9 ms·

Chesterton's Fence doesn't tell us _not to change things_ or even prescribe some level of _incrementalism_ it just asks us to make a good-faith effort to _know_

Chesterton's Fence doesn't tell us _not to change things_ or even prescribe some level of _incrementalism_ it just asks us to make a good-faith effort to _know_ why the thing we want to change is the way it is before we change it. To follow the metaphor, maybe the reason the fence is there is because the county water supply is behind the fence and they put it there to stop cows and livestock from fouling the water.

marcosdumay 5y ago
Often enough there is just no reason at all for the fence, or the reason is completely lost. So knowing why it's there is impossible, and if you condition taking down the fence on that, you are effectively prohibiting taking the fence down. That's why every time somebody argues against it. It's because at some point you have to abandon that rule, and all the interesting discussion is about when to abandon it, not on how to follow it.
- kspacewalk2 5y ago
  Right, which is why like the comment you're replying to said, you make a good faith effort (i.e. not just as a formality), and then dismantle that fence if reasons why are lost in the mists of time and bureaucracy.
- dccoolgai 5y ago
  Think about what "good-faith effort" means. This is another thing the Fence metaphor helps us understand when we think about it a little bit more.
- miniatureape 5y ago
  I think the point of the fence is to move the impulse from yourself (If I can't see the reason there must not be one) to the greater context (Someone had a reason for this at some point, let me see if I can try to understand). Related to Chesterton's fence is Levi's Onion: https://www.joeydevilla.com/2001/12/03/4419/ https://www.joeydevilla.com/2001/12/03/4419/ Which is sort of a Chesterton's fence situation where someone took those required steps.
  - dccoolgai 5y ago
    Thank you! I collect these kind of metaphors and I didn't have Levi's Onion. I just added it to my list. I had a similar one called "chicken chopping" that I heard from an Australian once, but I like this one better.
    - mistermann 5y ago
      If you posted your collection on Pastebin I'd be forever in your debt!
      - dccoolgai 5y ago
        I had to fill some of these in, but here you go: https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW
    - dsclough 5y ago
      I have my own collection of these and would also like to see a pastebin of yours!
      - dccoolgai 5y ago
        https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW Share yours, please!
        dsclough 5y ago
        A bit disorganized and apparently pastebin thinks there is something so offensive in here they won't let me share it but here you go, a collection aphorisms and various other adjacent things https://controlc.com/db66d6e4 https://controlc.com/db66d6e4
        dccoolgai 5y ago
        That's amazing! Thank you so much! I've always had a little back-burner dream of making a little blog that does like one of these allegories per week.
- Levitz 5y ago
  It is also very easy to fall into the trap of assuming you know why it was put there, only because you found out one reason. Being aware of this, it is easy to assume that, no matter how many reasons you can think of as to why something was done, there might very well be other reasons you don't know, at that point, it seems to me, the options are either accepting the risk or never changing anything.
- deltarholamda 5y ago
  >Often enough there is just no reason at all for the fence The article makes the point that people do not build fences for no reason. It costs time, effort and resources, not to mention it's a lot of work and people are lazy. There's always a reason for the fence. >or the reason is completely lost. This may be true. A fence in the middle of a wood may have been put there 90 years ago because of old property demarcations, or an effort to keep the dread bearded grindlesnatch from attacking the village. The property is now owned by one person, and climate change killed the bearded grindlesnatch, so the fence isn't needed anymore. But the point is to find out why it was there before you