> Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign.
Now you're assuming the intent.
The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
But the larger point is that people can adopt the "obvious intent" version of the rule when it suits them and the pedantic version of the rule when it suits them. If you're the park ranger and the local police come into the park in their car chasing after some criminals, and the local police are your buddies, you say they haven't violated the rule because the intent isn't to apply to emergency vehicles. If the exact same thing happens but you're having a dispute with the local police, now they're violating the rule and you can come up with something like the park isn't in their jurisdiction.
It's the same rule. It's the same action. The only difference is if you like them or not. And that's the problem.
That's true but without assuming intent you end up blindly following rules.
Something struck me when first moved to UK from Turkey: Every rule in UK seemed to have an intent and that's why I think Turkey is full of rules which no one follows but in UK the rules are less numerous but followed. In Turkey, Turks like to think that the rules are not followed because the fines are too small or that the government is incompetent and can't enforce the fines. I disagree, I think Turkey is a chaotic society because rules are not built around intent. Did you know that up until (literally)yesterday live music after midnight was banned in Turkey as part of Covid-19 measures?
For the first few months until I got my white collar job, I did some part time jobs in London as a waiter etc. and worked at some high end venues and hotels. In these places there are some equipments(like climate control of the wine cellar) which are operated through control panels which are accessible to everyone and they didn't put signs that say "don't touch", instead the signs said "you have no reason to touch this". They were able to keep curious hands away from buttons that shouldn't be pushed by those who don't know what they are doing by simply emphasising the intent.
Intent is extremely important, in fact everything is about intent. Every human action is with an intent. Great UX is built by designing around intent.
You might be interested in reading the classical book about cultural difference by Geert Hofstede as it provides another perspective on this.
He describes what he calls uncertainty avoidance cultures that try to reduce uncertainty by making lots of rules. These end up being impossible to follow, so it's generally expected that you don't. He contrasts this with cultures that are low on uncertainty avoidance that have fewer rules, but on the other hand it's expected that they are followed.
In a park in Stuttgart a man approached us as we were walking the dog, and after realising we spoke English politely said "You must not be aware, dogs must be on lead here".
That's kind of a funny example, because my go-to on the subject is that if you visit a park in Washington State (or most of the US) you are immediately hit with a wall of text that starts with "no alcohol" but goes on to describe every annoying boom box cruising fireworks soliciting vending way you could potentially annoy someone. In Germany you can just sit on the grass, crack a beer, and watch the river roll by.
I think it's a great example of social policing, which IMHO better than anorganic, artificial traditional policing.
But I'm still not 100% percent sure what he meant because I don't speak german.
It is more of a difference in British English, where a leash is used to control a large/dangerous animal, while a lead is used more cooperatively (like walking a dog).
I heard lead quite a bit from trainers, and assume their choice in nomenclature is part of the general positive reinforcement nature of modern dog training.
I don't think so. Often I see people in the UK breaking rules like that and it's almost never mentioned.
But it wasn't just that he mentioned it. It was the way he mentioned it. That the only possible reason for us to not be following the rules was that we must not know them.
yea, I'm afraid I'm not adding much to the discussion. In the end, it doesn't matter if Germany really is like this - the idea of an orderly country still exists.
I beg to differ, counterpoints are always useful. I have an outsiders view of Germany. I've seen large chunks of it. Even stopped for a month or two (Munich, Berlin). But I don't speak German, or at least not enough to be useful (Mein Deutsch ist nicht gut). I visit a park once or twice, not with a group that you get to know.
My lack of German may well have changed the interaction I mentioned.
Just for the record, I am not part of the dog owners group :)
I don't think it's nice to let a dog roam in the park, kids get scared, and things can go wrong.
Ah, I read that differently. Yeah, it depends on the dog I guess. I have an English Cocker Spaniel which the worst risk is probably knocking someone over. I'm generally not pro breaking rules like that, and in the case above I actually hadn't seen the sign (it was not well posted). I do generally go out of my way to translate rules where necessary.
Ah my German is a little more advanced than that, but every time I stumble through trying to communicate in German they immediately switch to English. It's not like I can blame them, I wouldn't have time for my fumbling halting German either.
What I'd do if I lived in Germany is every day read the front page of the newspaper, looking up every word I didn't know.
Due to the internet, I encounter a lot more German than I used to. For example, Netflix runs a lot of movies Auf Deutsch, and I try to figure out what they're saying.
That's a possible interpretation as well. But having travelled extensively (and I'm not the rule breaker in most cases), there are very very different approaches to rules and laws even within Europe.
There is a section of Europe where following the rules is what you do (to be clear it's not just Germany[0]). It's assumed that you're going to follow the rules. Adults don't need to be policed in this way. The rules are there for a reason (second order thinking).
Then there are large parts of Europe where there are rules but if they're not enforced then people will by and large not obey them. See, for example, the UK putting in smart motorways (aka, average speed cameras), because before that people would fly up the motor way well above the speed limit.
The Autobahn might have areas with no speed limit, but on the sections that HAVE speed limits you'd be hard pressed to find someone breaking those limits.
I grew up in Australia where it's somewhere between the two. The enforcement of the rules is strict. I once got a jaywalking ticket for crossing an empty road in Melbourne (long story, but it's also one of my stupider moments because it wasn't like the police were behind a bush, they hopped off the same tram I did).
I haven't had a speeding or parking ticket since I left Australia.
Though, circling back to my Stuttgart story, if someone approached you about rule breaking in Australia you can almost guarantee that you'd have pissed them off to the point it would not have been polite. In Paris, as well, I have been yelled at (in French) for dog poop on a sidewalk that wasn't even my dogs -- yes, I do always pick up after my dog.
[0]: Even within Germany I'm sure there are variations on this.
There is a logic to it though. On a bicycle you are mostly risking your own life, so you are likely to make good judgements about when you can break the rules. In a car, you are mostly riding other people’s lives (bicyclists and pedestrians). Different incentives.
Yeah, managed to have stitches in the back of my head, but I'll not argue that I'd rather be hit by a bike than a car. If those are the only options. To be fair, the bike rider didn't exactly walk away without some bumps and bruises either.
A neighbor, who wants to see speed cameras installed to control speeding in our small (250 person) New Mexico village: "I always drive 9mph over the posted limit".
This is simply not true. Most people in New York would not say anything, regardless of whether they support the law or not. I saw people without masks on the subway every day while they were required and nobody ever said anything to them.
I'd imagine that comes partially from risk assessment. Is the risk of a highly negative interaction worth highlighting the rules infraction? AKA, is it potentially worth my life to tell someone they aren't following the rules.
This doesn’t change my point. There are a lot of people who were for mask mandates (whether you agree with them or not), and where I live, they typically didn’t confront people who were disobeying.
The intent of moderation is "don't be horrible to each other and/or the space".
