7 ms·

This makes me so annoyed. I much prefer ones without buttons because I don't have to mess with it; when there is a button, I assume I have to go over and press

by _bxg1 8y ago

This makes me so annoyed. I much prefer ones without buttons because I don't have to mess with it; when there is a button, I assume I have to go over and press it, but it sounds like in some cases I don't (for a while now I've suspected them to be pointless). But there's no way to tell the difference so I still have to everywhere.

Semaphor 8y ago
And unless you remember which ones are fake, you always have to press. And because you don't know if the people in front of you pressed, you have to awkwardly walk past them and press it (again). It's always annoying me.
- joombaga 8y ago
  You could ask them to press it. "Excuse me, could you press the crossing button?" There are few strangers to social awkwardness.
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  Newer signal buttons have an LED indicator that shows they've been pressed, which is a nice touch. Saves having to reach around someone to make sure they pressed the button already.
zimablue 8y ago
This whole piece, and to be honest most of the comments here come from such a dark, authoritarian, arrogant perspective. "lying to the plebs modifies their behavior very slightly in a good way or is it in a bad way?" It's irrelevant, treat your fellow humans with some modicum of respect and dignity. Terry Pratchett's first rule of morality "don't treat people as if they're objects". Anyone caught casually deceiving people for some tiny perceived benefit to either themselves or the people deserves a severe lesson in how "irrationally" angry people get when they're lied to. You can save this page and the comments as an example to future generations of how the elites of this century had become morally bankrupt.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  How is this relevant to this century? The concept of the Noble Lie has been around at least since Plato. Lying to someone isn't treating them as an object, it's actually confirming their subjectivity.
  - zimablue 8y ago
    Lying to someone for their benefit is treating them as an object because you're not respecting their right to honesty or dignity, you're just treating them as an object that might or might not get run over and deceptive technology as just another input. You're optimizing them without their consent like they're some code you're trying to speed up. In the same way that PUAs is objectifying women because you're not respecting them as sentient humans with a right to honesty, you're treating your interactions with them as arbitrary code to be optimized. re this century, maybe this has always been the attitude but I think you see it in "nudge" ideas which came about within the last 20 years. Govt/Corp application of applied behavioural psychology combined with (at least the UK and I think Europe) an acceptance of a nanny state to a degree that would have been unthinkable previously.
    - claudiawerner 8y ago
      Isn't the whole market based on things like this? The way supermarkets are organised, how advertising works at all, the government applying import tarrifs to dissuade you from buying from abroad, etc. I don't think there's anything wrong with incentivizing the behaviour you want to see. In the end, every modern corporation does the exact same thing as what you claim nanny states do: try to make your desire align with theirs, and making it hard to resist by exploiting superego affinity (e.g your boss presents herself as your friend so you feel bad disobeying or refusing to work overtime).
      - zimablue 8y ago
        Yeah and markets are notoriously immoral, so are manipulative bosses. We banned subliminal imaging remember. There's some blurred territory I totally agree, in between egregious deception and "expected, competitive" deception eg. make-up, presenting yourself well on a date, moderating your opinions, but this example isn't even close. Noone expects buttons to not work and there's no unavoidable competitive marketplace in public infrastructure providers where there's some massive pressure to be immoral or die.
bhauer 8y ago
Agreed. As a pedestrian, one of the most irksome circumstances is incorrectly assuming an intersection is automatic and losing a cycle because you chose to optimistically not press the button. So if you're not absolutely certain an intersection is automatic, you generally will press the button. Frankly, I don't think governments should engage in this kind of deceptive social engineering. If you have a problem with jaywalking, enforce jaywalking laws. Crosswalk functions should be transparent: either manual with a button or automatic without a button. It fuels resentment to be toyed with by a clever social experiment, which is a small but real erosion of the trust relationship between government and citizenry. It's a hidden cost that isn't captured in the financial bottom line (cost savings being the original argument for leaving the buttons when intersections were converted to automatic).
- threwawasy1228 8y ago
  I like that you assume a reasonable person would only lose a single cycle. Once I walked up to a pedestrian scramble intersection with several people standing at it and it went around the cycle once in front of me and I realized none of them had pressed the button. I clarified aloud to them that you have to press the button as I pressed it. They exclaimed that they thought something was wrong with it as they had been waiting for 2 cycles already and didn't realize you needed to press the button.
  - fingerlocks 8y ago
    To be fair, In Seattle there are many that are located comically far from the intersection. I’ve been through two light cycles until I found the button hiding in the distance.
clairity 8y ago
what annoys me is that most of the walk buttons on street corners in LA actually need to be pushed to get the walk signal to come on, and people think they’re cool for not pushing the button now since “they don’t work”. so they end up either standing through two light cycles, or walking on a shortened cycle and making turning cars mad. just push the button!

