I think this is more applicable than usual in America. We have people randomly destroying Chesterton fences in law enforcement and schools in large urban cities and states all over America. We are also seeing the man made disasters that we are creating on a daily basis. On the left coast where I live it is really bad. People are going to be suffering for decades from the policies of our ignorant/criminal politicians today.
Chesterton's fence is not about never destroying the rules but a call to understand the intent and purpose behind the rule so that you can make intelligent changes. Understanding the rule leads to the follow up questions of "Is it working as intended?", "If it needs replaced, what can I replace it with?", "Does it simply need abolished?", and "How do I make this work better?"
Although I admire Chesterton, what I see in his writings is generally a defence of the traditional against such champions of the modern and new as George Bernard Shaw. I don't find any really clear examples of fence demolition or even suggestions that the fence isn't working. He is quite clear that the fences that other people build aren't so good - his prediction of the problems of prohibition was spot on, but he didn't really address the real social problems that had made prohibition a possibility or necessity in the USA. Britain had had its own period of cheap spirits - "Gin Street" and Chesterton's image of a jolly pub full of innocent drinkers is somewhat idealistic. He assumes that drunkenness is like greed or gluttony and does not really address alcoholism. Also, America was not like the UK and the friendly (and ancient) local pub or tavern did not exist in the same way. This is not to say that I don't see the usefulness of his ideas in, say, business or a traditional institution - I just think that there are situations where it needs to be applied cautiously. When someone defends something that benefits themselves but which harms others, then we have to be careful. Conservatives have opposed many forms of social progress on the grounds that the old way is better and doesn't need changing.
@@charleshayes2528 in the simplist terms Chesterton is right that you shouldn't change or remove rules without a fair analysis. However, the reverse of that goes as well. We should not hold so vehemently to rules without giving them fair analysis and figuring out if it actually works, needs modified, needs replaced, or needs elimination. However well intentioned a rule is doesn't always mean that it's wise or effective. What complicates the analysis is when we allow politics and religion to overshadow and twist the analysis. In some ways they both help us, but if we're not careful they can hurt us as well.
@@ianbelletti6241 Apparently, he agrees: "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." G. K. Chesterton While judging a position by a single quote is imprudent, his take here seems to suggest careful, deliberative change, rather than a hard defense or attack on tradition. His other takes also seem relatively soft. He disliked both Capitalism and Socialism (promoting "Distributism") and opposed war (which is better than most political people today).
If all humans are flawed, which is to say none are perfect. Would that not conclude that the entirety of fences created by said flawed people would inevitably be flawed themselves? Which would dictate that all fences require mending. This is to say that the fences themselves are not the issue, but rather the people who’re building them. So the question becomes ‘what’ when concerning humans do we do: destroy, leave the same, or fix?
@@jeffhawkins5182 If you work in absolutes you will accomplish absolutely nothing. Even Newtons equations explaining gravity is not perfect but good enough to send a probe true the solar system and use gravitational slingshot (gravity assist) to gain speed. The condense moral of the story is think before you act. Its not that deep as you think.
I think the key is for people to "question" things with genuine curiosity and never accept "because this is how we've always done it" as an answer. This lets us revisit the reasons for why things are the way they are, and examine if those reasons are still relevant. And maybe they are, but at least then we're actively choosing to keep things as they are, and not just forgetting to change them.
@@johndoef5962I honestly dont think that's true. The new generation is just as curious as the old generation it's just hard to keep that curiosity with how school is and with the state of the world in general. For example with school it's great or you sink and can lose the drive to search for new awnsers. In general I think theirs always been those who refuse to ask the important questions and instead turn to it's magic or a god did it and those who try and find awnsers. Even maybe as far back as the BCE. We wouldn't have fire without curiosity and we wouldn't have scientists. Channels on youtube that go into awnsering questions wouldn't thrive either. Since only the older generation would be curios enough to find out.
@@johndoef5962 absolutly not true. There is greater chance that it's just you stumbling upon less curious young people. I am young and am curious of many things, just not all. I don't really care about book writers from 200+ years ago, but if I get my hands on something about small scale biology, chemistry, phisics or math I will devour this knowlage like a hungry dog. We just need to accept that different people are interested in different things, and are capable of making use of different things
Unfortunately, I think this is the opposite of the moral of the Chesterton's fence exercise. There is value in questioning the status quo, but the point is that the status quo came to be for a reason. If you don't know that reason -- even if you slave over the question and can't come to a good reason for it to exist -- there's still great risk in upsetting it. Part of the reason is that we're humans. For a lot of us, the status quo is good simply because we need some stability in our lives. We see this a lot in tech. They change things to "innovate" when all we want is to play a stupid podcast. Having said that, this is where your approach can work -- and in fact, often does when done slowly and with care. But more fundamentally, some status quos exist as an unbroken change of human culture dating back to before written history. The way we interact, deal with stress and other stimulus, and experience emotion isn't really explainable. We really can't affirmatively defend a lot of that stuff, even if we *want* to change it. Curious innovators are constantly trying to break and remake those elements of society, but the Chesterton's fence exercise tells us that those mechanisms, warts and all, are conjoined with important things that we do want to keep. You can't tear down the fence, in other words, without the sheep getting eaten by foxes. Even if you consider the fence unjustifiable.