Unfortunately, people who are horrible to other people and/or spaces generally refuse to accept this, and therefore either need more specific examples of what being horrible entails to compare their behaviours against - leading to proliferation of edges, epicycles and rule-gaming - or you have a codicil along the lines of "the decision of what is horrible is up to the moderator and is final", leading to, at best, everyone whining about how unfair, arbitrary and partial the policy is now they can't be horrible to each other any more, all at once.
> leading to, at best, everyone whining about how unfair, arbitrary and partial the policy is now they can't be horrible to each other any more, all at once.
I don’t think that is the only possible outcome. Where moderation is done well lot of people, in fact most people, simply don’t notice it. They just have a pleasant time with other pleasant people. So no, “everyone whining“ is not the best possible outcome. “Most people having a good time, a minority whining” is the best possible outcome. And of course it takes hard work, and maybe even a little bit of luck with the initial conditions.
These communities are lovely when they occur, but they tend to be small and ephemeral; it takes one single persistent troll who is good at gaming community mores and calmly wrapping complaints about any pushback in reasonable-sounding phrases to completely destroy such a space. I've seen this happen entirely too often :(
HN is a good example of where the moderation works to a large extent, but it has trade offs that can be extremely problematic.
For example, politically charged discourse is suppressed. That's going to result in a higher level of civility, but now you have a large community of people with an impaired ability to affect the political process.
Politically-charged or at least on the wrong side of the line. HN does tend to discourage a lot of low effort flamebait which is generally for the good. But even politely-made minority arguments can easily be downvoted as well.
Only if the moderators are idiots. Which most moderators are not: if one person is the bulk of complaints, then that person is the problem not everybody else.
Trusting in the moderators to not "be idiots" - not make decisions you wouldn't - is a bit like trusting in benevolent dictatorship as a form of government: it works great, right up until it doesn't.
Is that always true? If this person is a minority and people are harassing them, for example? Do you remove them for the same if community cohesion or force the community to be more accepting?
I mean, this is “no vehicles in the park” territory. One person’s harassment is another’s telling the truth and calling things by their names, and while people will happily call moderator decisions obviously idiotic, they will vehemently disagree which decisions are the idiotic ones. Bullies are excellent at playing those strings. This stuff divides communities.
I grew up in America which is fairly rule-obeying. Lived in Australia and New Zealand which are disgustingly, obsequiously devoted to following tiny guidelines. Spent a few weeks in Munich where I was shouted at for crossing a totally empty street against a crosswalk light.
On the plus side, I lived in Argentina and Spain for a long time where basically there is no enforcement of anything.
I will say I am proud of people there (in the Latin world) for being humans. mostly ... usually... trying not to make dumb decisions, but... well, having to make decisions, and making them. You see if you live in England or the US or Commonwealth for awhile, people have forgotten how to make any decisions if there isn't a rule for it.
And yet the freest society I ever lived in, judged on the day to day freedom of individuals violating petty laws, was Vietnam. At the same time, it was the most totalitarian place I ever lived as far as what information you could access or what you could say. Still, if you wanted to drive the wrong way down a highway with an child on the back of your motorcycle, you can do that in Vietnam.
Personally I don't like the UK / Australia model where everyone obeys some stupid rule written on the wall over their own intelligence. Of course, I also don't love the Argentinian model where everyone thinks they're smart enough to bang on the button that says "don't touch". Also, it's not cool to wantonly endanger your child while being terrified of mentioning the name of the dictator. But I am a fan of man... and I would definitely take the Turkish way of shrugging off rules when they don't suit you over the British way of following them to the point of worship.
I think I was going to get to some great conclusion here, but I don't have one.
I like when no one is watching me, but I also like when someone is watching other people.
[edit] my conclusion! privacy and freedom come at the cost of people ignoring rules. People from rule-bound countries experience a burst of freedom when going somewhere that lives as people live, not by the rule-book. People from "chaotic societies" as you said, who have a mind for all the corruption they see around them, find some relief in escaping to ordered societies. Neither is good or bad, they are both modes of existence; both modes are necessary. If either were to disappear, we would have far too much chaos or far too much order, and no one would be able to escape to where they belong.
> I would definitely take the Turkish way of shrugging off rules
Having lived most of my life in Turkey, it gets old really fast.
For one thing, there's a certain culture that is a mixture of extreme fatalism, not giving a shit about anything that doesn't immediately benefit you, low respect to other people, and the worst part of it, seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive, that is so pervasive in Turkey.
When this culture is given a lax rule structure, what you get is a chaotic, every man for himself, free-for-all place devolving further and further into a low CGI Mad Max movie. Only reason why it still hasn't completely collapsed into chaos is because people are still afraid of the punishment. If you think I'm exaggerating, next time you're there ask a restaurant owner if you can smoke, right under the no-smoking sign and pay attention to what they say: do they tell you that'd disturb other customers? or do they tell you of the ₺20k fine they got that one time and they can't let you because of that.
I can tell for you as a lived experience that significantly more people in Turkey cut in lines than people in Germany. Why do they do that I ask myself, the only explanation I could find until now is because fuck you, that's why. If you were as cunning, as manly, as bold as they are you'd be at the front of the line, but you aren't, so fuck you. They know there won't be repercussions for that action, and that's the only bar to clear for them to do it.
Maybe this way of living fits some, I myself find this despicable. I know that cutting in lines is not the most important metric for life quality in the world, but I fully believe it seeps into everything else in the society and over time makes it unlivable.
--
Even in an imaginary ideal environment, if act of obeying existing rules is debatable, there'll be the problem of everyone considering themselves as a sufficient authority on making judgements with a limited context and a huge bias on interpretations that benefit them. At one point it just makes sense to ask people to use the right channels to push change instead of 80 million people making individual judgements on every issue every day and hope for the best.
First of all, this is such an excellent post, and thank you.
>>seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive
I'm sad to say that this is true everywhere I've been. The attitude is everywhere in the US... it's only that in the US people are trained to be quiet about it. My observation, everywhere I go, is that only smart, observant people do not mistake kindness for weakness.
>> because fuck you, that's why
So, this is one thing I do like about the US. The police in the US do not get involved in anything unless you pull out a gun and shoot somebody... even then, they really don't care. On the other hand, this kind of fake "manliness" you're describing is sort of self-limiting in the US; it tends to look ridiculous to us when we travel overseas or when we see new immigrants from (choose a chaotic country) act this way - because here, the guy you jump in line in front of might look like nothing but he also might have a 9mm. I say this from the perspective of someone who has seen multiple shootings at the bar around the corner from my house in the past year, for things as stupid as someone acting rudely.