by _bxg1 8y ago

Semaphor 8y ago

And unless you remember which ones are fake, you always have to press. And because you don't know if the people in front of you pressed, you have to awkwardly walk past them and press it (again). It's always annoying me.

joombaga 8y ago
You could ask them to press it. "Excuse me, could you press the crossing button?" There are few strangers to social awkwardness.
rootusrootus 8y ago
Newer signal buttons have an LED indicator that shows they've been pressed, which is a nice touch. Saves having to reach around someone to make sure they pressed the button already.

zimablue 8y ago

This whole piece, and to be honest most of the comments here come from such a dark, authoritarian, arrogant perspective. "lying to the plebs modifies their behavior very slightly in a good way or is it in a bad way?" It's irrelevant, treat your fellow humans with some modicum of respect and dignity. Terry Pratchett's first rule of morality "don't treat people as if they're objects". Anyone caught casually deceiving people for some tiny perceived benefit to either themselves or the people deserves a severe lesson in how "irrationally" angry people get when they're lied to. You can save this page and the comments as an example to future generations of how the elites of this century had become morally bankrupt.

claudiawerner 8y ago
How is this relevant to this century? The concept of the Noble Lie has been around at least since Plato. Lying to someone isn't treating them as an object, it's actually confirming their subjectivity.
- zimablue 8y ago
  Lying to someone for their benefit is treating them as an object because you're not respecting their right to honesty or dignity, you're just treating them as an object that might or might not get run over and deceptive technology as just another input. You're optimizing them without their consent like they're some code you're trying to speed up. In the same way that PUAs is objectifying women because you're not respecting them as sentient humans with a right to honesty, you're treating your interactions with them as arbitrary code to be optimized. re this century, maybe this has always been the attitude but I think you see it in "nudge" ideas which came about within the last 20 years. Govt/Corp application of applied behavioural psychology combined with (at least the UK and I think Europe) an acceptance of a nanny state to a degree that would have been unthinkable previously.
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    Isn't the whole market based on things like this? The way supermarkets are organised, how advertising works at all, the government applying import tarrifs to dissuade you from buying from abroad, etc. I don't think there's anything wrong with incentivizing the behaviour you want to see. In the end, every modern corporation does the exact same thing as what you claim nanny states do: try to make your desire align with theirs, and making it hard to resist by exploiting superego affinity (e.g your boss presents herself as your friend so you feel bad disobeying or refusing to work overtime).
    - zimablue 8y ago
      Yeah and markets are notoriously immoral, so are manipulative bosses. We banned subliminal imaging remember. There's some blurred territory I totally agree, in between egregious deception and "expected, competitive" deception eg. make-up, presenting yourself well on a date, moderating your opinions, but this example isn't even close. Noone expects buttons to not work and there's no unavoidable competitive marketplace in public infrastructure providers where there's some massive pressure to be immoral or die.

bhauer 8y ago

Agreed. As a pedestrian, one of the most irksome circumstances is incorrectly assuming an intersection is automatic and losing a cycle because you chose to optimistically not press the button. So if you're not absolutely certain an intersection is automatic, you generally will press the button. Frankly, I don't think governments should engage in this kind of deceptive social engineering. If you have a problem with jaywalking, enforce jaywalking laws. Crosswalk functions should be transparent: either manual with a button or automatic without a button. It fuels resentment to be toyed with by a clever social experiment, which is a small but real erosion of the trust relationship between government and citizenry. It's a hidden cost that isn't captured in the financial bottom line (cost savings being the original argument for leaving the buttons when intersections were converted to automatic).

threwawasy1228 8y ago
I like that you assume a reasonable person would only lose a single cycle. Once I walked up to a pedestrian scramble intersection with several people standing at it and it went around the cycle once in front of me and I realized none of them had pressed the button. I clarified aloud to them that you have to press the button as I pressed it. They exclaimed that they thought something was wrong with it as they had been waiting for 2 cycles already and didn't realize you needed to press the button.
- fingerlocks 8y ago
  To be fair, In Seattle there are many that are located comically far from the intersection. I’ve been through two light cycles until I found the button hiding in the distance.

clairity 8y ago

what annoys me is that most of the walk buttons on street corners in LA actually need to be pushed to get the walk signal to come on, and people think they’re cool for not pushing the button now since “they don’t work”. so they end up either standing through two light cycles, or walking on a shortened cycle and making turning cars mad. just push the button!