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> A huge portion of the ‘no vehicles in the park’ questions are already answered by existing US aviation laws It's just an illustration of how a seemingly simp

by _xivi 3y ago

> A huge portion of the ‘no vehicles in the park’ questions are already answered by existing US aviation laws It's just an illustration of how a seemingly simple rule at first glance is open to be interpreted differently. Sure you can add nuances and be more specific about edge cases, but every edge case has its own edge cases, you're not solving the problem by this strategy, only digging a bigger hole and increasing overhead for yourself. The author could've used any number of rules and laws and still came up with edge cases where the audience would to fail to reach an unanimous decision. The US law is full of loopholes, adding more rules isn't a solution, it merely change the question. If you commit to that strategy, of eliminating ambiguity by adding more rules, you'd be playing catch-up forever.

dahart 3y ago
What I’m objecting to is the binary goalpost of ‘unanimous’. We don’t need unanimous in order to statistically improve the level of agreement. I disagree that covering edge cases makes the hole bigger. The number of edge cases, and the level of agreement are two different things, and it’s possible to improve agreement even if the number of edge cases goes up. > The author could’ve used any number of rules and laws and still came up with edge cases And yet, the author could have stipulated motor vehicles and a 400 ft FAA air ceiling boundary to the park, and most of the trick questions in that survey that generated disagreement would suddenly flip to everyone answering them correctly. I don’t understand what your suggested alternative is. We already continuously refine our laws to cover edge cases. That is the takeaway for the contrived ‘no vehicles’ survey. Are you saying we shouldn’t be improving laws because it’s impossible, or what?
- _xivi 3y ago
  > We already continuously refine our laws to cover edge cases. Exactly the author's point. There's no set of rules that clear every possibility. You just keep adapting, and the other side will keep involving. > the author could have stipulated motor vehicles and a 400 ft FAA air ceiling boundary to the park Then there'd been new 'trick' questions with new edge cases where people are split too. I think you might have misunderstood the expierement, did you get to the end where the author explain his intention? This set of questions aren't a challenge, just a game to illustrate a point.
  - dahart 3y ago
    > did you get to the end Yes, I did. The end is precisely the annoying part, and is making the same ‘it’s hopeless’ argument as the blog post here. The author said “Some people think there could be simple rules […] I want to problematize this.”, and “ pinning down a definition is usually impossible”, and “You might think you can add enough epicycles to your rules to avoid this problem”. He concedes that one can reduce the problem in the middle of paragraph 5 after stating over and over that the problem is insurmountable. I think some folks are misunderstanding my comment; I’m aware that moderation and laws are hard, and that edge cases are fractal whack-a-mole. I’m pushing back on the summary take-away message, on the framing. It’s a subtlety, but I think an important one. I don’t think the right message to send as the top and foremost idea is that it’s impossible, and making it any better is a complete and total slog that introduces exponential problems. I think a better message is that words can be interpreted in many ways, so care is required, and with effort it’s possible to make significant improvements. And I think the ‘no vehicles’ in the park could have easily demonstrated that just a few words would have fixed the bulk of the issue, but the author chose not to in order to serve the framing he intended.
  - Dylan16807 3y ago
    > Then there'd been new 'trick' questions with new edge cases where people are split too. Yeah, and they'd be orders of magnitude less important. Agreement across a selection of events, weighted by likelihood of actually happening, would skyrocket. The amount of effort it takes to improve agreement by a certain amount is very relevant to the point being made.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  > And yet, the author could have stipulated motor vehicles and a 400 ft FAA air ceiling boundary to the park, and most of the trick questions in that survey that generated disagreement would suddenly flip to everyone answering them correctly. Sure; but people don't read a screed of small-print legalese when walking into a park with a matchbox car in their pocket. And similarly, people don't read 20 pages of legalese terms-of-use before posting to a forum. The rules for getting on with those around us need to be as simple as the Ten Commandments. Violating rules about what's allowed in a park generally doesn't lead to litigation, so you don't need a litigation-proof legal code to express those rules. Many schools have a small set of concise rules constructed by the students, and I wish national laws were more like that.
  - dahart 3y ago
    This is a new different goalpost, right? The survey was about how clear the rule is, about whether the rule can be understood, not whether people will read or follow it. Btw I feel like I didn’t propose a screed of small-print legalese. I’m asking why the actual survey couldn’t say ‘no motor vehicles in the park, up to 400ft AGL’, and compare the results to ‘no vehicles in the park’. That statement without any legalese or fine print would have covered most of the tricky answers, and this whole survey could have been used to show how easy it is to make progress with relatively simple refinements.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      1. "In the park" shall be construed as meaning below 400ft. 2. "A vehicle" shall include: 2.1 any conveyance with two or more wheels, suitable for transporting one or more adult humans 2.2 any powered flying object, whether or not it is capable of conveying people of whatever size 3. This rule does not apply to the following vehicles: 3.1 Emergency vehicles attending an emergency 3.2 Wheelchairs, when being used by a registered disabled person I could go on ad nauseam; you simply can't cover all the cases. You have to accept that rules have to be interpreted; and once you accept that, it's clear that simpler rules are better. Ideally, The Golden Rule would be enough: treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself. But a lot of people treat that rule as the specimen example that proves that rules are made to be broken.

