5 ms·

I don't mean that we should change the laws, so that the former grey area becomes the new illegal area; but rather that we should have a stricter attitude about

I don't mean that we should change the laws, so that the former grey area becomes the new illegal area; but rather that we should have a stricter attitude about the grey area. Sometimes people's attitude about these things is that, they acknowledge they are wrong, but since nothing illegal happened, they won't say or do anything. That's the grey area I'm talking about -- where there is broad acknowledgement that something is fishy, although it is not technically illegal. This gray area exists because the law needs to operate under the presumption of innocence, defining crimes unambiguously and prosecuting them with due regard for reasonable doubt -- it is deliberately narrow and permissive, because the state is very powerful and if not held to strict limits it becomes very dangerous. However, those of us who wish to have a good social and professional reputation shouldn't expect to maintain it while doing things that are "barely legal"; and those who witness us doing so should not feel that those kinds of things are not to be mentioned or corrected merely because they are not illegal.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago
> This gray area exists because the law needs to operate under the presumption of innocence, defining crimes unambiguously and prosecuting them with due regard for reasonable doubt -- it is deliberately narrow and permissive, because the state is very powerful and if not held to strict limits it becomes very dangerous. That is the theory everyone refers to when they're trying to justify imposing harsh penalties. Have you read the laws that Congress actually passes? It would be nice if they actually lived up to that standard. And you can't get out of the problem by appealing to a reputational shadow enforcement system. If reputational harm wasn't real or powerful then no one would be interested in imposing it. Imposing real penalties with a weak standard of proof on marginal behavior is equally problematic regardless of whether the penalties are formally imposed by the state. And today's attitudes become tomorrow's laws. Gray areas are gray because they contain both baby and bathwater. If something is clearly wrong it's easy to make it illegal (and it almost always already is), and if it isn't clearly wrong then we don't have any special knowledge the state lacks that allows us to mete out penalties in borderline cases without punishing good people.
- solidsnack9000 9y ago
  > Gray areas are gray because they contain both and bathwater. There is a grey area like that but that is not the grey area I am talking about. To a consider an example you mentioned previously: it's fine to just not ever touch your coworkers. Another example is ethnic jokes: these are not illegal but do you need to do this at work? Staying out of the gray area is not a matter of harsh punishment but rather on insisting on professionalism and decorum. It is only when people have strayed so far from that -- normalising deviance for themselves -- that you find yourself in a place where harsh punishment is even thinkable. One would not need or apply harsh punishments for matters of decorum.
  - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
    There is value in camaraderie. You're assuming the benefit of staying away from the line is greater than the cost of losing every net-positive thing that isn't entirely white. It's possible for a workplace to be a sterile environment where one turns one's wrench in silence without human connection, but that isn't how people should have to spend the majority of their waking hours. And again, that policy is a ratchet. What people take offense to is calibrated by expectations and past experience. If you succeed in exerting social pressure to keep everyone away from the line, you move the Overton window and create a new gray area in what used to be accepted professional behavior. Continue to apply the same line-avoiding policy and you have a ratchet that leads to the imposition of radically Puritanical positions.
    - solidsnack9000 9y ago
      If there is no countervailing pressure, you have a ratchet; but many norms are held to quite consistently and stably. For example, tipping -- I honestly can not remember the last time I saw anyone not do it. That doesn't mean tips keep going up and up and up... How do you explain that?
      - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
        http://time.com/money/3394185/tipping-myths-realities-history/ http://time.com/money/3394185/tipping-myths-realities-histor... > Nonetheless, the standard percentage to tip waitstaff has risen over the decades. According to a PayScale study, the median tip is now 19.5%. In recent years, some waiters and restaurants have suggested that 25% or even 30% is the proper gratuity level, and that a 20% tip, once considered generous, is just average today. As recently as 2008, though, an Esquire tipping guide stated "15 percent for good service is still the norm" at American restaurants. An American Demographics study from 2001 found that three-quarters of Americans tipped an average of 17% on restaurant bills, while 22% tipped a flat amount no matter what the bill, and the gratuity left averaged $4.67. Meanwhile, in 1922, Emily Post wrote, "You will not get good service unless you tip generously," and "the rule is ten per cent." Presumably as a result of most people not wanting to leave a below average tip, which clips the low side of average from the distribution and thereby raises the average over time.