@@MB-yk1qk That doesn’t really apply though. The gate refers not to whether it’s working or not, but whether the reformist understands the situation. If it is already known what a system does and whether it’s working, it begs a different question of how to fix it, or if there even is a better solution.
In Soviet Union an inspector came to a collective farm to check how they are doing and noticed all their plows had a hole in same place. He asked why and the answer was the original plow they were sent had a hole in it and they were ordered to copy it perfectly or else so they cut holes in every plow they made. Some of the people sent to work at the farm must have known what a proper plow looks like, but saying so would have been against the orders of the Party...
ANother story of the same. The Soviets were replicating an American Lend-Lease Aircraft for use in their own design, and they copied it down to every facet... even the hole where the riveter missed...
@@Kalmaro4152ещё скопировали фотоаппарат висевший в кабине штурмана. Но в целом было много адаптаций, например была замена всех элементов, сделанных под дюймовый формат производства
@@qfurgieNot exactly "nowadays" given the tale is at least half a century old. Some might think it says Soviets were too dumb to notice the plow was defective, but that is unlikely(though the workers doing the gruntwork on the plane probably did not know much about aircraft design, so they were right to copy it exactly). More likely either a corrupt person sold a defective plow or there was a mistake at a factoryand the workers were afraid to admit it and not meet their quota. Comrades Stalin and Beria were exiling or executing people for slightest insubordination, for saying the wrong thing, for annoying them or some other Party member, or simply to fill up the paper the list of names was written on, so things like this definitely did happen.
One time , one of the father during the marriage ceremony caught the cat and tied it to the fence because the cat was stealing food and milk . The son of that father saw the father tying the cat but he didn't Question him why he did so. Evey marriage of their descendant then started to tie the cat on the fence because they thought it is a ritual to do so. So even when there was no cat in the area , the generations started to find or buy the cat from the market and started to tie them to the fence during marriage ceremony as a ritual.
A real life example: The mother teaches the daughter how to roast meat in the oven. She takes the narrow end of the piece of meat and cuts it off, putting it on top of the piece. The daughters asks why she did this, the mother answers, that this is how her mother taught her to do. So the daughter asks her grandmother about the cut- off piece, but the grandmother tells her the same, that this is how her mother used to do it. Luckily, the great- grandmother is still alive and the daughter visits her in the hospital. As she asks her about the roast, her great- grandmother laughs and tells her, that back then, the oven was just too small, so she always had to cut off a piece of meat and place it on top of the rest so everything fits inside.
IT often remove or disconnect something to check what happens or who complains. If you have a way to monitor changes and can revert, it might be the best way
Also, estimate the potential impact of what the removal or breaking of something might be, though this can require more knowledge of how and where and why something is being used, information often not easily begotten, either because people do not know or feel they have other good reasons for keeping you in the dark (such as “security”)
The reason scream testing is usually used for decommissioning servers or services is to find the undocumented users. I setup the server for department A & B. A user in Department C finds it and starts using it without checking with IT, or someone missed documenting it. Or, a bad handoff resulting in knowledge loss. One or more of these is inevitable on a complex system. It's the last step, after getting everything you know about done.
As an Engineer, I do a lot of work improving systems. The first step in improving a system is understanding it, so you know what you can change to improve it, and what changes will be to the detriment of the system. See three 'failsafe' routines in a machine's code that look redundant? Look for the edge case. Even if the 'load section for editing' and 'save section for editing' check for a zero value in a key register and force it to a small but non-zero value, the third 'failsafe' to replace that register value it it turns out to be zero might be there because an incorrect function call may cause a fully-cleared section (all zeroes) to be loaded into the 'active section' area, allowing a zero register to 'sneak past' the other two 'failsafes.'
Destroying something because you don't understand it is the pinnacle of stupidity. If you don't understand it, how do you know that you want to destroy it? I have, however, witnessed many people do just that because they felt an emotional need to destroy something, even when it wasn't actually causing them any problems. We also see this emotional response used by politicians to their advantage: don't encourage the voters to think, tell them how to feel! The Leave campaign in the UK used emotional language to sway voters, and Brexit happened, despite Leave's arguments making no logical sense.
