Chesterton Fence: Don’t Destroy What You Don’t Understand!
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- Опубліковано 19 тра 2024
- Chesterton’s Fence is a simple rule of thumb that suggests you should never destroy a fence, change a rule, or alter a tradition if you do not understand why it was created in the first place. China’s Four Pests Campaign during the Great Leap Forward shows the tragic consequences of meddling with things we do not fully understand.
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Read about the Chesterton’s Fence and second order thinking
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On the longevity of ideas, see The Lindy Effect
matt-rickard.com/observations...
On unintended consequences read about the Butterfly Effect and Chaos Theory
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Read about outdated or weird laws in the US, the UK and around the world
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CHAPTER
00:00 Introduction
00:17 Chesterton's principle
00:48 Chesterton Fence in business
01:30 Tragic example from China
02:42 Conclusion
03:35 What do you think?
03:59 Patrons credits
04:08 Ending
#sproutsschools #principles #chesterton #learning #laws #rules #sociology #psychology #history #tradition
"Chesterton's Fence" is from an essay by G. K. Chesterton, not F. K. Chesterton, as we stated in the video. Please excuse the typo.
That's what I thought! 😃 Never heard of F. K. Chesterton.
"G" and "F" on the keyboard are side by side.
Simple mistake.
I think this is more applicable than usual in America. We have people randomly destroying Chesterton fences in law enforcement and schools in large urban cities and states all over America. We are also seeing the man made disasters that we are creating on a daily basis. On the left coast where I live it is really bad. People are going to be suffering for decades from the policies of our ignorant/criminal politicians today.
You will only be excused if you pay me!!
@@blaisemarak lol
Chesterton's fence is not about never destroying the rules but a call to understand the intent and purpose behind the rule so that you can make intelligent changes. Understanding the rule leads to the follow up questions of "Is it working as intended?", "If it needs replaced, what can I replace it with?", "Does it simply need abolished?", and "How do I make this work better?"
Although I admire Chesterton, what I see in his writings is generally a defence of the traditional against such champions of the modern and new as George Bernard Shaw. I don't find any really clear examples of fence demolition or even suggestions that the fence isn't working. He is quite clear that the fences that other people build aren't so good - his prediction of the problems of prohibition was spot on, but he didn't really address the real social problems that had made prohibition a possibility or necessity in the USA. Britain had had its own period of cheap spirits - "Gin Street" and Chesterton's image of a jolly pub full of innocent drinkers is somewhat idealistic. He assumes that drunkenness is like greed or gluttony and does not really address alcoholism. Also, America was not like the UK and the friendly (and ancient) local pub or tavern did not exist in the same way. This is not to say that I don't see the usefulness of his ideas in, say, business or a traditional institution - I just think that there are situations where it needs to be applied cautiously. When someone defends something that benefits themselves but which harms others, then we have to be careful. Conservatives have opposed many forms of social progress on the grounds that the old way is better and doesn't need changing.
@@charleshayes2528 in the simplist terms Chesterton is right that you shouldn't change or remove rules without a fair analysis. However, the reverse of that goes as well. We should not hold so vehemently to rules without giving them fair analysis and figuring out if it actually works, needs modified, needs replaced, or needs elimination. However well intentioned a rule is doesn't always mean that it's wise or effective. What complicates the analysis is when we allow politics and religion to overshadow and twist the analysis. In some ways they both help us, but if we're not careful they can hurt us as well.
@@ianbelletti6241 Apparently, he agrees: "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." G. K. Chesterton
While judging a position by a single quote is imprudent, his take here seems to suggest careful, deliberative change, rather than a hard defense or attack on tradition. His other takes also seem relatively soft. He disliked both Capitalism and Socialism (promoting "Distributism") and opposed war (which is better than most political people today).
If all humans are flawed, which is to say none are perfect. Would that not conclude that the entirety of fences created by said flawed people would inevitably be flawed themselves? Which would dictate that all fences require mending. This is to say that the fences themselves are not the issue, but rather the people who’re building them. So the question becomes what when concerning humans do we do: destroy, leave the same, or fix?
@@jeffhawkins5182 If you work in absolutes you will accomplish absolutely nothing.
Even Newtons equations explaining gravity is not perfect but good enough to send a probe true the solar system and use gravitational slingshot (gravity assist) to gain speed. The condense moral of the story is think before you act. Its not that deep as you think.
My friend used to work for a company and his office timings was 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM, also they gave a relaxation of 20 minutes if at all they come late due to traffic. most of the employees arrived before 9:10 and few of them before 9:20. But all of them used to work until 7:00 PM plus and sometimes for few extended hours.
