4 ms·

Chesterton's fence. I admit that when I was younger I was much more eager to just tear it all down and start anew...but with experience I have come to see thin

Chesterton's fence. I admit that when I was younger I was much more eager to just tear it all down and start anew...but with experience I have come to see things are never quite so easy. Things are the way they are for a reason, and it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things.

api 4y ago
> it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things. People misinterpret Chesterton's fence as an argument against changing things, but it's actually just about what I quoted above. It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. It just argues that you should make a strong effort to figure out why it is how it is before attempting to do so. I'd argue that if you don't at least do the exercise your attempts to change things will probably fail, since whatever you try to do will likely fail to capture something necessary in the old system. Keep in mind though that it doesn't always work. Sometimes the reason for the fence is forgotten. Sometimes the reason is deeply perverse and there never was a good reason. Sometimes the reason is obsolete.
- Spellman 4y ago
  Yup. I've often seen Chesterson's Fence trotted out as an argument to never change anything. Or at least place onerous burden of proof on the new change to prove itself. However, some times the circumstances that gave rise to the fence are gone! You still need to do the work to show that this is true, or at least some best effort. But if after a cursory check there is no compelling reason, retorting "ah but there may still be some use, go search the wisdom of the ancients further" is a terrible response. That is how you calcify debt and become unable to adapt to changing circumstances. There is a balance between preserving out of an abundance of caution and tearing it all down because it was inconvenient or "new is better." We already have plenty of innate status quo bias. We don't need to heap more on top without good reason.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - philwelch 4y ago
    I think plenty of people err on either side of this question. It's an eternal controversy, and as you say, there is a balance. That having been said, I also think you're underestimating the degree to which it's easy to verify the value of legacy practices. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret... Search for the phrase "And then there’s manioc. This is a tuber native to the Americas." Read the extended block quote afterwards and the first few paragraphs after the block quote. If anything, Chesterton's Fence is insufficient--if a certain practice works, it sometimes works for reasons that even the practitioners can't explain. Furthermore, I can point to numerous examples of catastrophic failure directly caused by insufficient status quo bias, like tearing apart cities because it's the 20th century and we need to build freeways straight through the middle of them, or communism. So it's a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be.
    - tshaddox 4y ago
      All those anecdotes are cute, but has there been any attempt at systematically determining whether the net result of all instances of a particular culture’s practices which are justified by “do it this way because it has always been done this way”? This seems difficult to analyze, but it’s critical to the validity of any argument that invokes these cute anecdotes. Isn’t it plausible that generations of repressing people’s curiosity in experimenting with food preparation had a net negative effect?
      - philwelch 4y ago
        Interesting point. I think you could characterize "being conquered by the Portuguese in the first place" as a negative outcome, so there's a plausible argument that the Portuguese were more willing to embrace innovation, which is how they gained the ability to conquer the Tukanoans in the first place. On the other hand, if you dig into the history of colonization, indigenous cultures had a massive home field advantage, and it was common for Western colonies to utterly fail, either starving to death in the same lands that indigenous people were able to survive in or in some cases, completely defecting from their original culture and joining indigenous populations.
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  > It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. Hard disagree. The difficulty of discovering the reasons for Chesterton's Fence and the impossibility of ever being certain that you have discovered them all means that it actually is a general prescription for caution / against change. Of course, as always, it comes down to a judgement call. Do you understand the reasons for Chesterton's Fence well enough? Unfortunately, that's exactly the same situation one was in before the Chesterton's Fence metaphor was brought up, so either the metaphor is completely useless (by way of being disclaimed into oblivion) or it is a general prescription for caution / against change.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - philwelch 4y ago
    I think the way you're conflating "for caution" and "against change" is a bit of sleight of hand though. I would definitely agree that it's a prescription for caution, but not necessarily against change.
    - fsckboy 4y ago
      the bias you detect is actually the bias of the changers; from experience we learn that the people who agitate for change are overwhelmingly likely to not look into the reasons things are the way they are.
  - antihero 4y ago
    It isn’t against change, it’s about making the correct change and correct amount of change to achieve the desired result, which can often be no change. It’s against wanton and unwise change. Considering nuance in qualification “disclaimed into oblivion” is needlessly derisive.
tshaddox 4y ago
The problem with a naive interpretation of Chesterton's fence is that it encourages stasis in cases where we don't have the knowledge or resources necessary to "fully" understand the reasons (or whether any even exist) for the current state of affairs. And in fact, there's no way to guarantee that we "fully" understand all reasons for the current state of affairs. Thus Chesterton's fence essentially deteriorates into the precautionary principle, which is bad epistemology. This quote from Wikipedia's section on criticism of the precautionary principle applies just as well to Chesterton's fence: "of the two available interpretations of the principle, neither are plausible: weak formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is permissible) are trivial, while strong formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is required) are incoherent." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#The_precautionary_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#The_pr...

api 4y ago

> it is important to know what those reasons are before attempting to modify the things. People misinterpret Chesterton's fence as an argument against changing things, but it's actually just about what I quoted above. It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. It just argues that you should make a strong effort to figure out why it is how it is before attempting to do so. I'd argue that if you don't at least do the exercise your attempts to change things will probably fail, since whatever you try to do will likely fail to capture something necessary in the old system. Keep in mind though that it doesn't always work. Sometimes the reason for the fence is forgotten. Sometimes the reason is deeply perverse and there never was a good reason. Sometimes the reason is obsolete.