Of course, that was also an error on the party of "Stay" camp: they *didn't* use emotional language, they went for an intellectual explanation. When people don't have full understanding of the facts, they're going to be swayed by emotions. If there are any unknowns in an equation, and there are usually unknowns when discussing the future consequences of an action, emotions fill in the blanks. It was an error on the part of "Stay" to undervalue emotions, when they could have harnessed them, and at least evened the field. Unfortunately, that's a mistake I see repeatedly on the part of the "intellectual" camp.
@@Galastel I don't think you people understood what the brexit vote was about, it was about bringing accountability back to the british isles, it was evident that the levels , frequency, and kind of immigration was totally and irrevocably changing the UK for the worse for the vast majority of peoples, both the locals and ironically the foreigners, and over and over, the main response was that it was an EU directive and that UK politicians had no control over it. The brexit vote was to give accountability back to westminster so the voters could have a measure of control or atleast corner UK politicians on their failures to tackle issues like immigration. in a sense, the EU integration was the breaking of a fence, ie national sovereignty and therefore the lack of accountability from elected officials, the brexit vote restored that fence between the UK and EU, thus restoring national sovereignty but unfortunately, the westminster politician still refuse to be held accountable for their delirious policies regarding immigration.
@Galastel i don't agree with you. I'm from Pakistan and here one so called Oxford graduate leader of a political party uses every type of emotional appeals, rhetoric, and cheap optics to prop up his popularity. His rallying cry was corruption of his opponents. Sure they corrupt but he blown it so big that it became his only concern. Pakistan went from really bad to worse even in corruption in general. Politics far from substance and just optics and psychological manipulation is extremely dangerous for a society, opponents should NOT resort to the same either. If every party resort to such cheap tactics, one party or the other may win at elections but nation loss. Bulwark against such inimical campaigns is some sort of curbs against liars.
@@randomdosing7535 So psychological and emotional manipulation is bad and should be left out of politics? Completely agree, but now we have to rewrite the majority of politics… Which requires current political agreement.. Which requires using said psychological and emotional manipulation.
What if the purpose of the fence was to stop you from going into an area that was radioactive. Stopping you was the point, and you just missed the whole point
Before altering anything, you also need to know what it is supposed to do (and what it is doing). Even painting the fence a different colour should start with making sure changing the colour doesn't impact its function.
I've worked a low-level to mid-level jobs in multiple organizations, and if I stayed in one place long enough eventually a new manager would be hired from outside who'd roll out a "new" program. Often it was something that seemed like a good idea, but turned out to be a bad idea _when we tried it before._ Pointing out that "we used to do that, until... " didn't help me get ahead. I learned to go along with bad ideas until they figured it out for themselves and got promoted again so they'd go away. I've rarely been the guy they promoted, despite having more relevant education and experience, and working harder than the nephew/in-law or diversity hire they chose instead.
From a SiFi story. Computer - semi AI - controlled all aspects of construction company BUT janitor had access to common language backdoor instruction input station. He noticed workers leaving shovels out at job site and some were being stolen every day (10 x $20 each). SOOO. New order - all shovels must be signed out and then signed back in each day. Problem was only 1 supply clerk and hundreds of shovelers. Took hours to retrieve and return shovels. $20 / hr. x 300 lost man hours per day.
This rule is want management needs. I can't tell you how many times I've seen one supervisor change a rule only to have the next one apply "thier idea" and change it back to how it was before it was changed.
We used to call that "plain old common sense". Also, destroying someone's fence would usually get you in a lot of trouble, as there was good reason for it to be there. Nobody, ever, destroyed a fence, unless they were at dispute with the owner of the adjoining property. Usually, it ended up getting settled fairly and without undue trouble. If someone accidentally broke someone else's fence, they would of course go and find them so it could be fixed, and often would help out, if they could.