The new HR policy thought to make the timing to be exact 9:00 AM and a circular was issued and as usual few employees requested HR to review the policy, but they just indirectly told they they are paying for your job from 9:00 AM so you all should be here by 9:00 AM or it will be absent this is the company policy.
And i think the readers have already guessed the outcome, yes the employees followed the rule strictly, they all came before 9:00 AM and left exactly at 6:00 PM.
obviously the project progress has declined, and when management asked employees why they are not completing the work before deadlines, they simply responded by saying we are paid to work till 6:00 PM only.
the management realised the mistake and reversed the policy.
But most of the employees strictly adhered to 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM and never stayed back.
Great example
I understand now. I had to go to an insurance firm to collect the renewal certificate for the car. (It was paid for online). I'm sitting in the waiting chairs, the staff is sitting right there in my line of sight, but I wasn't to go up to them to do any transaction until the hour they started work. All she had to do was get it wherever it was waiting and for me to sign as received but no. I mean, if the door was closed and I was outside the effect would have been different - but I was inside the office already. lol.
Been there on many jobs. Management shoots themselves in the foot many time with this kind of attitude.
I worked for a place, and when I was hired, the HR manager who was signing the contract with me. . . NOT the first one who had already told me "You are hired, come in tomorrow and sign this contract", kept adding "duties" to those which were on the contract in my hands that I had already read. But not signed yet. He was adding things he thought of as "his domain" things like what is considered late, and where I was allowed to park, and what consisted "proper warning" of being absent for some reason. None of which was in the contract even implicitly.
When he had added a third, I said "Just a moment please" and I turned it over to a blank page, and started writing them down. He stared hard at me, and said "OK then" and I smiled and said "It IS ok, I am an extremely diligent, thoughtful person, and want a record of what is expected of me. And I notice there is only one copy of this, where is YOUR copy, we need to annotate that too, right, or it isn't a legal document".
He folded his arms, looked sour, and asked me "Are we going to have a problem?" and I smiled and waved the contract, and said "Never, Peter, because we will be holding one another to this".
To his surprise, even though he told the actual manager AND the owner "This guy is a smartarse and a problem" I got hired, because they had picked me EXACTLY because I am a smartarse and a problem SOLVER. They came to ME, I didn't come to them.
Thank GOODNESS I don't have to put up with people like that any more.
Entirely predictable too.
Entitlement and privilege: People often don't realize they have a privilege until it is taken away. If they are used to that privilege being there, then they often feel entitled to it and therefore wronged by it's removal.
They company had a win-win situation going with it's freedom-appreciation cycle. Then they got greedy/power hungry and insisted on exerting control. Even if they had every right to choose to do that, the people reacted to that loss of freedom they were enjoying.
Is the solution to then be super freeing and super giving to the extreme? No, that leads to entitled workers who become progressively more selfish and entitled.
The answer is everything in moderation, reward the behavior you want, and be appropriately generous as a normal character attribute/company value. It in turn fosters thankful and joyful workers who are proud to support such a company and therefore work much harder and with more creativity than they would otherwise.
And of course, clear out toxic people who poison work attitudes at any level of the company.
As an engineer working on a program that has been around for a long time, we have a saying: “No until you know.”
Or in the system admin dept, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". This sounds obtuse, but it is usually shorthand for "you don't know the hidden dependencies and edge cases, so don't try to improve it unless your solution also takes care of those."
Unfortunately, the CEO has the final say in those matters.
@@greg77389 The CEO actually doesn’t have say in this case. Our customer can tell them no, and the CEO just has to deal with it. Also, the CEO would never get involved at that level.
One thing I can tell you is no one want to spend time rewriting new codebase cuz another framework is better or new as it adds new bug fix time and comes with its own limitations, that's why it's often choice made by the team or the team manager/lead.
Framework is just example, it could be any new language or better one , it always come down to people available for that task, time spent, stability of the product, maintenance.
@@mbk0mbk So many things to consider. And people wonder why it takes so long to do anything these days.
I think the key is for people to "question" things with genuine curiosity and never accept "because this is how we've always done it" as an answer. This lets us revisit the reasons for why things are the way they are, and examine if those reasons are still relevant. And maybe they are, but at least then we're actively choosing to keep things as they are, and not just forgetting to change them.
Like number 70. Balance restored.
Sadly, very few people want those questions being asked.
