St Helena laws for inhabitants 1672 | Hacker News Reader

St Helena laws for inhabitants 1672

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59 pointsThevet46 comments

> Inhabitants should endeavour to live in love and unity. Anyone bickering, brawling, or slandering neighbours would be severely punished.

Compulsory love under threat of severe punishment. Many modern communities seem to still believe this can be achieved. I doubt it.

I think the idea of laws whose purpose was to "prevent idleness" is interesting. Curious: Does this have some unexpected historical meaning? What was the justification for such laws? It seems today that Western society's whole goal is to increase our option for idleness. Can we learn something from the past regarding this?

> It seems today that Western society's whole goal is to increase our option for idleness.

Can you please invite me to your Western society that celebrates idleness?

In my Western society, we spend the first 22 years of our lives training to work for another 40 years before we can comfortably enter "idleness" at around age 65 for most people.

I think that for a long time "idleness" is stigmatized as "uselessness", and that by doing nothing you are not contributing to the wellbeing of the colony/civilization/society. That's likely even more true for a burgeoning settlement or young country, but still true today in almost every culture in the world.

> Can you please invite me to your Western society that celebrates idleness?

You don't need an invitation to visit Western Europe, but I'd wait a few months.

Sorry if we didn't answer your call in August, we were on vacation. We're working again now, though. Just don't call during lunch.

The kinds of greeks and romans who wrote stuff down that people kept were into σχολή and otium, respectively.

a sixteenth century telling of an anecdote from about a millennium earlier: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k70135b/f1013.image.r=...

> "Eſope vit ſon maiſtre qui piſſoit en ſe promenant, quoy donq, fit-il, nous faudra-il chier en courant."

Could you please translate that? I can make up for my poor standard of modern French with Google Translate, but it doesn’t have an option for 16th century French.

Aesop saw his master pissing while walking around, will we therefore, he said, have to shit while running?

Thank you :)

well, it used to be like that in less civilized times, except you'd be spending your first 6 years of life training for work and then work for the rest of it, be it another 6 or maybe 30. no weekends and winters sucked really, really hard.

It's still like that today. If you don't believe me, try applying for work when you havn't been working for the prior 6 months.

You will for certain be questioned on it, and even then it seems you're considered a low quality candidate even if you have a reasonable explanation.

With 12 months or more, it's guaranteed to be a major topic during your interview process, and even afterwards it can derail job offers and require even more discussion about it.

Preindustrial peoples generally worked less than we do, and life expectancy after childhood was not markedly different; if you survived early childhood, unless you were born in a particularly bad time (like the Black Plague), you could expect to live into your 60s or 70s.

Pre-civilization peoples (if by civilization we mean agriculture and settlements) seem to have worked even less.

Anyone who’s been in the military before is familiar with being told to rake sand, or pickup trash in an area with no trash, etc.

Western society doesn’t increase idleness options. It actively discourages idleness by giving you ever simpler ways to use up every cycle.

Idleness leads to thinking, which tends to lead to people testing their cages.

> Idleness leads to thinking, which tends to lead to people testing their cages.

I think it has more to do with the fact that you'd otherwise starve to death. There was no wholefoods to trade food stamps in. Also preindustrial probably any man hour had to be useful.

And, food was expensive, it cost a majority of most people's income.

While today it costs next to nothing for us to feed the homeless, then it would have been almost as expensive as hiring them.

To not speak of to cloth them. Functional clothing was very expensive.

If you go south (close to equator) food grows everywhere and there is little or no need for clothing. As somebody told me in Polynesia "you guys in Europe survive, we live".

Indeed.

Although if food grows easily, you might expect the number of humans around to grow to catch up with it... and this mostly didn't happen (in the pre-industrial world) not because there wasn't enough time (exponentials are fast!) but because it ran into other limits, like disease.

It is not really a concept of western society, it is more so a concept which predated capitalism (i.e. in FEUDAL society which did not have finance or wages) in north western europe. particularly for instance with laws like this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Labourers_1351 , and the one from 1349

Idleness and failure to contribute to the state was seen to be a fatal flaw. It also predates the protestant/catholic dichotomy stereotype of hard working wasps vs. mercantile catholics

Under feudalism, idleness was good for me (a bellator or orator), but not for thee (a labourer).

Compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24540122

Western society will let you starve to death if you have not demonstrated an ability to not be idle. The only people it promotes idleness in are the people it makes unfathomably rich on the back of others' non-idleness.

Saint Paul: "The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat" (2 Thess 3:10). Note the subtle difference in Lenin's version: "He who does not work shall not eat" [0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He_who_does_not_work,_neither_...

An interesting contrast to Marx's From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.

Is it possible that the word idleness is meant differently here?

It sounds to me as a way to prevent associated societal problems, real or otherwise: criminality, alcohol abuse, homelessness

In today’s context we read being idle as leisure time - and we have way more options to be idle with games and movies while still having a nice life with food and safety for everyone

Back then bring idle might simply mean being one step away from moving to the woods and stealing from the rich like Robin hood

It might be talking about what we would call unemployed / destitute people or it might be we only want middle class plantation owners.