Stupid, selfish, short-sighted people are the same everywhere. Being rude is really the issue; one does not need a God or a police force to avoid being rude. Being rude and taking advantage for oneself is cultural, and I actually believe it's impossible to take a culture who has been raised that way and make them - under any police regime - act differently. (I'll qualify that further by telling you that all my grandparents came from Russia in the 1920s, and spoke Russian, but they hated the criminal type of Russian scavengers who came out of that ruthless wasteland from the 1980s onward). Taking care of others outside your family requires two things: 1. a functioning rule of law, yes, but 2. a view passed to you from your parents that treating others well will cause you to flourish more than trying to take advantage of them. This cannot be enforced. It has to be internalized and understood. I really think it's better in many ways to see what kind of people you're speaking with bluntly than to listen to the sophistry of the modern version of the same avarice as it presents itself in New York or Los Angeles. I can sit and listen to the racism toward black people in the American South or toward Aboriginal people in Australia, and just openly disagree. That's better to me than listening to people who I know are racist trying to sound politically correct in Seattle.
>> I know that cutting in lines is not the most important metric for life quality in the world
I think it's the second-most important metric. Being polite.
But it's worse to be somewhere everyone is polite and everyone is a hypocrite. Hypocrisy is to me the most important metric.
(This is actually what my problem is with Thailand. True, no one cuts in line. But there's so much bottled-up anger that no one can admit to, and suddenly it explodes).
But not cutting in line - in my book - is representative of the best human value. So I absolutely agree with your view and don't think you should say it's not important. It's possibly the most important thing.
A shout out to the Argentines, when my ex-gf was possibly kidnapped there, people asked me to cut in line in front of them at an ATM that was running out of money, where they had been waiting for a long time, just from seeing the look on my face.
I think you are over-reaching on the effect of 2A. Most of the developed countries in the world do not have an armed population and still, people do not cut lines.
I have lived in India where lines do not generally exist and in US. I have seen the culture in India change from line cutting to following the line (generally). The biggest difference is caused by whether you believe you will get the service if you wait in the line.
If you have a service that is available for only the first 20, but you have 50 people waiting, line-cutting will happen. Railway tickets in India are a big example - when I was growing up, you rush to the beginning of the line since there were only small number of seats allocated to each station. Now, that it is computerized and you can book from anywhere to anywhere, people stay in the line since they know they will get the ticket.
Look at your last example - lack of service if you are not in the front will cause chaos.
> the worst part of it, seeing other people who care as weak, unmanly and naive, that is so pervasive in Turkey
pervasice in Russia too. Most non-democratic societies are indivifualistic and highly cynical.
That's why I say American brain is' a prison - they think in 'Socialist countries everyone cares about each. other too much, and that why they are poor
nah, the problem with the Russian mindset was never caused by Socialism. Communist dictatorship, Putinism and Czarism were all just symptoms of it. Some people think the problem is "mysticism" but I think that gives it too much credit. Look, Finland and Sweden are next door, why does a country so rich have such a mental problem with its manliness? The problem comes from that it's nicer to tell stories that impress other people. It's like they invented tiktok but 100 years earlier. My grandfather (Russian) was one to tell stories. But he was humble. 'how much do you think I paid for these boots??' he asked everybody. And when they said $40, he laughed and said $10! It was a lie. But a humble lie. The opposite was to lie the other way and say $100.
To tell you the truth, Russia itself has always been a prison, as it is now, and the people have a prison mentality. That causes you to brag or be humble; always to scheme and never to be honest; always to look for an edge. Lying to people's faces, what is it vranyo? Just to make sure they know you're lying, and exercise power over them? No, the American brain is not a prison. Americans individually have a lot of problems understanding the world, but we do not think all other countries are the same. Also, obviously, Russia is no longer socialist in any way. Not to mention, many Americans are in fact socialists, at least on par with European socialist parties.
> Spent a few weeks in Munich where I was shouted at for crossing a totally empty street against a crosswalk light.
I don't understand this. I live near Munich, people cross against a red light all the time. Maybe you were doing it near children? That's a real social faux-pas, because they're not supposed to normalize jaywalking.
Exactly! I like to explain this kind of casual rulebreaking to US/UK people as being the German equivalent of using disgusting swearwords. Fine to do with your friends if nobody is around, or if you want to look tough or whatever, but don't do it in crowds and especially not in front of children.
I think this is strange. What is the example you're setting... that we all follow the rules? And when they find out that you don't follow the rules, will that not be a disappointment?
Here is an incident that happened the second day I got to Vietnam (long before I was ever in Germany). My girlfriend was really sick in the hotel. I was vomiting too, but I went out to find medicine. I got to the corner of a huge boulevard, maybe 8 lanes wide. There was a pharmacy on the other side. But the traffic never stopped when the light turned red. On and on the traffic just kept going, weaving around all the other cars on the cross-street. The boulevard was maybe 1 meter below the level of the sidewalk. I stood there for 5 minutes waiting for some time to step into the street.
Finally, a 6-year-old boy walked up alone, paused next to me, and started crossing the boulevard in the middle of the traffic. And all the cars and motorcycles just went around him.
I was like, well fuck, if that kid can do it then I can do it...
So what value are you teaching children? How to cross a street or how to follow orders? Crossing a street when it's possible may be illegal but it's not immoral. The idea that neglecting formalities leads to immorality can only be true if the morality isn't implanted. Worse, it implies that formalities are the only thing that holds back man's immoral nature... which should not be the lesson. If a man jaywalks, it doesn't make him more liable to commit other criminal acts.
That's just how traffic works in many countries. "Jaywalking" is the normal behavior, especially when streets are filled with traffic. You slowly wade through traffic in a straight line, so drivers can anticipate where you are and let you through safely. While in other countries, it is generally expected to follow the traffic rules. People exploit that to drive faster and/or less carefully, therefore crossing the street like in Vietnam might get you killed in more "orderly" countries. Violating red lights is not taught to children because they don't necessarily appreciate the dangers involved[0]. The correct way to do it is to evaluate all risks, erring on the side of safety, and only then override your instinct to follow the rules.
[0]: I often notice that children are quite unobservant of their surroundings and behave as if they are alone in the world.
Crossing a street when the light is red is dangerous, because it means other traffic will have a green light. You want to teach children to stop for red lights, or you're going to end up with dead kids sooner rather than later.
Countries like Vietnam are the exception, not the rule. In most countries traffic won't swerve around you, they'll just end up hitting you because they are not expecting it!
What value are you teaching children by not swearing in front of them? Why is making certain sounds with your mouth immoral? Isn't it just showing your are in-group and well cultured? The jwalking culture in Germany is exactly the same.
> Isn't it just showing your are in-group and well cultured?
Yes, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Learning that different groups of people may have their own languages and customs is the first step to being able to blend in with a diverse group; it's great when you're able to adopt a register appropriate to the people you are with at any given moment.
Of course it's also possible that the child learns to be a snob and treating with disdain those who are not in your group. But I would say that's a character trait of the person, and it's still worth having the opportunity to learn how to adapt, rather than being unable to modulate your behavior and only knowing how to have a single posture. Having a culture of acceptance starts with knowing the customs of many different groups.
