You make it sound like the only alternative to solving all problems with shunning, ostracism and lifetime bans is to just let everybody do everything they want,

You make it sound like the only alternative to solving all problems with shunning, ostracism and lifetime bans is to just let everybody do everything they want, and we don’t want that, do we, so let’s just do the first thing, huh? There will always be a small amount of people who don’t obey the social niceties. Some are psychopaths, or have some other mental problems. Some may have extenuating circumstances. But I believe that society can be improved such that these people are rare and far between, and society can invest in picking up the remaining slack. > Improving mores and living conditions should go hand in hand with protecting these improved mores and conditions from those who try to push the society back to the savage state for a minor benefit for themselves. Sounds great, except whenever such things are actually implemented, it tends to be a lot of steadily increasing punishment; any improvements, whatever they were initially, will eventually be cut from the budget since they do not give immediate visible results, whereas harsh punishment get great ratings. People love a good public flogging. This is a problem perpetuating itself. People don’t believe in the public spirit and goodwill of others, so they don’t want to invest in actually improving it, since they think it can’t be done. And so it goes.