You've pinpointed the critical flaws in the Fence analogy: 1. Fences are usually placed on property by their owners (whether that's the government placing it on public property owned by the citizens, or a private owner on their own land). So someone coming in and destroying it is usually doing so with the permission or approval of the owner (who presumably knows why its there). If not, then you have a legal matter, not a philosophical one. 2. Fences have a specific reason and function: to prevent movement across the area where they're erected. Asking the question "why is this fence here" is intentionally obtuse: common sense tells us it's there to keep someone or something outside or inside the perimeter (or both). The real question is: "who or what is the fence meant to obstruct?" And the follow-up of course is: "is that obstruction a good thing NOW?" The Chesterton Fence analogy starts at the first (irrelevant) question of "what's the fence's function" and then assumes no one's bothered to ask the follow-up questions before taking a hammer to the fence - and posits that answering those follow-ups requires slow and concerted deliberation, lest we unintentionally cause worse problems. But, as you point out - it should be pretty obvious why a fence is there, and it shouldn't take a series of committee meetings to determine what the intent behind it's placement was or what the current impact is. Someone inspects the fence, makes sure it's up to code and it's not straying off the owner's property, and goes from there. 3. No one really goes around knocking down fences just because they're there - unless they're engaging in vandalism. So once you actually consider the analogy of Chesterton's Fence, it falls apart almost instantly. In another comment, I mentioned how the Chesterton Fence is essentially an appeal to ignorance ("we don't know why the fence is here! So lets assume there's a good reason"). But you've elegantly explained why it's also (and perhaps more tellingly) a strawman argument: It's casting policy reformers as the kind of contractors who go around knocking down fences without even the most basic due diligence to inform their hammer swings. So from the very get-go, the analogy is made in bad faith, because it assumes irrational action from the reformer while also assuming rational action from the original policy makers.
I would argue that isn't common sense so much as respecting private property. One of the many holes in Chesterton analogy is that fences that are respected can sometimes(read: often) be used to cordon off things that are for the public good, primarily waterways and grazing land. It often puts the private individual over the public and causes a lot of problems.
@@mikevides4494 Actually, it assumes irrational action from those who would remove something without doing careful consideration first. Aka its a rebuke to people who act to hastily.
@@gary9346 The point of the analogy is that its a bad idea to change or destroy something without thinking through why its that way in the first place, also in someways putting the rights of the private individual first is necessary because that is the only real safe guard against the government confiscating everything and repeating the crimes of communism.
The same applies to artistic guidelines. You can do what the prior greats say not to do and still create a masterpiece, but if you don't know their rationale, you'll probably just make a mess.
This actually happened with Mum’s work. About a year or so before she retired, they started doing a lot of little things to try and encourage the older workers to quit. Aparantly it’s an absolutely terrible place to work now and they’re having trouble hiring people that know what they’re doing.
In this case, the broken fence was the older generation working passed retirement age. They can't hire talented people because the older generation didn't train them for "job security."
This works both ways which is why its so fitting. Progress for the sake of progress is not progress at all. It is merely different. It is important that there is always a force to defend tradition and old wisdom lest we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Likewise it is important to question tradition. A rule that was needed long ago may not apply to the modern day. That is why it is better to side with conservatism. Until you understand why you want change, and its not broke dont fix it. You cant possibly improve until you know what you are improving.
This is the case every time I discuss with people wanting to abolish religion, not once have I ever gotten an answer to a question "what will you replace it with?" and history told us that other religion will take it place or far far far worse, an ideology.
Sometimes something's got to be broken so something new takes it's place. Allow me to propose an addendum: "If you sre prepared to destroy a fence, you best be ready to replace it."
One of the most valuable things, besides time, is understanding. It's thanks to understanding that things are created and made to function as intended. If there's no understanding, there's no order, only chaos and ruin waiting for us.
The S. D. Warren paper mill in Maine had a rule -- there were 3 main paper mill machines and each one had exactly one man in charge of each machine. Many times during the day, these 3 mechanics were idle. The management thought this was wasteful. It was changed to having 2 mechanics on a rotating schedule. Guess what? Machines broke down more often. Why? No personal responsibility. When 1 man was in charge/responsible for 1 machine, he took it upon himself to do proactive maintenance so that breakdowns would not happen over the weekend. But when you had 2 people for 3 machines, personal responsibility was gone.
Reminds me of a narcissistic co-worker I had. I was literally the first employee to work in this brand new clinic facility and as such had a deep understanding of operations there. I wrote a policy for new security guards coming in that was very thorough. They hired on a complete narcissist who immediately started questioning everything and tried to dismantle all the old policies in a bid for control. He created absolute chaos in the security department but of course blamed it on lack of leadership. Eventually he got his power and drove off all the good employees with his draconian "policies" which really only served his list for power. Shortly after everyone quit upper management finally realized he was the problem and fired him.
This is what some people doesn't undestand: "Sometimes a barrier is put in place for a reason". I seen so many people try to change things in ways who are seems to be radical and often not stop to think the consequences either because they are dumb or because they are to much obnoxious to see the problems ahead, or simply they know and don't care because sometimes is about "causing the most damage possible to a target" since they simply doesn't care about consequences or doesn't affect them either.
It is a very common problem as the focus of the idea is going back to an old one... Think before you act. Sadly with these days we have people saying it is better to act then to think and do nothing... Just to avoid the fact they didn't bother to think and got it wrong.
