7 ms·

The person emptying the complimentary bowl of lollipops into their bag isn't breaking any law, but they are breaking social expectations and making things worse

The person emptying the complimentary bowl of lollipops into their bag isn't breaking any law, but they are breaking social expectations and making things worse for everyone else.

RIMR 11y ago
And yet, if you punch them in the face for it, you'll be arrested for assault. If you think that wasting 36k gallons of water a day should be illegal, write to your representative, don't go looking for private citizens to "make an example of". In the end, you'll be the bad guy, and the law will still say it's legal to waste that much water.
- adevine 11y ago
  No one is advocating punching anyone in the face. The journalist is essentially advocating public shaming, i.e. "Hey, look at this asshole who dumped the whole complimentary bowl of lollipops in their bag." I find the Hacker news response to this pretty interesting. I think you'll find that many/most programmer/engineer types will think about this from a "does it follow the rules of the system" perspective: He's following the law as it exists, so if there's a problem, the issue is with the system. Many/most other people, however, will approach this from a social expectations perspective: This person is acting in a socially unacceptable way, so they deserved to be shamed. I'm not saying which way is better or right, but as someone firmly in the programmer/engineer camp, it's been important for me to understand how so many people approach the "rules" of the world from a very different perspective.
  - JabavuAdams 11y ago
    The "programmer/engineers" also seem to ignore how the laws get made, and how changes are opposed. This is an adversarial system. If your adversary can block progressive reform then shaming is really the only answer. Also, stopping short of doxxing, it's simply useful for people to know that this level of private consumption exists.
    - RIMR 11y ago
      >it's simply useful for people to know that this level of private consumption exists. Why? How can we assume that this water is being wasted? What if the owner has a private hydroponics system, and they sell produce to farmers markets? It's legal, productive, and requires a lot of water. Starting a witchhunt because a wealthy person uses a lot of water in a water-scarce area misses the point entirely, because we have no idea what the water is being used for. If there's a legitimate use for it, and they're able to pay, I don't see what the problem is. If you're worried about water being legitimately wasted, work towards getting water usage regulated so we can determine which activities are wasteful, and which are not. Then, customers would be forced to explain water-usage like this, and could be penalized if it were deemed unnecessary.
      - JabavuAdams 11y ago
        We can't ask whether it's justified if we don`t know it's happening. Investigating a potential problem requires recognition that there may be a problem. That's what's happening here -- investigation. I'm surprised you find that controversial. Sometimes investigations start with the regulators, and sometimes they start with members of the public. We shouldn't have to wait for the regulators to change the regulations before we're allowed to ask "what's going on here?" In fact, what reason is there to change any regulation if there's no perception of a problem, nor desire by anybody to see it changed? You seem to be arguing that anything that is not explicitly prohibited by regulations should be acceptable to the public. If people can't regulate themselves to at least some degree, this means we'd have to explicitly codify all "good behaviour". This is unworkable, and frankly undesirable.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
cbg0 11y ago
This is a terrible analogy, the water in this case is paid for by the consumer.
- Symmetry 11y ago
  Often people feel morally obliged to avoid doing something for the common good. But as soon you charge a fee people will assume that that fee reflects the social cost and maybe start doing it a lot more. http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what... Either don't charge money for something and use suasion to get people to use too much or charge enough that you're happy that they use as much as they can afford.
  - landryraccoon 11y ago
    > charge enough that you're happy that they use as much as they can afford. Market rates for water, which is what you are describing, sound great.
- oconnore 11y ago
  You also pay for the lollipops. The key is that it's a finite resource with a relatively (3 stage, or whatever) flat rate. The price structure is not dynamic enough to account for the fact that at some point the value of the last drop of water approaches infinity.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    The lollipops are a built-in charge with an assumption of only taking a couple. If you take ten and explicitly pay a dollar, everyone is happy. The water in California has a limited supply, yes, but the use is plenty elastic. If it was all worth a moderate price per gallon, there wouldn't be such an issue. The elasticity and constant inflow mean that a price asymptote is just not going to happen.
- gambiting 11y ago
  A better example would be if a person came into a supermarket in the morning and bought all bread and milk so no one else would have any. It's legal,but most stores would probably have a policy against it.
Turing_Machine 11y ago
It's not "complimentary", though. They're paying for every gallon, at the price that the utility has set. I think I have to agree with those who have been saying that if the utility actually wants this to stop, they should change their pricing structure.