by _xivi 3y ago

dahart 3y ago

What I’m objecting to is the binary goalpost of ‘unanimous’. We don’t need unanimous in order to statistically improve the level of agreement. I disagree that covering edge cases makes the hole bigger. The number of edge cases, and the level of agreement are two different things, and it’s possible to improve agreement even if the number of edge cases goes up. > The author could’ve used any number of rules and laws and still came up with edge cases And yet, the author could have stipulated motor vehicles and a 400 ft FAA air ceiling boundary to the park, and most of the trick questions in that survey that generated disagreement would suddenly flip to everyone answering them correctly. I don’t understand what your suggested alternative is. We already continuously refine our laws to cover edge cases. That is the takeaway for the contrived ‘no vehicles’ survey. Are you saying we shouldn’t be improving laws because it’s impossible, or what?

_xivi 3y ago
> We already continuously refine our laws to cover edge cases. Exactly the author's point. There's no set of rules that clear every possibility. You just keep adapting, and the other side will keep involving. > the author could have stipulated motor vehicles and a 400 ft FAA air ceiling boundary to the park Then there'd been new 'trick' questions with new edge cases where people are split too. I think you might have misunderstood the expierement, did you get to the end where the author explain his intention? This set of questions aren't a challenge, just a game to illustrate a point.
- dahart 3y ago
  > did you get to the end Yes, I did. The end is precisely the annoying part, and is making the same ‘it’s hopeless’ argument as the blog post here. The author said “Some people think there could be simple rules […] I want to problematize this.”, and “ pinning down a definition is usually impossible”, and “You might think you can add enough epicycles to your rules to avoid this problem”. He concedes that one can reduce the problem in the middle of paragraph 5 after stating over and over that the problem is insurmountable. I think some folks are misunderstanding my comment; I’m aware that moderation and laws are hard, and that edge cases are fractal whack-a-mole. I’m pushing back on the summary take-away message, on the framing. It’s a subtlety, but I think an important one. I don’t think the right message to send as the top and foremost idea is that it’s impossible, and making it any better is a complete and total slog that introduces exponential problems. I think a better message is that words can be interpreted in many ways, so care is required, and with effort it’s possible to make significant improvements. And I think the ‘no vehicles’ in the park could have easily demonstrated that just a few words would have fixed the bulk of the issue, but the author chose not to in order to serve the framing he intended.
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  > Then there'd been new 'trick' questions with new edge cases where people are split too. Yeah, and they'd be orders of magnitude less important. Agreement across a selection of events, weighted by likelihood of actually happening, would skyrocket. The amount of effort it takes to improve agreement by a certain amount is very relevant to the point being made.
denton-scratch 3y ago
> And yet, the author could have stipulated motor vehicles and a 400 ft FAA air ceiling boundary to the park, and most of the trick questions in that survey that generated disagreement would suddenly flip to everyone answering them correctly. Sure; but people don't read a screed of small-print legalese when walking into a park with a matchbox car in their pocket. And similarly, people don't read 20 pages of legalese terms-of-use before posting to a forum. The rules for getting on with those around us need to be as simple as the Ten Commandments. Violating rules about what's allowed in a park generally doesn't lead to litigation, so you don't need a litigation-proof legal code to express those rules. Many schools have a small set of concise rules constructed by the students, and I wish national laws were more like that.
- dahart 3y ago
  This is a new different goalpost, right? The survey was about how clear the rule is, about whether the rule can be understood, not whether people will read or follow it. Btw I feel like I didn’t propose a screed of small-print legalese. I’m asking why the actual survey couldn’t say ‘no motor vehicles in the park, up to 400ft AGL’, and compare the results to ‘no vehicles in the park’. That statement without any legalese or fine print would have covered most of the tricky answers, and this whole survey could have been used to show how easy it is to make progress with relatively simple refinements.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    1. "In the park" shall be construed as meaning below 400ft. 2. "A vehicle" shall include: 2.1 any conveyance with two or more wheels, suitable for transporting one or more adult humans 2.2 any powered flying object, whether or not it is capable of conveying people of whatever size 3. This rule does not apply to the following vehicles: 3.1 Emergency vehicles attending an emergency 3.2 Wheelchairs, when being used by a registered disabled person I could go on ad nauseam; you simply can't cover all the cases. You have to accept that rules have to be interpreted; and once you accept that, it's clear that simpler rules are better. Ideally, The Golden Rule would be enough: treat others as you would expect to be treated yourself. But a lot of people treat that rule as the specimen example that proves that rules are made to be broken.