tear it down, and if you can't find the reason, you should be extra careful about yanking it down. Perhaps now the fence harbors a mini ecosystem of berry bushes that has increased the potential environment for wild game. Progressives tend to be very dismissive of the Chesterton's Fence analogy, because they think change is an unalloyed good. There are a lot of social mores or codes that seem unnecessary, outdated or even bad, but they don't want to look at the reasoning behind them. Second order effects are easy to dismiss as speculation, so they usually are dismissed; but any change, radical or otherwise, will have second order effects, so careful thought must go into them.
  - mnsc 5y ago
    Why did you need to make this political? It's just a matter of minutes before someone points out that conservatives love the Chesterton's Fence analogy because most fences are built to keep _those people_ out. And then we're off to the races.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Wasn’t the point of Chesterton coming up with this metaphor political? His whole point was that conservatism was, in his view, wise.
      - jpitz 5y ago
        I thought that his point was "there's no substitute for understanding why" ?
- jimmaswell 5y ago
  > So knowing why it's there is impossible, and if you condition taking down the fence on that The condition is to make an effort, not to necessarily succeed. If you try and can't make sense of it, you have the green light to proceed with caution.
- solidsnack9000 5y ago
  Yes, it can happen that we can't figure out why the fence is there. I think we must pragmatically amend the dictate of Chesterton to be something like: make a reasonable effort to know why the fence is there. Then we would still notice the difference between two kinds of reformer: those who don't know (and don't care) why an institution is the way it is and those who are reasonably curious about what the institution was for, how it worked, and so on, even as they recognize a need for reform.
dccoolgai 5y ago
If there's one "prescriptive" thing I find useful about the allegory that applies to software, it's thinking about how to write good documentation. A lot of engineers would write something like "this fence is made of silver oak planks cut to a length of 3 feet and fastened together aluminum wire" and while that may be useful if you have to fix the fence, for the people in the allegory it would be much more helpful to have a sign that says "this fence is here to keep cows from fouling the water in the lake behind it because 5 houses nearby use it for drinking water". If either the 5 houses or the cows are no longer there, it makes the whole system much less resistant to change.
- a9h74j 5y ago
  At one time I had the thought that, in coding, one should note assumptions in a searchable and documentable way. Then, others later could audit for assumptions which no longer applied, without needing to go deep into the code.
prometheus76 5y ago
Another lesson from the story is that you might not be able to figure out the reason for the fence currently, but in springtime when the creek overflows, it might become obvious.
- dredmorbius 5y ago
  See the problems of historical warnings, markers, and legends, for example. Japanese seaside communities frequently have markers showing the height or inland range of previous tsunamis. Proscriptions against specific materials, sites, foods, or practices may be based on previous lessons for which available archival mechanisms were insufficient to detail though lore and monuments might serve as warning. Jared Diamond observes that in New Guinea, natives refuse to sleep beneath certain types of tree, despite what seems a small risk of limb-fall. The occasional recreational camper might get away with spending a few nights out of a lifetime under such a tree or camping on low ground. Small risks repeated sufficiently many times become large, and those living such a lifestyle take precautions. Similarly: many safety regulations, standards, and precautions are written in blood. Oderised gas is the scented memorial to the 300 souls of the New London School. Long-term, latent, non-manifest risks are a chief form of technical debt.