It's just different expected behavior. Drivers have to constantly be on alert of people doing their thing. Tuktuk rides in Bangkok can be exhilarating because of motorbikes crisscrossing through traffic right and left of you. I was glad our driver was used to it and that I didn't quite see a lot because of the low roof... Vehicular accident statistics are the ultimate judge here.
YES that is precisely what happened. That's so funny you said this.
I was standing in heavy falling snow, at the corner of an empty boulevard, next to a woman with two little daughters and a young boy. I stood for a moment and then walked across and she started yelling at me. I suppose she was trying to teach her children to be patient and wait for the light to change. What went through my head at that moment was, I kid you not, "ah, that's how they learn to follow orders".
And this is entirely in sync with my original point above, but also personally, I loathe Munich. There's nothing like being told holocaust jokes when people don't know you're Jewish. I believe the people there would vote for Hitler in a heartbeat if he were alive and running for office.
I mean, that makes sense though, she was probably angry at you. "If you're angry at someone you yell at them" is very normal behavior, and has nothing to do with "following orders".
It sounds like you have some hangups that you are projecting onto this situation.
The question is then why she was sufficiently angry to voice it out to a stranger. Neither was she a policewoman, nor was she a driver, nor was GP stringing along somebody she should be concerned about. She clearly wanted to avoid her kids learning that it's on to nilly-willy cross a red light (kids can't see in GPs head and appreciate that GP considered the risks)
I mean. It seems you've answered your own question?
She wants to avoid her kids considering it acceptable to cross a red light. Parent violated community norms by crossing a red light. So now she has to signal that this person has violated community norms, so that her kids learn "red light crossing is bad" rather than "red light crossing is normal".
This is not a "german" thing, this is a "human" thing.
You begin by sharing an anecdote where you perceived Germans as strictly law-abiding, only to have your assumption reevaluated when someone pointed out the presence of children, and the possible intention to teach them patience and safety.
However, instead of reconsidering your stance on Germans' law-abiding behavior, you reassert your bias by invoking Godwin's Law, linking a contemporary incident to the actions of Hitler.
I do, from an outside perspective, see how ridiculous it sounds for me to conflate all those things. But Munich severely unsettled me and left me so distraught and angry that, as a whole, this minor incident which I'd previously forgotten only serves to reinforce my overall view. Taken together, it makes perfect sense.
You don't shout at a man in the street in order to demonstrate good behavior to your children.
> You don't shout at a man in the street in order to demonstrate good behavior to your children.
You do if you are angry that said man is sabotaging your efforts to raise your children correctly. Also, said man is breaking a law instituted for a good reason.
I’m also personally of the opinion that speaking up when you are angry instead of passively taking it is good for society.
> There's nothing like being told holocaust jokes when people don't know you're Jewish
this is literally how every minority (basically anyone but the waspiest of wasps) feels in america. terrible jokes about <insert race here> are completely normalized.
I'm Argentinian. I love breaking the rules and I love living in a place where rules are rarely enforced.
It's almost a sport for me. "Why? Why should go along with this? Fuck that"
It's also why Argentina is a fucking mess, but I love it. When I'm there it feels like the people will never, ever be conquered.
This is true in a lot of countries that had a dictatorship.
Weirdly, it is not true for Chile, where everyone still acts like they're in a dictatorship.. also the US, which never had a dictatorship but created and supported dictatorships all over the world.
Haha that's true. Like you said in another post, there are benefits and drawbacks to everything. I'd personally rather have corruption and chaos than "too much order."
A lot of Estadounidenses won't get this story. When I bought a car in Argentina, I walked into a Volkswagen dealership in San Antonio Oeste and bought the least fucked up of the 3 used cars for $3000. It died on us about 30 miles out in the desert in some place called Choele Choel. I kept fixing it and eventually we made it to Mendoza and after all this time, the license plate on the car was a Xerox paper, and the targeta verde was a picture of some lady. We went through probably 20 checkpoints, and no one said anything. We finally made it up to the Chilean border in that car, and the Chileans were like, this is a stolen car. You need to go back down the mountain.
We ended up at a police station in Mendoza where the cops did not want to handle our paperwork. A few months later, I parked the car in Buenos Aires and my girlfriend left a sandwich inside. It rained and the car got moldy. I wanted to sell it. So I called a number in the newspaper that said they buy cars. Some guys showed up, took it on a test drive, and didn't come back. They just took the car.
So I called my friend who knew a cop and she said, meet us in Plaza Serrano at 12:00, those guys will be there, and bring $100 for the policeman.
I did, the guys showed up, they paid me $1500 for the car and everything worked out. The cop just stood there watching.
Argentina is sort of how life is supposed to work. If you had the amount of guns like in the US it would much more fucked up. Also in a weird way people still have morals there, at least they are not as nihilistic as in the US. People still read fucking books and are educated. I think a lot has to do with having late night dinners and talking for hours instead of being on your phone. Taking your kids out to dinner and wine at 11pm is a really good value. Teaching them to talk and listen and be adults.
Haha oh man I laughed hard at your story, especially the test drive/just taking your car thing, sorry.
Indeed, in some ways this place is crazy and in others its reasonably livable. I have many anecdotes like those but my English is not so good to make them funny.
Río negro native here. If you come to visit again, and go to San antonio oeste or las grutas hit me up and I'll invite you a beer
I love Las Grutas! It's a hidden gem. We spent part of a summer there when the peatonal was still being built (around 2007 - soon after when Ginóbili made his big investment). I love the weird arabesque architecture of the old hotels, and the rock pools. It feels like a magical place. It was so much chiller than the beach towns in Buenos Aires province. I hope it doesn't become overdeveloped. I would love to visit again someday.
This brings back so many crazy stories from Río Negro. We got stuck for two weeks in General Roca. The car broke down on RN22 and we were towed into town by a farmer on a tractor. We left the car with our luggage inside on the street and walked to find a hotel. When we came back in the evening, five or six old men had surrounded the car and were looking inside, thinking that someone had been killed, or it was drugs, because who is crazy enough to just leave a car full of suitcases? Some Paraguayans towed us to the river and fed us lunch at their trailer, but couldn't fix the car. Then it was New Years and at midnight we sat in the empty street with a bottle of wine, surrounded by a dozen frightened dogs while the fireworks went off in people's yards. After a week we were able to find out where the farmer lived, who was a really wonderful guy named Javier. He introduced us to his family, and we had lunch under their grape vines. He knew how to fix tractors, and he was able to fix our car's electrical wiring at his house. No one ever asked us for money to help. The people were incredibly kind.
Getting to Las Grutas was a different story... we took a "taxi" which was not a real taxi, just some guy waiting at the Viedma airport who turned out to be extremely high on cocaine. At one point in the middle of the desert he just stopped the car, got out and went to the trunk. We got very worried. When he came back, he talked rapidly on and on about why guns should be easier to buy, because if he wanted to kill people he could just as well kill them with a knife, or even a pen. To demonstrate this he was jabbing a pen around wildly like he was going to stab me. My girlfriend said the whole time she was in the back seat with a towel ready to throw it around his neck and strangle him, even if we crashed.