See "Protestant work ethic", but it's not really specific to that. It came along with the belief that "the devil finds work for idle hands"; that is, people who had time on their hands would use it to cause trouble for others. And there's a grain of truth in that, a lot of disruptive youth behaviour is linked to not having a structure and purpose within which to do things.

Idleness is great for us self-entertaining solitary autodidacts, but that's not true of most people!

> It seems today that Western society's whole goal is to increase our option for idleness.

... in a consumerist context. Although the internet has hugely expanded the options for non-bored non-transactional idling.

Prior to the media age, the main thing idleness led to was drinking.

And people who are themselves working hard find it hard to tolerate seeing people who aren't. This drives all sorts of ridiculous behavior, like office presenteeism.

Does this have some unexpected historical meaning?

Maybe? In this context, I mainly interpret it as being unemployed. In other words, you are meant to go out, do some work, earn your keep.

https://apnews.com/83d5e39462164327a861ba34dcb3752c

A slightly more modern example—Iceland had a problem with misbehaving youth that they essentially solved by eliminating opportunities for idleness and strongly encouraging them to be in structured activity at most possible times.

In this case, idleness appears alongside the requirement to maintain a plantation. So I think it more has to do with a requirement to be able to provide for oneself (particularly when it came to sustenance) rather than a prohibition on any particular set of activities.

I don’t have a reference handy but during this time and several centuries thereafter there were (enforced) laws that sought to prohibit what we’d now call tramps throughout the English countryside. It appears that that is one part of home that they’re trying to leave behind.

Wholesome, a simpler time- even from the intro where the term 'called' is used as 'popped in', is that a maritime term or are they just being old fashioned?

It's a maritime term, as used in the idiom "port of call".

That doesn't even seem old fashioned. It's the same sense as, "I'm coming home, but I'll call at the store on the way."

is that still common in UK English? in contemporary US English 'call' seems almost exclusively used for 'telephone calls', i imagine a good proportion of the population being unfamiliar with the idea of 'call' indicating a physical appearance of any sort

In the UK "popped in" is still used a lot e.g. "I popped in to Tesco on the way home"

Were the laws actually enforced and followed?

laws in the british empire were enforced, and followed almost religiously. The HMS bounty is about the only time anyone has openly mutinied against the empire and kept their life and freedom, or perhaps the US in 1776

consider that the rum rebellion was put down in australia in 1810 by the royal navy, or the Wager mutiny - the survivors of a shipwreck/mutiny on the south coast of Chile in 1741 were court martialled in London a few years later. A sailor in those days even in a place as far flung as china or south africa would reasonably fear ending up being hanged in london

> laws in the british empire were enforced, and followed almost religiously.

No, they weren't. The upper classes, both aristocratic and capitalist, in particular, has quite a bit of license in practice that wasn't on the books.

> The HMS bounty is about the only time anyone has openly mutinied against the empire and kept their life and freedom,

Yeah, you'll find most governments, especially ones that otherwise grant a pass to elites, take rebellion/mutiny quite seriously.

Even among ordinary people, the default system was limited (if not selective) enforcement. There were a lot of capital crimes, but even assuming someone who committed one of them was caught (before the introduction of police forces or detectives) and convicted (before the introduction of state prosecutors), they would often be pardoned or receive a lighter sentence.

Juries also had a role to play. For instance, at one stage you could be hanged for stealing property with a value of more than 40 shillings. There was at least one case where a jury convicted someone of stealing property to a total value of 39 shillings, even though what he stole included more than 40 shillings in cash!

Sounds like hell.

better than living in europe in the aftermath of the 30 years war, where up to 50% of the population died in some areas. these settlers were effectively chancing disease (p to 50% fatality rates on voyages were common) and wilderness instead of nearly certain persecution and war

It is an offence to be in possession of more than 50kg of potatoes in WA, unless you have purchased the potatoes from a grower or retailer authorised by the Potato Corporation. Police also have the power to stop and search a vehicle suspected of carrying more than 50kg of potatoes. The maximum penalty is a $2,000 fine for a first offence or a $5,000 fine for subsequent offences, as well as a further penalty up to twice the value of the potatoes [Section 22, Marketing of Potatoes Act 1946 (WA)].

Why is it in kg if it’s in the US?

The United States has technically been on the metric system since 1975.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act

Voluntarily so, and in 1988 “preferred ... for trade and commerce.”

WA here is likely Western Australia.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-illegal-to-be-in-possession-of-m...

Yes if the intention was Washington state, I daresay it would have been described as an "offense".

It was previously common in Australia for the government to form independent 'single desks' that would have a monopoly on buying or selling a particular agricultural commodity with the intention that this would provide better prices for farmers on average over time. (you could still buy potatoes at the supermarket, but you were not allowed to sell a ship of potatoes)

Of course if the single desk is paying you the farmer, better than market prices during a glut, when the market picks up, the single desk is going to have to pay down it's debt and (and Saddam Hussein) before it pays you. This is one of many scenarios under which a bear market socialist might feel a longing for the free market stirring in their soul, and the potato act is the big stick that kept farmers from cutting their own deals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_desk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AWB_oil-for-wheat_scandal

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