G.K. Chesterton also invented the word "Squiffy", as in the phrase, "I'm feeling a bit squiffy", in one of his novels. He also wrote the "Father Brown" series of sleuthing novels.
It's important to reflect on the urgency of immediacy. If a problem is severe, then resolving it with a messy solution may replace it with another problem, but the new problem might be more manageable. For example, putting out a fire with a fire hose may ruin electronics and damage upholstery, but this is almost certainly preferable to the fire.
Two words to always remember. React and Respond. It's pretty clear just by the words that there are times when you should do one or the other. React in an emergency and in a non emergency respond with forethought to the current situation.
Knowing the cause behind anything before destroying it is a really good reason, but alas, not all reasons or causes are good or are only good in the past.
Many years ago i found one of our computer programs doing a very expensive calculation (CPU time costs money). The result of the calculation was put in a field which was never use. I checked and double checked and double checked asked almost everyone in the corporation in my field "WHY DO WE DO THIS?". In the end i axed the calculation in the next iteration and asked our test team to do the testing. One of our testers did told me that the order our letters where send did change. I asked him ok, but is there the need for sorting the letters. He answered no, quite to the contrary. Ok id stayed this way a few 100.000 Euros saved over the years. Years later i found out why this was done. It was created for a one time program run, but never removed. Moral: Check what a fence is for and remove him if he is no longer necessary.
@@EmeraldakafunnygamerguyI'm not defending that guy, but I think you didn't know what "conservative" is, This video is anything but against conservatism.
I think this is a good concept that a lot of people don't know. It seems, from my limited experience on the big mud sphere we call home, that most people can be categorized in two groups. The "But we can't CHANGE it! It's just the way it's always been!" And the "I don't want ANYTHING to be the way it was before, because everything has to change to fit my impractical, 'perfect' view of what *I* want the world to be like." I believe people should think of this rule, when making an important decision. To the people who don't want anything to change, allow people to question the way things are. If they really are the best they can be, they'll come to that conclusion. Sometimes people need to realize things to be true on their own, rather than having someone who is probably biased tell them. To the people who want everything to change, *this video.* If it's something that you can honestly, solidly say needs changing, move on to think about what you'll change it TO. There have been many changes throughout history that didn't effectively change anything at all, just... rebranded the bad thing, so to speak. In the end, it would be impossible to get everyone to think critically about choices and changes and such. If that were to happen, we would live in a much better world. I appreciate videos like this, that keep us in check. I suppose this channel is something I've come to the conclusion... should not change :)
Good description of how European settlers destroyed the manicured estates built by Australian and other first nations people. Nobody bothered to ask what they were doing and why until recently, thankfully a lot of traditional knowledge has been saved and shared with the scientific community and is now becoming the history of our country, not just the history of European discovery and sheep breading that I was taught in the 70's
Can't help but recall a joke. A new general was allotted to a new army base. After some time in the base he realized how there were two army men guarding an empty bench in shifts. He asked his colleagues and his juniors what it was all about. A colleague said “I don’t know but it’s been a tradition here since joined 35 years ago.” The general confused as he was went through the past generals of that base till he found the one that was in charge 35 years ago. He attempted to find him, and found that he had retired and he lived in the countryside now. He contacted him and requested to meet. On the day of the meeting the general asked the retired commander why that bench was guarded so much. The commander was shocked. “So you’re telling me the paint on that bench hasn’t dried yet?!”
People tend to rely on things that have simply persisted long enough. Even if the original reason for the fence is gone, some people probably depend on it without even realizing it. Discovering their reasons for keeping the fence is hard. But accepting their (and their successors’) reasons for keeping the fence makes change impossible. So you end up weighing the pros and cons of keeping the fence versus phasing it out (e.g. by removing sections or replacing sections with gates) versus removing it all at once.
Understanding the situation/environment something was created in should always be necessary. Like the second amendment, where the Local Militia was that era’s equivalent to the police force
If the reason for the fence is “lost to time” we have the option to build a gate. It allows us the ability to re-learn what the purpose of the fence was without completely destroying the system.
I agree with Chesterton, and would even take it a step further. You won’t be able to destroy the fence until you understand why it’s there and how it was built in the first place, and by whom.
What if the fence was placed there, with the knowledge it would be a hinderance to you? What if whoever put the fence down decided that their greater purpose for the fence was more important than wronging you, an unrelated outsider? This seems to be the case with a lot of these metaphorical “fences”. There may be some greater use for the fence we don’t understand, but the fact of the matter is that more often than not whoever placed it knew it would hurt other people in the end. if they don’t care about messing up my day, why would I care about messing up their fence?
I think it's good to understand something before dismantling it. I think it is just important to understand that sometimes the reason "why" is not altruistic, but self-interested. So part of understanding why things are the way they are is being careful to see if they are that way specifically to benefit one person regardless of the harm or detriment to others.