Ahhhh. Well, enough stories ;) likewise, if you're ever in Portland, Oregon, look me up!
I grew up overseas, moved to America and I have felt absolutely liberated by the freedom I now have when it comes to following rules. I think it's productive that people can definitely choose to follow their own gut and conscience when it comes to their own lives.
> I grew up in America which is fairly rule-obeying.
I also grew up there. I think there’s a low level compliance with what I’d call daily/minor rules. Cigarette butts tossed wherever you are when you finish one, speed limits are barely even advisory, jaywalking widely practiced, etc.
Depends. In NYC, jaywalking is normal. In Santa Monica, you get a ticket. Speeding is mostly enforced everywhere.
What sets the US apart from countries like Argentina, in this department, is that the cops won't just ask you for a bribe when they stop you. You actually end up with a ticket and have to deal with it.
Bingo. If one hasn't spent serious time in at least 4+ states, I don't think they ever really get an idea of how differentiated American cultural norms really are. "Americans are ______" is about as descriptive a statement as "Left-handed people are _____" - there's just toooo much variance for it to be a useful observation.
I’d add in some variance of coastal/inland and urban/suburban/rural environments, which can reveal a lot of differences within a single state.
I see tons of online comments generalizing about California or the West Coast (I’ve been guilty of this generalization myself), but after living here for the past 8 years I’ve learned otherwise. I will also refer anyone who wants to lump the whole coast together to Oregon’s legacy as a self-proclaimed “white state” [0].
It turns out that making accurate generalizations about millions of people is hard, and if you’re committed to doing it anyways then you’ll just end up with cliches and platitudes.
I think we get this a lot as Americans because we are such a huge cultural power with our movies, music and software. (and pizza). But like, there are definitely enormous cultural differences between Northern and Southern Italians, or N/S Vietnamese, or like, the 500 different cultures in India... we're sort of blind to it until we go somewhere because no matter where you are, you just get the summary of everywhere else.
I disagree. Everyone I've talked to in the US considers 5 mph over the limit to be perfectly safe from tickets (enforcement), and 10 mph over to probably be safe from enforcement. The few times I've heard of people getting ticketed for 5 mph over the limit they were outraged at the injustice of it, and most people agreed with them.
Speeding is mostly enforced if you're 10+ over the speed limit, or driving a heavy vehicle.
MA highways are moving 75-80mph when traffic permits, regardless of whether they have a posted 55 or 65mph speed limit. NH is only a few mph less typically.
Don't know about there, but in Oregon you just know where it's enforced. The limit here is 55 everywhere, but if you can get a clear stretch you can drive 80mph on I-5 without being stopped anywhere within Portland city limits. Once you get a little outside, the state police will stop you for going 60.
In NYC, jaywalking is normal. In Santa Monica, you get a ticket.
In some American cities (Chicago), crossing against the light is how muggers and pickpockets tell the tourists apart from the locals.
People who live in downtown Chicago wait for the light because they know that there's very often a car ready to make a left turn right into the crosswalk. Tourists are often from places where, if there is a crosswalk, there's no traffic to worry about.
"Lived in Australia and New Zealand which are disgustingly, obsequiously devoted to following tiny guidelines."
As someone born in, and having spent most of my life in New Zealand, I have no idea what this means. I'm not being defensive, but I just don't understand. Maybe I'm 'too close' to see it. Perhaps I'm thinking about civic rules (e.g. jay-walking, speeding) and you're thinking of, e.g. industry like construction?
Fair dinkum? I've lived in Oz for many decades and travelled widely. I have never seen obedience as a common trait. In fact, rule breaking with a shrug is far more prevalent.
I spent a year there, mostly in SA and the NT. A six pack of beer and a pack of smokes will set you back $50. When it comes to road signs, the "are you feeling sleepy" every few kilometers really makes you... sleepy. Police presence is heavier than in America. There are checkpoints going into towns. Then of course there's the separate window for alcohol for Aboriginals, who line up early in the morning, the scanning of your driver's license every time you buy beer...
When I first got there, I stayed in King's Cross, Sydney, and it was fairly wild. I heard that neighborhood isn't there anymore, and hasn't been for some time.
[edit] Also, maybe this was just a rumor, but I was told by a mechanic in Adelaide that if you squeal your tires they'll fine you, and if you do it twice they'll impound your car and crush it. I was told by a roofer that his job was almost impossible because he now had to spend an hour putting on harnesses to do a simple job. I was told by an old fellow who owned a motel in Inverell that the licenses for his inn and his restaurant were putting him out of business. And everywhere I heard people complaining about licenses and fees making work harder. What I mostly saw were a lot of old folks at the ANZAC halls in small towns complaining that things weren't like they used to be, so maybe that colored my vision a bit.
fair 'nuf. I'd love to hear your opinion on it - take up my point or the opposite - whenever you have the time. I would say "no offense" but I think I've offended basically everyone on earth now in this thread.
I have never been through a police check point other than booze buses or border control focusing only on fruit and similar to avoid disease propagation.
I think what you are noticing is the difference between a liberal democracy and autocracy. Where in one there exists a social construct of rules, where in the other rules require enforcement to exist, as they do not exist in the social consciousness
Defining rules based on intent works when there’s less corruption. Otherwise the rule will be vague enough to extract a bribe or a blackmail by the enforcing authority. Once corruption is under control you can have things like prosecutorial discretion. On the other hand, having so many rules that no one can reasonably know, understand and follow will also lead to bribes and extortion by law enforcement if corruption is common. Essentially, corruption can take advantage of either scenario and make the life of general mostly law-abiding citizens’ life much harder. So, corruption is the issue and not necessarily the laws.
Well, I had similar thoughts. I am reading the comments about laws and rules here and I am thinking: You people have never been in Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan.
Agree. IMHO, the problem can be solved with enhanced bandwidth(that is, to use things beyond text, IRL we have mimics and voice tone so emojis are a start) of the communication.
> That's true but without assuming intent you end up blindly following rules.
Right but overly generic rules make that worse. And overly specific make a lot of work and allow stuff to still go thru cracks. It's hard problem to make following rules with intent but without rule-enforcers using it for their own whims
> Something struck me when first moved to UK from Turkey: Every rule in UK seemed to have an intent and that's why I think Turkey is full of rules which no one follows but in UK the rules are less numerous but followed. In Turkey, Turks like to think that the rules are not followed because the fines are too small or that the government is incompetent and can't enforce the fines. I disagree, I think Turkey is a chaotic society because rules are not built around intent. Did you know that up until (literally)yesterday live music after midnight was banned in Turkey as part of Covid-19 measures
If the culture of the country teaches you to follow the rules, people follow the rules
If the culture of the country teaches you rules are annoyance to go around or bribe around, well that happens.
