"I think certificates will replace a lot of use cases of punishment once they're widespread. You can fine people. But they won't replace everything."

They're faster than beating people up! If people have enough savings...

"Yeah, exactly. Most people will have some going spare and can hand them over. But some people have nothing and still make trouble."

Yeah.

"How do the future people solve that?"

Depends on the trouble but they don't make them eat ghost peppers.

"I was curious if they do something I'd prefer."

Sometimes they lock them up but the prisons can be nice and aimed toward trying to fix whatever situation led them to go committing crimes.

"And people don't commit crimes just because nothing very bad will happen if they're caught?"

I couldn't confidently claim that this never happens but in humans worse prison conditions are actually associated with higher recidivism rates. I don't know if the mechanisms behind that apply to faeries though.

"Huh. That seems important."

Understood mechanisms include people getting treatment for mental health problems or at least not making them worse with bad conditions, getting job training so they can do something other than what they were doing before, and avoiding setting up an excessively antagonistic relationship with the justice system. But maybe faeries don't have mental illnesses and never get sucked into a life of crime because they have no marketable skills and all understand perfectly that everything is how it is because of inalterable impersonal debt-related forces, I don't know.

"Some faeries are - irretrievably out of touch with reality - but there's nothing that can really be done for them. I don't think not having skills is a typical reason to commit crimes."

How do you know nothing can be done?

"People are often highly motivated to try - if it's one of their kids or something - and I've never heard anyone report more of a success than 'we cut out her tongue and now it's safe to keep her around'."

Well, I can't give an unambiguously positive report on all the kinds of psychiatric drugs there are, but there are those and I haven't seen evidence of a faery pharmaceutical industry at all.

"That sounds worth publicizing."

I will have to brush up on my psych notes.

'I don't know if things meant for humans will help us at all but I'm sure there will be people willing to experiment."

It'd be sort of weird if nothing did, since alcohol and caffeine work and you can eat the same food.

"There are mushrooms that make people hallucinate and I've heard have the same effect on humans."

So it'd be strange if no more elaborate drugs worked though I'd be likewise surprised if everything worked exactly the same.

"It seems odd to me that there are drugs that can make people more in contact with reality though I guess there are drugs that can make people less in contact with reality so perhaps it shouldn't seem odd."

Assuming I have the right idea about what contact with reality should be understood to mean the drugs that do it have worse side effects than lots of medications for other things but they still exist and might compare favorably to de-tonguing people.

"Or to killing them, which is what lots of places do."