The problem of course lies wherein the fence encloses an area that no longer holds any livestock, it’s use long since past. Chesterton’s principle still applies, as it is of course proper diligence to ensure that its usefulness is well and good in the past and won’t be a problem if removed, altho sometimes it’s hard to figure out what these past purposes were, or worse they can be misconstrued and the problem can be thought gone when it addressed something else
It's about maximizing the benefit to cost ratio(BCR). If the man breaking the fence doesn't own the land the fence is on he might not suffer as much or at all than compared to the benefits gained to him by breaking the fence and allowing him to traverse through
Two examples come to mind for me of things that people changed, or want to change, and it seems its mostly because they don't understand why it is/was. My first example is from the world of AD&D gaming. The original rules in the first edition included a number of elements that attempted to account for the encumbering effects of things you're carrying. The first element of that was standardizing weights around the equivalent in gold coins, which was the form of currency used. 10 gold was 1 pound. The second element was to assign an encumbrance value to every item, expressed in # of gold pieces. The interesting part of that element that a lot of people seemingly missed, was that it also accounted for the differences between wearing somethingf and carrying it. So, for example, a cloak worn had a different value than a cloak carried. Kind of like real life, it's easier to wear a jacket, than to carry it around. Less encumbering. Characters got a rating, based on things like strength, for how much encumbrance they could manage, with their move rate reflecting that. Apparently, there was an incredible lack of understanding of this reasoning with the people that developed the 2nd edition, because they threw pretty much all of that out with no replacement. Instead of encumbrance values, items got weights. And it no longer mattered if the item was worn, carried, or whatever. It's one of the reasons I stayed with 1st edition, which to this day is still the version I'll run, if I run a game. So, I see this as a rule eliminated only because they didn't understand why it was like it was in the first place. Second example, are the people pushing to eliminate the electoral college and keep harping on this mythical "popular vote". The thing is, this so-called popular vote has nothing whatsoever to do with how the Constitution laid out the system. By the Constitution, the States elect the President, with each State (via their legislature) determining how they determine their vote. Each State was given the same representation in the electoral college that they have in Congress. Exactly the same, because it's based on the number of Representatives and Senators they have. And all of that is setup the way it is to balance the populous States vs the less populous. It ain't perfect, but like my example from the gaming world, that doesn't mean throwing it out is the proper solution. If you have a problem with the existing system, come up with a better one that addresses the problem, don't just pretend the problem it addressed doesn't exist. Both of those situations exist due to a lack of understanding of why it is in the first place.
@@KingZNIN Actually, no. If you look in the 1st Ed PHB at the people credited with it and then look at the people credited for the 2nd Ed PHB, they aren't the same people. Looking at those credited with the 1st Ed DMG against the 2nd, and there are exactly two people that are in both. One in development, the other in proofreading. Don't know what either did for 1st Ed, since it only has an alphabetical list of contributors without saying what their involvement was. The one in development for the 2nd Ed was hired as an editor for TSR around the same time the 1st Ed was being released. Doubtful he had much input into the development at that point. In fact, the 2nd Ed was released something like 4 years after the original primary creator, Gary Gygax, had left the company, feeling sidelined from the business. Co-creator Dave Arneson had already left, in 77. All those that developed the 2nd Ed were people that got involved after 1st Ed AD&D was already developed. Kind of hard to say "most of the original creators" when both of the original co-creators of the game were no longer with the company and hadn't been for years.
This also has an interesting complication behind it. Sometimes, it's not the method not working as intended, but something else that is majorly impeding the ffectiveness of said method, which may mislead people to think that the method itself is ineffective or needs change, but reforming the method itself does close to absolutely nothing
I think the story of the giraffe drinking warm water is relevant here as well. The caretaker of a zoo retired, and left a note for the new caretaker: "The giraffe must drink warm water." A decade passed, caretakers came and went. When a new caretaker was given the instruction "The giraffe must drink warm water." they were confused. They visited the original caretaker and asked them why. The old caretaker said: "The giraffe had a sore throat, and the vet said it needed to drink warm water for 2 weeks." That's why the giraffe drank warm water for 10 years.
A engineer was hired to improve a factories efficientcy. He studied and found it at peak performance . He reported his findings ,was thanked ,and fired.
The person seeking to destroy an established thing often thinks they know why it was established. They think it is because the person who established it was an idiot and didn't think about what they were doing. As someone who works in I.T., I find that assumption may be correct 99% of the time, but it is definitely worth questioning. And finding out who built it, when, and why is a great step to substantiating a belief that they simply didn't think everything through.