I live in post soviet country (Poland) and got on the end of the slow and painful transformation from the latter to the former. For example ~15 years ago it was common knowledge that you need to bribe examiner if you want to pass driving license the first time. At the time it was somewhat probable, I passed at 3rd time with 2nd time failure being my arrogance but 1st being something absolutely minor that could be summed up as "I looked at right mirror with my eyes instead of theatrically moving my head right to signal to examiner I really looked at right side'.
And my step-mother, which is a terrible driver did pass via bribe at around same time.
Similar thing happens with MOT tests, usually bribed to ignore lack of working cat.
And the single out cases of bribing still happened, just government invested a lot of effort to fight it so it is no longer "the norm" accepted by the people as the way to live. Which on top of being a lot of effort takes generational change to really root in, back in my parent's young days you couldn't even have a car if you weren't either well connected (grandpa had Wartburg with sunroof option purely because he was in military and won few contests) or bribed the right people.
That sounds fantastic actually fighting everyday bribery is such a nice feeling. I spent some time in a country with corrupt officers it was a real life drain for me, it was why I could not live abroad.
If you look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index you can also notice how post-soviet countries that keep close ties with russia also still rank high on that. I wonder how much of that is from same kind of people keeping power, or russian influence.
> For the first few months until I got my white collar job, I did some part time jobs in London as a waiter etc. and worked at some high end venues and hotels. In these places there are some equipments(like climate control of the wine cellar) which are operated through control panels which are accessible to everyone and they didn't put signs that say "don't touch", instead the signs said "you have no reason to touch this". They were able to keep curious hands away from buttons that shouldn't be pushed by those who don't know what they are doing by simply emphasising the intent.
Do you actually know that the latter sign is more effective than “don’t touch”? If it actually is, there are other possible explanations. The fact that it’s personally addressed to “you” could make it more effective. The fact that it’s simply a more unique/unexpected way to convey the message may cause people to be less likely to reflexively dismiss the more common directive of “don’t touch”.
This is why there is a difference between rules and guidelines.
Guidelines are suggestions. They're all about intent. "Don't have live music after midnight" isn't a ridiculous guideline for COVID, because it usually implies a gathering. It is a ridiculous rule because rules have to be rigid and well defined, because rules are enforced. Squishy rules aren't rules, they're covert dictatorial powers.
Well, the consensus is that the no music after midnight rule was an attempt to squash the western lifestyle(it had serious impact on the livelihood of the musicians and the venues). At places where the rule was enforced people simply continue their night somewhere without live music. It made no sense in the context of Covid, it made sense in the context of islamist trying to destroy the non-islamists.
Anyway, what's the difference between a rule and a guideline? Is a red light a rule or guide? IMHO Guideline is a literature, rules are arrangements with an intent(i.e. let's agree to stop on red light with the intent of organising the flow so we don't crash into each other).
> Anyway, what's the difference between a rule and a guideline? Is a red light a rule or guide?
Guideline: don't bother neighbours after 20:00
Rule: Loud noises not allowed after 20:00
If you make sure to steer clear from guideline ("hey neighbour, we want to have a party, will it be okay if we be loud till 00:00","thanks"), the rules will not need to be enforced (neighbour calling the police to complain)
Now imagine you are not, in fact, on good terms with your neighbour, as sometimes happens. How should you behave in order to not spend every single evening arguing over the meaning of "bother neighbour" with the police?
A more rigid definition serves to protect you, not just your neighbour.
>Status quo is much simpler - it's banned but if neighbours all agree have a late party and police aren't called
How is that any different to what I just wrote? In your own example, the "What's the radius" and "How do you confirm all have agreed" is no different either.
This isn't a court, so no need for a paper trail. Rules are already like this in many flat complexes - I'd say most even, here in Denmark: No loud noise after X except with neighbour permission. Silence after Y.
>At places where the rule was enforced people simply continue their night somewhere without live music.
Live music doesn't / didn't attract more people in closer proximity than areas with no live music? Did everyone still go to the same place and sat there in silence? That sounds very unlikely, but I have never been to Turkey.
>It made no sense in the context of Covid, it made sense in the context of islamist trying to destroy the non-islamists.
This is tied to the above, but who made the consensus that this was the point of the rule? Without a source of the consensus and to someone who have never been there it flies in the face of logic. Surely fewer people would go to, say, a British park Saturday evening if there's no music event there than if there is a band playing. Without some context, it reads to me like this post is anti-islamist and bashing Turkey for a rule that seem to have been enforced in one way or another in most of the west under COVID. As far as I know, every festival was shut down and events with music or other entertainment had to jump through lots of hoops or be shutdown too. How is this rule different?
It was clearly targeting the secular folks and the musicians, which are predominantly secular and from the opposition.
Ban on gatherings were introduced for short periods at the hight of the pandemic, the music ban was a separate one which lasted up until days ago.
All other kind of gatherings were allowed. They even held a large religious gathering , bringing people from all around the to the conversion of the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque since it was also a political event(They were promising to turn it into a mosque since years, apparently an important thing for the devout muslims). This was between the first wave which claimed the lives of 50K and the 3rd wave which killed that many more.
That's why it's a ridiculous rule. It's arbitrary and subject to selective enforcement.
But as a guideline you could say if it's after midnight it's probably a party. And if it's not you let people use their judgment, because guidelines are suggestions enforced via social pressure, not via official penalties.
I think that's part of it. Another part is Turkey's legal system is based on Swiss law. From ChatGPT:
The legal systems of the United States and Continental Europe differ in several ways. One major difference is that the US follows a common law system, which is based on the precedent set by previous court rulings, while Continental Europe follows a civil law system, which is based on a comprehensive legal code.
In other words, the US legal system is based on intent with laws providing guidance to courts to assess intent. In Turkey, the legal system writes everything down and courts assess if you followed the code.
I think even this conversation itself demonstrates how hard it's to moderate content in the internet. Maybe we need lawyers? :)
No, it's not assuming, it's interpreting based on prior experience in communication.
> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff.
Then the sign would mention that, simple as that.
> But the larger point is that people can adopt the "obvious intent" version of the rule when it suits them and the pedantic version of the rule when it suits them.
I agree with you here, it happens all the time, is a problem, and perhaps the test is useful to those, who haven't figured this truth so far. Probably not that many in the HN crowd…
I'll add that there's a problem with the test: "does it violate the rule" is not very meaningful. It could be understood in two ways:
- does it technically, strictly speaking, "violate" the rule, meaning, it does something the sign tells you not to do,
- or is the example acting against the intent of the author of the sign.
If the test asked "should violator be punished?" I think it would be more meaningful, otherwise it's just synthetic and the controversy is just about semantics, it doesn't incentive a discussion about our worldview and the rules we put in place, it just provokes to argue pedantically about how we phrase a message.
Moreover it possibly misleads people to think they disagree on something they really don't.
