Definitely thought-provoking! If you're interested in expanding on this setting, I'd love to know how they handle political corruption, and whether there's any degree of democracy or accountability. I'm also interested in what counts as "the most extreme possible manner" of carrying out a law. I imagine the list of offenses punishable by death is very long. There's a lot of potential in this setting for an exploration of the question "What happens when the state's all-or-nothing method gets turned against the state itself?"
The very first iterations of this sort of state would be highly unstable. Later versions would have....extraordinarily thorough lists undoubtedly. And that last point is very apt. The answer is massive civil wars of truly horrific proportions.
That sounds fascinating! Would make a great setting for a comedy, or for a gritty drama about ruthless political backstabbing. I'm not sure I understand how the system works. Does the state assign people to various groups or schools of thoughts that they consider radical? Is it more spontaneous, with people seeking out these groups on their own? If one of these parties or movements gets too popular, upsetting the delicate balance, does the state step in and reassign people to less popular ideologies?
think of it as a society where communities and culture revolves around different monasteries of philosophical though, but all share this common belief system that is the basis of extremis homeostasis. those who seek out the very opposites to their starting ideologies and do so repeatedly ( as in they don't just shift ideologies once, but more like seek out the alternatives repeatedly and grapples with them) throughout their lives form a "sort" of government in a manner similar to the head of a monastery or the dalai lama. the idea is that those who repeatedly grapple with the various ideologies at the various ends of the spectrum of options have a more complete philosophical view and are less possessively ideological and doctrinal. Or that is one interpretation of the idea.
Here are some more ideologies, some of which are from other sites but interesting enough:
As Zeus once overthrew his father Cronus and the Titans, just as Cronus had once overthrown his father Uranus. Given how they treated him, it should've came as no surprise when Hephaestus, god of the forge, craftsmanship and mechanization followed in the family tradition by overthrowing his father Zeus and claiming his position as the new
ruler of Olympus.
Hephaestus was never strong enough to face his tormentors directly, so he used his specialization to cheat so he wouldn't have to. He defeated Ares, god of war by ending first glory and heroism in war by making a world where the greatest, most heroic warrior could be unceremoniously shot by a conscript who didn't even want to be there without even seeing the face of his enemy, then ending war altogether by inspiring the creation and distribution of weapons so terribly powerful neither side dared use them least their enemies retaliate in kind, Hera by making machines rendering her notion of
family and societal roles were economically impractical and Aphrodite by creating
a beauty greater than her.
Basically, greco-roman mythology turned into a monotheistic religion by Hephaestus' massacre of all his tormentors, combined with a religious imperative for building tools and machines to overcome preexisting weaknesses and a sort of reverse
warrior culture where the weaklings who cheat by inventing better weaponry or agriculture and medicine letting their armies outnumber the enemy, etc are preferable to the honorable warriors.
a sort of combination of polytheism and Platonicism. Imagine a society where in a period when belief in the pantheon of gods is declining, somebody latches onto the concept of "Platonic Ideals" and manages to revitalize the religion by mixing the two.
The result is a sort of "Divine Idealism", that re-imagines the gods not as superpowered people, but as the Ideal embodiment of the concepts they represent. So for example, the "God of War" would be conceived of as the ideal warrior in the ideal war, with associated teachings about what those things are. Rather than worshiping and entreating the gods, they would be regarded as ideals to strive for. It would be a more philosophical than theistic approach to religion, with each "Divine Ideal" having a large set of ideals to follow (and for people to argue over).
And perhaps most important for the effect this has on the world they become more resistant to both disproof and exposure to other cultures. In the former case because as abstract ideals there's nothing anyone can point to as objective disproof; and in the latter because by not making claims about
actual personified gods, they don't directly clash with other religious mythologies.
So long as paying to support the poor is cheaper for the wealthy than hiring mercenaries to protect themselves and their possessions from the threat of thieves or revolution, do it. So basically welfare but thought of as protection money rather than a moral imperative. And like with any protection money deal, both sides have to keep up their end of the bargain, if theft and rioting rises to the point where mercenaries again become cheaper, the deal's off, so the poor need to self-police themselves or lose everything.
.....
Unironic belief in prayer-fed deities. Implications are that if the religion ever dies out, so does the deity and the afterlife it created for the deceased faithful, so the only way to maintain your own paradisaical reward is to maintain the long-term survival of your community/the religion, and the need to stop foreigners from worshiping foreign deities/make sure there are more of you worshiping your deity than of them worshiping theirs, since if critical mass is reached, their deity will become real and can threaten you and/or your deity won't be strong enough to stop it.
Well it used to be believed that a man should not be allowed to vote unless he had property and thus stake in a nation. But what if you took this to the logical extreme and most literal interpretation of a plutocracy? You literally buy your votes. Perhaps eligible people might be given one base vote but then richer people could pay an increasing amount of money for additional votes and who people vote for is often included in things like job contracts or landlord agreements. Meanwhile particularly for local elections uncommitted voters are often swayed by candidates offering to provide public services out of their own pocket as much as anything else in a romanesc manor.
Here are some more of mine:
a debt based honor system. In the society even when you are born the children are indebted to their parents just for existing. And all indebted to the gods. All people in the society are basically serfs to whomever holds their debt...and whomever holds the debt trade ownership of it to another. While not necessarily likely, the richest man in the society could find himself indebted and bound to serve a homeless vagrant, and the entirety of the society would demand his death if he refused to do so.
Social hierarchies are....strange in this place to say the least.
Another society:
Its justice believes in an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. They also believe taking life is immoral and not justifiable under any circumstances. Thus all who are conscripted to fight necessary wars for survival will all inevitably be executed after wars end. The entire military down to the officers and generals are conscripts who are forcibly trapped in service. Furthermore, since law enforcement sometimes may be forced into situations where a life could be taken, law enforcement also consists of conscripts and the condemned. Killing is often outsourced to foreigners so as to keep the society from imploding.