AnthonyMouse 9y ago

> This gray area exists because the law needs to operate under the presumption of innocence, defining crimes unambiguously and prosecuting them with due regard for reasonable doubt -- it is deliberately narrow and permissive, because the state is very powerful and if not held to strict limits it becomes very dangerous. That is the theory everyone refers to when they're trying to justify imposing harsh penalties. Have you read the laws that Congress actually passes? It would be nice if they actually lived up to that standard. And you can't get out of the problem by appealing to a reputational shadow enforcement system. If reputational harm wasn't real or powerful then no one would be interested in imposing it. Imposing real penalties with a weak standard of proof on marginal behavior is equally problematic regardless of whether the penalties are formally imposed by the state. And today's attitudes become tomorrow's laws. Gray areas are gray because they contain both baby and bathwater. If something is clearly wrong it's easy to make it illegal (and it almost always already is), and if it isn't clearly wrong then we don't have any special knowledge the state lacks that allows us to mete out penalties in borderline cases without punishing good people.

solidsnack9000 9y ago
> Gray areas are gray because they contain both and bathwater. There is a grey area like that but that is not the grey area I am talking about. To a consider an example you mentioned previously: it's fine to just not ever touch your coworkers. Another example is ethnic jokes: these are not illegal but do you need to do this at work? Staying out of the gray area is not a matter of harsh punishment but rather on insisting on professionalism and decorum. It is only when people have strayed so far from that -- normalising deviance for themselves -- that you find yourself in a place where harsh punishment is even thinkable. One would not need or apply harsh punishments for matters of decorum.
- AnthonyMouse 9y ago
  There is value in camaraderie. You're assuming the benefit of staying away from the line is greater than the cost of losing every net-positive thing that isn't entirely white. It's possible for a workplace to be a sterile environment where one turns one's wrench in silence without human connection, but that isn't how people should have to spend the majority of their waking hours. And again, that policy is a ratchet. What people take offense to is calibrated by expectations and past experience. If you succeed in exerting social pressure to keep everyone away from the line, you move the Overton window and create a new gray area in what used to be accepted professional behavior. Continue to apply the same line-avoiding policy and you have a ratchet that leads to the imposition of radically Puritanical positions.
  - solidsnack9000 9y ago
    If there is no countervailing pressure, you have a ratchet; but many norms are held to quite consistently and stably. For example, tipping -- I honestly can not remember the last time I saw anyone not do it. That doesn't mean tips keep going up and up and up... How do you explain that?
    - AnthonyMouse 9y ago
      http://time.com/money/3394185/tipping-myths-realities-history/ http://time.com/money/3394185/tipping-myths-realities-histor... > Nonetheless, the standard percentage to tip waitstaff has risen over the decades. According to a PayScale study, the median tip is now 19.5%. In recent years, some waiters and restaurants have suggested that 25% or even 30% is the proper gratuity level, and that a 20% tip, once considered generous, is just average today. As recently as 2008, though, an Esquire tipping guide stated "15 percent for good service is still the norm" at American restaurants. An American Demographics study from 2001 found that three-quarters of Americans tipped an average of 17% on restaurant bills, while 22% tipped a flat amount no matter what the bill, and the gratuity left averaged $4.67. Meanwhile, in 1922, Emily Post wrote, "You will not get good service unless you tip generously," and "the rule is ten per cent." Presumably as a result of most people not wanting to leave a below average tip, which clips the low side of average from the distribution and thereby raises the average over time.