> No, it's not assuming, it's interpreting based on prior experience in communication.
It's assuming the intent without sufficient context to know what it actually is. Because very little context was provided. And the context that was provided strongly implied that the rule was important.
> Then the sign would mention that, simple as that.
We don't even know if there was a sign. None of that was specified.
> If the test asked "should violator be punished?" I think it would be more meaningful, otherwise it's just synthetic and the controversy is just about semantics
This is how I interpreted the test, but you're making a good point.
If a vehicle entering the park would directly endanger lives--rather than just being a nuisance--the sign would (should) give the extra context to make a stronger discouragement.
Otherwise, it is fair game to assume the "intent" of any such sign is to make guidelines to enhance the public's mutual enjoyment/safety at the park, and that such guidelines may be discarded when lives are endangered (police/ambulance).
As an alternate example where the rule itself is related to safety, "no campfires" would not be expected to be followed if one became lost and needed to make smoke signals to be rescued.
I voted that a police car/ambulance driving into the park _was_ breaking the rules, though breaking the rules may be justifiable in some circumstances.
The smoke signal example you gave is similar - if I’m lost, I care more about being found than the punishment for starting a fire.
If the ‘no campfires’ rule was punishable by death (and enforced), perhaps I wouldn’t risk a smoke signal
In the US, usually the law is structured in such a way that the powers of the police are at the state level. A city or park authority isn’t empowered to restrict their actions in pursuit of her duty.
At the end of the day, as a person living their life, it really isn’t your business to know whether an airplane is intruding on park airspace. You should not drive in the park as a private citizen. If you’re a ambulance driver on official business, you should know what applies to you.
"State Police" (or "State Troopers", or "{$state} Highway Patrol, are different from "County Sherif[s | [Deputies]" and city/town/village police. Each level has a local jurisdiction. A city police officer (a subset of city authorities) tends to have authority to restrict actions according to law. Also, a city or park official may technic'ly have the right to do so according to law & park regulations…although some non-pliable people may force the official to summon police.
For anyone who has read the introduction, that's the only valid answer to that question in the context of this game:
"You might know of some rule in your jurisdiction which overrides local rules, and allows certain classes of vehicles. Please disregard these rules [...]. Again, please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed)."
I did read the intro, but I considered police/ambulance to be a "universal" exception, not a "local" one (i.e. not idiosyncratic to a particular jurisdiction.)
(*Certainly there exist failed states where the police/paramedics are corrupt and the park owner is warlord from a rival tribe, etc. but I think that goes beyond a normative reading of the question.)
The thing is, you don't generally get to know the context or the intent. You can't have a discussion with the sign, nor can it lecture you. A rule against starting a fire might be because the land owner doesn't like burnt patches on their meadows, or it might be because the vegetation is super dry and if you set fire to it you kill not only yourself but also all the surrounding villages, or something in between.
You could argue that the sign should include enough context to convince the reader to follow its instructions, but (a) you end up with signs with tons of writing in tiny font that everyone just ignores because TLDR (and yes, these do actually happen quite frequently in parks around here), and (b) if there is some combination of letters you can put on a sign that works to stop people lighting fires, the meadow guy will put that on his sign because he doesn't want fires and those syllables work. So you've just pushed the problem one level back, but the real question remains the same: do you risk doing the thing you want to, or do you respect the sign?
Imagine there’s a military bombing range full of unexploded ordinance. The sign outside the range simply says “Keep off the grass”.
In the situation where context is different than what a reasonable person would expect, it has to be included. Language changes meaning depending on context.
The point is that language is unavoidably ambiguous (I'm sure there's a mathematical information theory proof of this, akin to the Byzantine Generals problem.).
"DANGER!! Unexploded ordinance! High risk of death!" is far less ambiguous than "Keep off grass". The former is sufficiently unambiguous that it will deter any sane person from entering.
You pretty much have to assume intent, though? To mind, language doesn't exist without intent. You are correct that you may be wrong on the underlying message that is being communicated, but that is basically boiling communication back to the measuring problem. You measure what is easy to measure, you say what is easy to say. (As a fun counter to your example, so it would be ok if I bring a jack hammer and start pounding away? Or a shovel and dig to my hearts content?)
The silliness in this is that it boils everything down to a single rule and expects that you can define the words of the rule in a way that makes it obvious that some other meaning may be inferred. That isn't how language works. In no small part because language isn't static.
Put in a way that programmers know, decently. Regular expressions can describe context free shapes of symbols. These are usually concise and people feel like they can have a hold on them. Context free grammars, though, are typically not concise and lead to all sorts of interesting theory and problems to keep them going. And, much to the frustration of near everyone, colloquial language does not have a context free grammar, even. To try and take it out of the context is to lose.
Context always matters. Most people aren’t programmers or engineers and don’t appreciate or benefit from the level of micro-scoping that you crave.
A great example of when this does happen that you can google is parking signs in NYC. There’s a bunch of very specific rules that accommodate dozens of scenarios. As an engineer, I’d be hard pressed to actually determine the legality of a parking scenario in a more complex scenario.
At the end of the day, “No vehicles in the park” is a pretty clear instruction. The idea that first responders would be an exception is both covered in superseding law and a core principle. Preservation of human life supersedes the health of the turf.
> Regular expressions can describe context free shapes of symbols.
What is "shapes of symbols"? Do you mean "characters"?
If you are trying to say that "regular languages" are a proper subset of (less expressive than) "context-free grammar" languages , probably best to leave it at that, and let people look up those well-documented terms if they want to learn more. Making up a new term distracts people who know the normal terms, and is just as confusing for people who don't.
Ha! "shapes" was a typo there for me. I meant collections or strings. Was trying not to bias it too far to where I was going.
But, yes. There is some ambiguity there. That is still perfectly consistent with my point. To think that you can separate use of language from the intent of the use is a fool's errand. One that we often partake in.
Consider for even more fun, many laws are enforced such that the intent of the law is not the only intent consulted, but the intent of the person that broke it. I don't know why humanity is full of so many smart people that all think they can make intent not necessary. When most places context is removed, the results are often catastrophic.
> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
Have you ever looked at the warning signs on water heaters? They make it instantly clear what the dangers are and how bad they can be. A "No vehicles in the park" sign in that situation would be the equivalent of just putting "Caution: Hot" on a water heater.
Similarly, parks have signs with people literally drowning and being killed to make it abundantly clear how dangerous they can be.
> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
I live in a city with Trams. Whenever they replace tram rails they remove the surrounding concrete and asphalt. It would be dangerous to drive there. In those cases they explicitly hang a “road closed” sign with an extra sign “including service vehicles”.
In the real world signs (especially common ones) try to be reasonable descriptive. Nobody is helped if you argue about the meaning if something goes wrong.
No, that's not the problem. That's human nature, and human nature is most definitely not the problem. Humans make the world we live in and we individually get to influence it, but we don't get a veto on how others influence it.