I think it should be allowed to be “destroyed” if it’s fully understood, and that if the fence was erected for a purpose long past then it can be destroyed, but if the fence still serves a purpose or is there waiting for a planned newfound purpose that it should not.
Chesterton: "The fence is there for a reason. Don't take it down." Revolutionist: "It's in the way. Tear it down." Malcolm in the MIddle: "Guys, put in a gate." That guy at the beginning: "How did someone build a fence this big overnight? This thing goes on for miles in every direction."
I think you should always take a look at WHY things are the way they are before changing them. Sometimes the reason is obsolete or was stupid to begin with. Other times you find out what you THOUGHT was a useless idea or thing actually was load bearing and if you had taken it out everything would have collapsed.
I believe people have the right to break down old structures only to replace them with new ones that consider everybody's needs. Some structures can become outdated, and fences can become rotten. Some fences or structures sometimes definitely need to be replaced time and time again.
One only has to look at what happened to Budweiser. One woman broke down a fence of consumer tradition and the consequences were devastating and far reaching. Why? All because she called the customers "fratty" and she lacked true understanding of marketing.
There is another type of fence. “I don’t know who and for what purpose put it there, but one of its effects is making everyone around it miserable and sick and well, we gotta get rid of it fast even if we don’t fully understand the purpose of the fence”
Had somethin like that happen when I worked at a college bookstore/snack shop. All the food employees bought they could buy at a reduced cost which caused a lot of employees to buy snacks, drinks etc. New management came in and they took that ability away, all the employees stopped buying any of it.
My solution to this: That fence looks like it can be taken apart without destroying it, so if theres no gate close by i can just take out those boards and replace them But yeah, this is definelty a good way to think, people just dismiss things without giving it a thought
It is a good rule to follow. Consider the following: 1.) All actions have consequences (good and bad). 2.) You are responsible for the consequences of your actions. If you are responsible for the consequences of your actions, would it not be advisable to understand as many of those consequences before acting? Chesterton’s Fence provides a framework for that.
Rules ought to have their intended purpose written down, and set with a review schedule to see if they're working as intended. Most people make rules, then never test or question them again. Then they make new rules to fix the existing rules. Bureaucracy and bureaucrats.
I think it depends entirely on the situation. If something is actively hurting people, then it needs to go, regardless of why it was made, unless you can find a way for it to exist without hurting people.
What if it's infeasible to avoid hurting people in any case? (simple example: the human condition itself- the only solution of your criteria is voluntary antinatalism) For the most part we live in a closed system (not considering technological advancement) so any localised benefit you enjoy is probably a deficit for someone else. Even if society is evenly distributed, then everyone has to do forced labour which is a hurt in and of itself. If that sounds dark, note I'm not thinking of it in a nihilistic sense, I'm just giving an extreme example to point out that there's at least one exception. So, now we are faced with the problem of weighting different hurts (because considering the human condition too hurtful fundamentally is unhelpful), and we'll inevitably be biased here, so we still need to understand the situation to better mitigate the bias.
@@MagicGonads Sounds to me like we just go right back to where we started, then, but hasten the research to lessen the hurt as much as possible, Or, better yet, find some way to solve both problems either at once or sequentially, likely tearing down multiple traditions in doing so .
Put Simply, Chesterton's Fence, should be a Law. Not knowing what something is for, or what purpose it serves, shows that we should acquire what and why. Like in Sweden we have a 48 Quarantine Rule for all animals coming into the country, this is to make sure they don't carry deadly diseases, viruses or bacteria. Example Rabies. We also have a Zero-Tolerance Rule, any and all animals found that have a deadly virus such as Rabies or the likes (That we have killed off in our country), they don't get to live. But lately we have had a lot of people who ignore these rules, saying they are too strict and "useless", people buying and sending unquarantined animals through private planes or through tolls with false or similar paperwork to let animals through without going through quarantine. The whole Reason for the rule in the first place is to prevent viruses such as the Rabies Virus, to come back. Same as we want to make sure the animal is healthy, and not drugged up on a lot of drugs to make it "Look" healthy. (We are also strict about what medications, and drugs animals can have in them, or been used in the past month, for their health sake) But sadly these rules are being ignored, which is a high risk.
The worst modern-problem is the memory-of-rules; we always remember the 1st half of a solution, but the 2nd half is often changed or forgotten outright: this is shown in Old Sayings, like "Curiosity killed the cat." and that's it, a saying people know by heart; never in their lives did they learn this saying was a two-part turn-of-phrase, that ends with even more information changing the exercise entirely. Leaving people more dumb than wise.
If you understand the purpose you can come up with a better solution than outright destroying it or you can come up with a more practical alternative that solves the old problem before you tear down the old solution that causes your current problem. Fence blocking your path? Build a gate. You can walk through and it still keeps wolves out.