marcosdumay 5y ago

Often enough there is just no reason at all for the fence, or the reason is completely lost. So knowing why it's there is impossible, and if you condition taking down the fence on that, you are effectively prohibiting taking the fence down. That's why every time somebody argues against it. It's because at some point you have to abandon that rule, and all the interesting discussion is about when to abandon it, not on how to follow it.

kspacewalk2 5y ago
Right, which is why like the comment you're replying to said, you make a good faith effort (i.e. not just as a formality), and then dismantle that fence if reasons why are lost in the mists of time and bureaucracy.
dccoolgai 5y ago
Think about what "good-faith effort" means. This is another thing the Fence metaphor helps us understand when we think about it a little bit more.
miniatureape 5y ago
I think the point of the fence is to move the impulse from yourself (If I can't see the reason there must not be one) to the greater context (Someone had a reason for this at some point, let me see if I can try to understand). Related to Chesterton's fence is Levi's Onion: https://www.joeydevilla.com/2001/12/03/4419/ https://www.joeydevilla.com/2001/12/03/4419/ Which is sort of a Chesterton's fence situation where someone took those required steps.
- dccoolgai 5y ago
  Thank you! I collect these kind of metaphors and I didn't have Levi's Onion. I just added it to my list. I had a similar one called "chicken chopping" that I heard from an Australian once, but I like this one better.
  - mistermann 5y ago
    If you posted your collection on Pastebin I'd be forever in your debt!
    - dccoolgai 5y ago
      I had to fill some of these in, but here you go: https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW
  - dsclough 5y ago
    I have my own collection of these and would also like to see a pastebin of yours!
    - dccoolgai 5y ago
      https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW https://pastebin.com/ukGdAWbW Share yours, please!
      - dsclough 5y ago
        A bit disorganized and apparently pastebin thinks there is something so offensive in here they won't let me share it but here you go, a collection aphorisms and various other adjacent things https://controlc.com/db66d6e4 https://controlc.com/db66d6e4
        dccoolgai 5y ago
        That's amazing! Thank you so much! I've always had a little back-burner dream of making a little blog that does like one of these allegories per week.
Levitz 5y ago
It is also very easy to fall into the trap of assuming you know why it was put there, only because you found out one reason. Being aware of this, it is easy to assume that, no matter how many reasons you can think of as to why something was done, there might very well be other reasons you don't know, at that point, it seems to me, the options are either accepting the risk or never changing anything.
deltarholamda 5y ago
>Often enough there is just no reason at all for the fence The article makes the point that people do not build fences for no reason. It costs time, effort and resources, not to mention it's a lot of work and people are lazy. There's always a reason for the fence. >or the reason is completely lost. This may be true. A fence in the middle of a wood may have been put there 90 years ago because of old property demarcations, or an effort to keep the dread bearded grindlesnatch from attacking the village. The property is now owned by one person, and climate change killed the bearded grindlesnatch, so the fence isn't needed anymore. But the point is to find out why it was there before you tear it down, and if you can't find the reason, you should be extra careful about yanking it down. Perhaps now the fence harbors a mini ecosystem of berry bushes that has increased the potential environment for wild game. Progressives tend to be very dismissive of the Chesterton's Fence analogy, because they think change is an unalloyed good. There are a lot of social mores or codes that seem unnecessary, outdated or even bad, but they don't want to look at the reasoning behind them. Second order effects are easy to dismiss as speculation, so they usually are dismissed; but any change, radical or otherwise, will have second order effects, so careful thought must go into them.
- mnsc 5y ago
  Why did you need to make this political? It's just a matter of minutes before someone points out that conservatives love the Chesterton's Fence analogy because most fences are built to keep _those people_ out. And then we're off to the races.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Wasn’t the point of Chesterton coming up with this metaphor political? His whole point was that conservatism was, in his view, wise.
    - jpitz 5y ago
      I thought that his point was "there's no substitute for understanding why" ?
jimmaswell 5y ago
> So knowing why it's there is impossible, and if you condition taking down the fence on that The condition is to make an effort, not to necessarily succeed. If you try and can't make sense of it, you have the green light to proceed with caution.
solidsnack9000 5y ago
Yes, it can happen that we can't figure out why the fence is there. I think we must pragmatically amend the dictate of Chesterton to be something like: make a reasonable effort to know why the fence is there. Then we would still notice the difference between two kinds of reformer: those who don't know (and don't care) why an institution is the way it is and those who are reasonably curious about what the institution was for, how it worked, and so on, even as they recognize a need for reform.

dccoolgai 5y ago

If there's one "prescriptive" thing I find useful about the allegory that applies to software, it's thinking about how to write good documentation. A lot of engineers would write something like "this fence is made of silver oak planks cut to a length of 3 feet and fastened together aluminum wire" and while that may be useful if you have to fix the fence, for the people in the allegory it would be much more helpful to have a sign that says "this fence is here to keep cows from fouling the water in the lake behind it because 5 houses nearby use it for drinking water". If either the 5 houses or the cows are no longer there, it makes the whole system much less resistant to change.

a9h74j 5y ago
At one time I had the thought that, in coding, one should note assumptions in a searchable and documentable way. Then, others later could audit for assumptions which no longer applied, without needing to go deep into the code.

prometheus76 5y ago

Another lesson from the story is that you might not be able to figure out the reason for the fence currently, but in springtime when the creek overflows, it might become obvious.

dredmorbius 5y ago
See the problems of historical warnings, markers, and legends, for example. Japanese seaside communities frequently have markers showing the height or inland range of previous tsunamis. Proscriptions against specific materials, sites, foods, or practices may be based on previous lessons for which available archival mechanisms were insufficient to detail though lore and monuments might serve as warning. Jared Diamond observes that in New Guinea, natives refuse to sleep beneath certain types of tree, despite what seems a small risk of limb-fall. The occasional recreational camper might get away with spending a few nights out of a lifetime under such a tree or camping on low ground. Small risks repeated sufficiently many times become large, and those living such a lifestyle take precautions. Similarly: many safety regulations, standards, and precautions are written in blood. Oderised gas is the scented memorial to the 300 souls of the New London School. Long-term, latent, non-manifest risks are a chief form of technical debt.