To me, the quiz answers depended on common sense, and I was reminded by it that my common sense is not others' common sense, and so what? That's life. We deal, because there's no other choice when we live in society.
Well, every rule and law in existence, that I can think of, has an assumed intent. That's probably a necessary condition for rules, whether it's a sign in the park or a government regulation or anything else.
If people do not have, to some degree at least, a shared intent (e.g. let's have a conversation here about topic X, let's have a park to have fun or relax in, etc.) there is probably no set of rules that can specify sufficiently what can and must not be done. If you did manage to craft such a sufficiently detailed set of rules, it would be too large for people to read and understand.
You should really look into how judges interpret laws (rules, basically). There are two schools I know of: purposivism and textualism (I agree with the latter and it doesn't take into account intentions. That's the basis of how the recent case Van Buren v US was decided, I would recommend reading it: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-783_k53l.pdf). But in both, you have things like canons of interpretation and background principles and so on. It's always awesome to see how people who have to deal with the problem have thought about it, because they have usually invested a lot of time into it and come up with insights. See also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutory_interpretation
The justification for textualism is that it's better to be wrong in a precise way, than to try to be right in a fuzzy way.
But both models are wrong. Bit rot is real and applies to laws. It's not possible to keep laws up to date with what they would be if lawmakers had infinite resources to dedicate to lawmaking and maintenance, even ignoring the huge issue of democratic consensus and parliamentary procedure issues.
(All models are wrong! Some useful!)
The law is a tool which imperfectly models the goals of the lawmakers.
For lawyers judges, the beauty of law is that the law has plenty of room to support contradictory interpretations.
> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
That would be a terrible phrasing then. It should have been phrased something like "Landslide hazard, no weight more than 1ton allowed anywhere in the park." or something in that vein.
This is core to the Gricean Maxim of Quantity [1], according to which one gives as much information as needed but no more. If the sign says "No vehicles in the park" and nothing else then any reasonable person should assume that the reason for the sign is so obvious that no further clarification is needed.
Unrelated, it is also the reason why a hot-dog is not a sandwich, pragmatically speaking.
Where I live, vehicles like police cars have the letters "xmt" on the left side of their license plate. That's because they are exempt from rules like "no vehicles in the park". Per the questionnaire, if the SWAT team drove their tank into the park that would be a vehicle in the park, but they get a pass.
This is a great anecdote for the need of intent. But, you also need context. Without either of those it’s very, very hard to agree on rules. And agreeing on either context or intent, let alone both, in a small community is hard. Doing so across the internet is damn near impossible and that was the point of the article.
Minor point perhaps, but there's no question about whether the police are violating the rule when they drive their car into the park: they are.
The question is whether it was justifiable and that's not what the original game asks you to evaluate, but it is the much harder question because it is almost always subjective--as you point out. In justifiability you can start asking about intent, weigh the various costs of the action, etc.
And that’s why education, and an educated society, are so important.
An educated person can make a much better assessment of intent.
For instance, if danger exists to a police car due to loose soil or not.
The more important point here for me is not “how should we best design and interact with the rules” (that’s a pretty authoritarian question) but rather “what fundamental human conditions, like education, tend towards more productive interaction with the world, including any rules that exist”
> If you're the park ranger and the local police come into the park in their car chasing after some criminals... If the exact same thing happens but you're having a dispute with the local police
It doesn't matter, the rules on police and emergency vehicles usually supersede some local rule about a park.
The park is not some absolute ruler of the land, sure it can put rules for general/everyday use but a lot of things are rules at higher levels
No the experimenter doesn't assume that, they say: "please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed)."
The intent of the experiment is to get your view on whether X is a vehicle or not, and whether Y counts as a place "in the park" or not.
> It doesn't matter, the rules on police and emergency vehicles usually supersede some local rule about a park.
Nobody said it was a local rule. It could be a federal rule about a federal park. And it could be there for a more important reason than keeping ATVs off the hiking trails.
The game didn't say the park is contained in another land. It's a "hypothetical park". It could even exist in a virtual reality that doesn't have any other rules for all we know.
Yeah, the game is very specific about other rules not applying. It's about "what exactly is and is not in" (in the airliner and space station question) and about "what exactly is and is not vehicle" (all others)
The funny thing is, the game itself assumes intent. And even you assume intent.
What is a vehicle? "a thing used to express, embody, or fulfill something" is one of the definitions. So, no books allowed.
But then, the rule doesn't say vehicles aren't allowed to enter the park.
It simple describes the state. That there are "No vehicles in the park."
> But the larger point is that people can adopt the "obvious intent" version of the rule when it suits them and the pedantic version of the rule when it suits them.
At the very least, the other point is that it's challenging to come up with a rule that can't be misinterpreted even when being pedantic.
"No vehicles in the park."
No, there are no books current in the park. Just a bunch of cars.
This goes right to the discussion in the first couple chapters of _Promise Theory_, laying out the difference between a promise and an obligation. An obligation requires global knowledge, whereas a promise is local in scope, necessarily voluntary.
It might be a problem, but it is also an inescapable part of the human condition because, at the end of the day, rules are imaginary and all that really exist are human actions. It is pretty hopeless to complain about rules from this point of view.
Assumption of intent is critical to pretty much all social functioning. In this particular case, I think its outrageously reasonable to assume that if some unusual circumstance were to prevail in the park relevant to the definition of vehicle, the sign would explicitly indicate it. And that, without further clarification, the obvious answer is the one intended.
From computer programming we know that strict rules for complex systems become unmaintainable messes, with countless edge cases that result in things either just not functioning or - worse - allowing people to bypass the rules entirely to, e.g., run malware.
So the complaint about rules that involve human discretion strikes me as extremely hollow. We know what trying to write no-discretion rules looks like. We know it almost always still ends up allowing plenty of abuses of the system. To prevent that we need more eyes and more human judgement on things, not less.
> The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
They really need to work on their signage wording.
In a lot of countries intent is in fact everything. It's common for developed countries to be more governed by written law and have that interpreted as such in court, but in many developing countries it's all about what you are trying to do.
Communities are built on intent and learning the culture of the group. Anyone who does not understand this should get into law, not internet moderation.
Now you're assuming the intent.
The park could contain loose soil on the edge of a cliff, so any vehicle driving there could cause a landslide that topples the vehicle over the cliff and could kill anyone on the beach below. No vehicles in the park.
But the larger point is that people can adopt the "obvious intent" version of the rule when it suits them and the pedantic version of the rule when it suits them. If you're the park ranger and the local police come into the park in their car chasing after some criminals, and the local police are your buddies, you say they haven't violated the rule because the intent isn't to apply to emergency vehicles. If the exact same thing happens but you're having a dispute with the local police, now they're violating the rule and you can come up with something like the park isn't in their jurisdiction.
It's the same rule. It's the same action. The only difference is if you like them or not. And that's the problem.