5 ms·
"Because that's the way we've always done is" is never a valid argument.
by greydius 10y ago
"Because that's the way we've always done is" is never a valid argument.
- kintamanimatt 10y agoI"m not entirely sure that's the argument being made.
- bbcbasic 10y agoStraw man city on hn
- dri_ft 10y agoOften it is. It's a perfectly good answer to, for example, "why do we drive on the side of the road that we do?"
- robert_tweed 10y agoI sometimes wonder if handedness or eye dominance have any effect on accident statistics.
- jobigoud 10y agoIf the choice really is arbitrary then yes. If there was a compelling argument to driving one side or the other then it would cease to be a good answer IMHO. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
- kazinator 10y agoHow is "because we've always done it that way" an answer to "why do we drive on the side of the road that we do?" It's more or less just a re-statement of the question. And it's wrong: we haven't always driven on that side of the road. We don't always drive on that side now; it depends on where in the world we find ourselves. Left versus right is symmetric: there is no inherent advantage. Both choices have exactly the same advantages and disadvantages, just with "left" and "right" swapped. Whether or not to include a factor of two isn't symmetric in this way.
- peterbonney 10y agoOf course it's a valid argument - you have to consider the costs and benefits of switching whenever you propose a change in a broadly accepted convention. For example, one could make an argument that oral and written communication in the United States would be more efficient if everyone was forced to communicate in Klingon. But the switching cost would be so astronomically high that any possible gains pale in comparison. (I'm not saying the pi/tau cost/benefit is comparable to English/Klingon, I'm just pointing out that "that's the way we've always done it" is in fact a perfectly legitimate argument. The onus is on the person proposing a change to show that the change is worth it.)
- phkahler 10y ago>> "Because that's the way we've always done is" is never a valid argument. But it is. For the pi/tau thing, it's better if the whole world uses one set of formulas. For the guy who pointed to which side of the road we drive on, it's best if we all agree to drive on the same side. And for units, it's best if we all agree to measure things using the same units - otherwise probes crash into mars and such. All of those are arbitrary decisions and we're better of just sticking with them - except the units one, by using SI units a lot of formulas simplify and arbitrary constants go away. I'm not so sure tau/pi have a similar advantage. If you do change, you'll put the world in a weird transition phase until the change is widespread and that causes problems until it's resolve. Also, with mathematics you have existing and historical papers that use pi, so what to do about those? The legacy of pi would be around a long long time.