“But when you’re on the receiving end of such “statistical” ostracism from everyone you meet, it feels quite different.”
Do the feelings of the shop owners count?
In fact we already know how this works today, as many employers do not hire criminals and many landlords will not rent to them. Others do, money is money. The system works, criminals don’t face ostracism from everyone, they have one another and many non-criminals who are willing to associate with them. (Many criminals are even willing to almost implement your suggestion with face tats.) It provides deterrence of crime and, more importantly, preserves the liberty of the non-criminal population.
>The invention of agriculture led to increased food availability and around ten thousand years of greatly worsened health and lifespans[3]. The wealthiest and most powerful people benefited immensely from the population explosion, and from the wars that larger populations enabled and required; the population suffered from both malnutrition, and that same increase in the scale of violence
This is true if you’re comparing averages. But what about totals? The total population of well-off people in 1000 AD was likely higher than the human population in 10,000 BC, and the rest of the population likely had lives worth living.