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Advocates of Chesterton’s Fence tend to miss that they’re applying selective pressure to favor systems that fail to document (or outright obscure) their purpose
by tshaddox 4mo ago
Advocates of Chesterton’s Fence tend to miss that they’re applying selective pressure to favor systems that fail to document (or outright obscure) their purpose.
Of course, the much more obvious flaw of Chesterton’s Fence is that it trivially reduces to status quo bias.
- jmcqk6 4mo agoI don't think you've understood the lesson here. Chesterton's fence is not about keeping systems in place. It is about how you approach changing the system.
- tshaddox 4mo agoI understand it. Just like the precautionary principle, it’s bad epistemology and bad advice. It doesn’t provide any guidance on how much research is necessary before removing any specific fence. The most charitable interpretation is “don’t remove a fence until you do a sufficient amount of research into why the fence was built,” which is tautological and useless.
- jmcqk6 4mo agoWhy does it need to provide guidance about that? It's one step along the way of cultivating wisdom, not the destination.