the communion), give talks in church, exercise the priesthood (for example by giving someone a blessing), or go to the temple. Recurring drug or porn use will probably get you disfellowshipped, fornication almost certainly will.

Excommunication is the more serious level, reserved for things like adultery and murder. It's much the same as disfellowshipping except that your membership in the church is formally revoked and you need to get rebaptized to get your privileges back.

I honestly don't think there's much of a norm to shun ex-members. Most of my best friends are not members, and I am probably more devout than the average member.

This code of conduct is not really comparable to a secular version though. There's virtually no secular benefit to keeping the code of conduct, and the only enforcement mechanism for all but the most serious sins is one's own conscience. There's not really any realistic way to force people to be honest about private matters, so any attempt to create a financially incentivized code of conduct will explicitly pit people's honesty against money. I doubt it lasts long against bad actors. There's no shortcut to creating a healthy culture, nor is any method guaranteed to produce one.

  1. Check. Hmm, probably mostly.
  2. Annd I'm out
  3. Well I'm already out, so.
  4. Check
  5. Hmm

Is this Mormon? JW? I know only superficially anything about either. You needn't answer, of course.

Mormon

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