Spellman 4y ago
Yup. I've often seen Chesterson's Fence trotted out as an argument to never change anything. Or at least place onerous burden of proof on the new change to prove itself. However, some times the circumstances that gave rise to the fence are gone! You still need to do the work to show that this is true, or at least some best effort. But if after a cursory check there is no compelling reason, retorting "ah but there may still be some use, go search the wisdom of the ancients further" is a terrible response. That is how you calcify debt and become unable to adapt to changing circumstances. There is a balance between preserving out of an abundance of caution and tearing it all down because it was inconvenient or "new is better." We already have plenty of innate status quo bias. We don't need to heap more on top without good reason.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- philwelch 4y ago
  I think plenty of people err on either side of this question. It's an eternal controversy, and as you say, there is a balance. That having been said, I also think you're underestimating the degree to which it's easy to verify the value of legacy practices. https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret-of-our-success/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/06/04/book-review-the-secret... Search for the phrase "And then there’s manioc. This is a tuber native to the Americas." Read the extended block quote afterwards and the first few paragraphs after the block quote. If anything, Chesterton's Fence is insufficient--if a certain practice works, it sometimes works for reasons that even the practitioners can't explain. Furthermore, I can point to numerous examples of catastrophic failure directly caused by insufficient status quo bias, like tearing apart cities because it's the 20th century and we need to build freeways straight through the middle of them, or communism. So it's a lot more complicated than you're making it out to be.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    All those anecdotes are cute, but has there been any attempt at systematically determining whether the net result of all instances of a particular culture’s practices which are justified by “do it this way because it has always been done this way”? This seems difficult to analyze, but it’s critical to the validity of any argument that invokes these cute anecdotes. Isn’t it plausible that generations of repressing people’s curiosity in experimenting with food preparation had a net negative effect?
    - philwelch 4y ago
      Interesting point. I think you could characterize "being conquered by the Portuguese in the first place" as a negative outcome, so there's a plausible argument that the Portuguese were more willing to embrace innovation, which is how they gained the ability to conquer the Tukanoans in the first place. On the other hand, if you dig into the history of colonization, indigenous cultures had a massive home field advantage, and it was common for Western colonies to utterly fail, either starving to death in the same lands that indigenous people were able to survive in or in some cases, completely defecting from their original culture and joining indigenous populations.
jjoonathan 4y ago
> It has no verdict on whether or not something should be changed. Hard disagree. The difficulty of discovering the reasons for Chesterton's Fence and the impossibility of ever being certain that you have discovered them all means that it actually is a general prescription for caution / against change. Of course, as always, it comes down to a judgement call. Do you understand the reasons for Chesterton's Fence well enough? Unfortunately, that's exactly the same situation one was in before the Chesterton's Fence metaphor was brought up, so either the metaphor is completely useless (by way of being disclaimed into oblivion) or it is a general prescription for caution / against change.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- philwelch 4y ago
  I think the way you're conflating "for caution" and "against change" is a bit of sleight of hand though. I would definitely agree that it's a prescription for caution, but not necessarily against change.
  - fsckboy 4y ago
    the bias you detect is actually the bias of the changers; from experience we learn that the people who agitate for change are overwhelmingly likely to not look into the reasons things are the way they are.
- antihero 4y ago
  It isn’t against change, it’s about making the correct change and correct amount of change to achieve the desired result, which can often be no change. It’s against wanton and unwise change. Considering nuance in qualification “disclaimed into oblivion” is needlessly derisive.

tshaddox 4y ago

The problem with a naive interpretation of Chesterton's fence is that it encourages stasis in cases where we don't have the knowledge or resources necessary to "fully" understand the reasons (or whether any even exist) for the current state of affairs. And in fact, there's no way to guarantee that we "fully" understand all reasons for the current state of affairs. Thus Chesterton's fence essentially deteriorates into the precautionary principle, which is bad epistemology. This quote from Wikipedia's section on criticism of the precautionary principle applies just as well to Chesterton's fence: "of the two available interpretations of the principle, neither are plausible: weak formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is permissible) are trivial, while strong formulations (which hold that precaution in the face of uncertain harms is required) are incoherent." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#The_precautionary_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle#The_pr...