Not the original commenter, but I don't believe that was the point (to suggest abolishing rules in favor of intuition or to compare the pros & cons of the two).

Not the original commenter, but I don't believe that was the point (to suggest abolishing rules in favor of intuition or to compare the pros & cons of the two). I read it as a simple observation that codifying things, writing them down, is hard, especially that which is (debatably) "known intuitively." And I think anyone can affirm this who has ever tried to write a law, a computer program based on business rules and tribal knowledge, or this selfsame FreeBSD code of conduct. It's surprisingly hard to describe and define things that previously fell under "we know it when we see it." That's why if a contractor gets hired to build a building the contract is 20 pages but the specs are 2,000 pages. For every word that says "build a building," there are 6 that are there strictly to remove wiggle-room.