The person emptying the complimentary bowl of lollipops into their bag isn't breaking any law, but they are breaking social expectations and making things worse for everyone else.

RIMR 11y ago

And yet, if you punch them in the face for it, you'll be arrested for assault. If you think that wasting 36k gallons of water a day should be illegal, write to your representative, don't go looking for private citizens to "make an example of". In the end, you'll be the bad guy, and the law will still say it's legal to waste that much water.

adevine 11y ago
No one is advocating punching anyone in the face. The journalist is essentially advocating public shaming, i.e. "Hey, look at this asshole who dumped the whole complimentary bowl of lollipops in their bag." I find the Hacker news response to this pretty interesting. I think you'll find that many/most programmer/engineer types will think about this from a "does it follow the rules of the system" perspective: He's following the law as it exists, so if there's a problem, the issue is with the system. Many/most other people, however, will approach this from a social expectations perspective: This person is acting in a socially unacceptable way, so they deserved to be shamed. I'm not saying which way is better or right, but as someone firmly in the programmer/engineer camp, it's been important for me to understand how so many people approach the "rules" of the world from a very different perspective.
- JabavuAdams 11y ago
  The "programmer/engineers" also seem to ignore how the laws get made, and how changes are opposed. This is an adversarial system. If your adversary can block progressive reform then shaming is really the only answer. Also, stopping short of doxxing, it's simply useful for people to know that this level of private consumption exists.
  - RIMR 11y ago
    >it's simply useful for people to know that this level of private consumption exists. Why? How can we assume that this water is being wasted? What if the owner has a private hydroponics system, and they sell produce to farmers markets? It's legal, productive, and requires a lot of water. Starting a witchhunt because a wealthy person uses a lot of water in a water-scarce area misses the point entirely, because we have no idea what the water is being used for. If there's a legitimate use for it, and they're able to pay, I don't see what the problem is. If you're worried about water being legitimately wasted, work towards getting water usage regulated so we can determine which activities are wasteful, and which are not. Then, customers would be forced to explain water-usage like this, and could be penalized if it were deemed unnecessary.
    - JabavuAdams 11y ago
      We can't ask whether it's justified if we don`t know it's happening. Investigating a potential problem requires recognition that there may be a problem. That's what's happening here -- investigation. I'm surprised you find that controversial. Sometimes investigations start with the regulators, and sometimes they start with members of the public. We shouldn't have to wait for the regulators to change the regulations before we're allowed to ask "what's going on here?" In fact, what reason is there to change any regulation if there's no perception of a problem, nor desire by anybody to see it changed? You seem to be arguing that anything that is not explicitly prohibited by regulations should be acceptable to the public. If people can't regulate themselves to at least some degree, this means we'd have to explicitly codify all "good behaviour". This is unworkable, and frankly undesirable.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

cbg0 11y ago

This is a terrible analogy, the water in this case is paid for by the consumer.

Symmetry 11y ago
Often people feel morally obliged to avoid doing something for the common good. But as soon you charge a fee people will assume that that fee reflects the social cost and maybe start doing it a lot more. http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what-they-do/ http://freakonomics.com/2013/10/23/what-makes-people-do-what... Either don't charge money for something and use suasion to get people to use too much or charge enough that you're happy that they use as much as they can afford.
- landryraccoon 11y ago
  > charge enough that you're happy that they use as much as they can afford. Market rates for water, which is what you are describing, sound great.
oconnore 11y ago
You also pay for the lollipops. The key is that it's a finite resource with a relatively (3 stage, or whatever) flat rate. The price structure is not dynamic enough to account for the fact that at some point the value of the last drop of water approaches infinity.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  The lollipops are a built-in charge with an assumption of only taking a couple. If you take ten and explicitly pay a dollar, everyone is happy. The water in California has a limited supply, yes, but the use is plenty elastic. If it was all worth a moderate price per gallon, there wouldn't be such an issue. The elasticity and constant inflow mean that a price asymptote is just not going to happen.
gambiting 11y ago
A better example would be if a person came into a supermarket in the morning and bought all bread and milk so no one else would have any. It's legal,but most stores would probably have a policy against it.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

It's not "complimentary", though. They're paying for every gallon, at the price that the utility has set. I think I have to agree with those who have been saying that if the utility actually wants this to stop, they should change their pricing structure.