Economist Peter Leeson discusses modern lie detector tests in the context of belief-based technologies and legal history.
Insight
Polygraphs Work by Manipulating Incentives Through Shared Belief, Not Biological Measurement
“You can't physiologically measure whether or not someone is lying or telling the truth. But the thing is, as long as people believe that they're real, then just like ordeals, they have the power to affect our incentives.”
Insight
Seemingly Irrational Historical Rituals Are Actually Rational Economic Behaviors
“People engage in all kinds of stuff that seems batshit crazy, but if you examine it through the lens of economics, if you just think about it in terms of basic constraints, you know, the limitations that people confront given their environments and the incenti…”
Assertion Partly supported
Most Defendants in Medieval Boiling Water Trials Were Actually Exonerated
“If you look at the historical evidence, it turns out the overwhelming majority of people who supposedly plunged their arms into boiling water were in fact exonerated.”
Assertion Partly supported
Medieval Priest Manuals Instructed Clergy to Secretly Manipulate Ordeal Water Temperatures
“Instruction manuals that priests of this era had for conducting ordeals, what you'll find is a whole bunch of fishy business where they essentially tell you to do things like, you know, you'll boil the water in private so that nobody can see, which means you m…”
Assertion Supported
18th-Century Pirate Constitutions Included Workman's Compensation for Limbs Lost in Battle
“Another key thing was piratical social insurance, a kind of workman's comp system. You know, if you lost your left arm in battle with a potential prize, you would receive out of the crew's common booty that he'd seized, compensation of a certain number of piec…”
Insight
Historical Superstitious Beliefs Functioned as Substitute Technologies for Social Governance
“You can kind of think about, in part, beliefs as a substitute technology for the sort of physical technologies that we take for granted in the modern world, many of which, as you point out, historically didn't exist. So naturally, they relied more on beliefs a…”