The last question is a tricky one, you need progression but also established rules in harmony. Most reforms do not accomplish harmony and make the further way a literal pain in the ass. Cipollas 5 rules of stupidity maybe also could be applied in that case, to better understand the reasoning behind "reforming forces"
You can't really say a rule is damaging because pretty much every rule is gonna upset some people. It's just a question of which people you decide are more important and as much as we like to think we're moral people who we prioritise is entirely subjective. There is no objective moral best way to go about things because morality can never be objective without a higher power. And if a higher power does exist then we already have rules written out in the holy scriptures. And whether you like them or not doesn't make them objectively right or wrong it just means you don't like them and if you're conflating what you like or feel with what is right then I think the issue lies within yourself. If that's the case then a serial killer could be right in murdering others because they feel taking another human life isn't wrong - their values are different and why are your values any better than theirs? Any reason you might give is going to be subjectively based and so isn't a reason based in logic, it's just an opinion. The only way you could argue that murder is objectively wrong is if there are absolute rights and wrongs and an opinion doesn't extend to everyone else so unfortunately nothing we think of will ever qualify as such. Humans cannot sew right and wrong into the fabric of the universe because they are abstract concepts. They don't have any inherent values the same way a table and chair do. You can call a table a chair and vice versa but they will still hold the same inherent properties. But with right and wrong when you change what it means (which is a subjective processs anyway) it doesn't have any of the inherent properties that it did before and this is my point - that you cannot have true, objective morality that is actually fair because fairness is subjectively defined as well unless we have a higher power who can make these abstract concepts a reality. It's always just going to be the lay folk in trying to convince themselves that they're morally riteous people when they probably aren't - especially with the rise of hedonism being behind a lot of rule changes in more recent times
The company I work for said our rules were written in blood when I was first hired. They've forgotten that over the last five years. Now they're paying for it.
As a former employer I had a policy for all new employees with ideas on "how to do it better". I would hand them a notepad and say, "I'm glad you have some ideas for change. I want you to write them down in this book and in three months, if you still think they are a good idea, we'll get together and discuss whether to implement them."
What employees hear: "Any ideas you may possibly have come up with are so worthless that instead of even hearing about them we stash them in a book that no-one will ever remember in 3 months". Great way to sink morale *and* be stuck with antiquated processes until the entire business inevitably goes obsolete.
@@jwhite5008 Cool story bro. How many businesses have you established and run successfully for over ten years? If an unskilled employee with no experience comes to you with fifteen ways to "improve" processes in the first week he's there, what's your brilliant response?
@@andymanaus1077 I will not give out any personal details for privacy reasons, requesting that was rude, and I'm definitely not your "bro". The action a non-obstinate manager/supervisor should take is to educate the people how the existing processes work to the people who are genuinely interested in them and explain the reasons why those processes are in place, including the costs of changing them versus benefits gained by improvements. I surmise it would probably not be productive to discuss it with you any further so I will not be replying to this thread any more.
Just about every new manager story on reddit is a Chesterton's Fence example, every new guy or girl wants to flex. They're usually told in no uncertain terms what exactly will happen if such a change were to be made, though sometimes it's just a "Can I get that in writing?" which should be a huge red flag to anyone with any degree of self awareness. But these people with the tiniest bit of authority need to get their power trip on, I guess?
As much as this is good rule to live by, nature is infinitely complex beyond our comprehension and nothing is created without something being destroyed, change is inevitable whether we like it or not
This explanation only makes sense for those good-hearted and self-improvement seekers. This is the type of people you JUST DO NOT FIND amongst Leftist-tilted minds, 'revolutionary' people, and/or those moved by Immediatism, Materialism, Relativism and even Moral-less Liberalism. So where will we go from here? Hard to say. Chesterton would be deeply disappointed in our dark days... and how he would seek even more for the ways to Heaven. Cheers from Brazil.
Sometimes the only way to find out the purpose of something IS to remove it. The questions become how easily can I restore it? How do I measure the effects?
In general, this boils down to "little knowledge is a dangerous thing". However, we can never know the whole list of what we don't know, so this principle, if upheld completely, means we can never change anything. I would propose two rules for breaking things: 1) know major prerequisites for the general well-being (what is essential for support of life, health, balance, etc ...) and study in depth to best of your abilities how some thing which seems detrimental to your goal may be a support to those prerequisites; 2) Prepare means of undoing the change you are about to make, and means of observing the effects of the change on your environment, keep control. However, sometimes you are pressed by urgency to find a solution and breaking something is one or apparently only way to do that. This is very unfavorable situation to be in.