So, each generation is being raised a bit less curious
@@johndoef5962I honestly dont think that's true. The new generation is just as curious as the old generation it's just hard to keep that curiosity with how school is and with the state of the world in general. For example with school it's great or you sink and can lose the drive to search for new awnsers.
In general I think theirs always been those who refuse to ask the important questions and instead turn to it's magic or a god did it and those who try and find awnsers. Even maybe as far back as the BCE. We wouldn't have fire without curiosity and we wouldn't have scientists. Channels on youtube that go into awnsering questions wouldn't thrive either. Since only the older generation would be curios enough to find out.
@@johndoef5962 absolutly not true. There is greater chance that it's just you stumbling upon less curious young people. I am young and am curious of many things, just not all. I don't really care about book writers from 200+ years ago, but if I get my hands on something about small scale biology, chemistry, phisics or math I will devour this knowlage like a hungry dog. We just need to accept that different people are interested in different things, and are capable of making use of different things
Unfortunately, I think this is the opposite of the moral of the Chesterton's fence exercise. There is value in questioning the status quo, but the point is that the status quo came to be for a reason. If you don't know that reason -- even if you slave over the question and can't come to a good reason for it to exist -- there's still great risk in upsetting it.
Part of the reason is that we're humans. For a lot of us, the status quo is good simply because we need some stability in our lives. We see this a lot in tech. They change things to "innovate" when all we want is to play a stupid podcast. Having said that, this is where your approach can work -- and in fact, often does when done slowly and with care.
But more fundamentally, some status quos exist as an unbroken change of human culture dating back to before written history. The way we interact, deal with stress and other stimulus, and experience emotion isn't really explainable. We really can't affirmatively defend a lot of that stuff, even if we *want* to change it. Curious innovators are constantly trying to break and remake those elements of society, but the Chesterton's fence exercise tells us that those mechanisms, warts and all, are conjoined with important things that we do want to keep. You can't tear down the fence, in other words, without the sheep getting eaten by foxes. Even if you consider the fence unjustifiable.
"Tradition is the solution to problems we forgot we had."
"Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead." - G.K. Chesterton
Tradition is often just peer pressure from your ancestors
@@1lovesoni
That's one way to think of it. But truth be told, they have a lot more collective lived experience than you and your peers.
@@1lovesoni Which was designed to to solve problems you no longer understand or appreciate. Dispense with their peer pressure at your peril.
Tradition is comfortable, and feels safe. Ignoring or rebelling against it, can put one into a dangerous spot. However if one releys too much on Tradition, they will fail to grow and expand. Tradition is like your home, while in it you are safe and comfortable, but if you stay too much in it you become a prisoner.
This was a timely video. Violation of the “fence” bankrupted the last company I worked for. CFOs, freshly minted MBAs, social policy reformers, and especially lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors taking over new accounts.
What’s sad is when they have the architect of the fence in front of them but instead of engaging with the architect, they disparage the architect in cathartic, willful ignorance and air of self-righteousness.
Elon Musk
@@tillburr6799please explain
@@chucksolutions4579 elon musk bought twitter and destroyed every fence he could.
@@chucksolutions4579 He can't. He got hooked with the vending machine example at the beginning. No one, not even the video's author, will recognize that twitter was acting as a communist state with its employees, and going bankrupt while still having a tremendous influence in everyday life. And that Musk took it to the break-even point faster than any of those activists could wipe their asses.
@@chucksolutions4579he took over Twitter, and just started to change things left and right, without considering the effects it might have.
Also, Reddit and their new policy of increasing the API access costs.
Tradition is your shield and progression is your sword. Learn to wield both or fall with nothing.
Oooh gonna have to remember that one. Very succinct way to put it.
Progress is a double edge, it can cut with the back. Progress for the sake of progress is dangerous.
Tradition is worthless. What you should be using as a shield is established facts. Tradition is just handing down a certain way of life, not the reasons for why it is the way it is. If something has worked because of factual evidence then yes, continuing to use it as a basis for progress is fine. But tradition most of the time is just bluster and irrationality attached to somewhat useful concepts.
@@yoursonisold8743 Frog pot.
@@yoursonisold8743 Tradition is good, you're suffering from the side-effects of multiculturalism. Traditions create trust between people, which helps improve the community and society. Stop listening to Marxists, because tearing down, for the sake of tearing down, isn't actually productive. Traditions, even the more pointless and arbitrary ones, are how to keep a healthy community.
As pointless as things like Valentine's Day are, as it's mostly a consumerist tradition at this point, it wouldn't be a good thing to get rid of. A day dedicated to love, right before spring starts, is a good thing. It helps get you away from your winter routine, even if it's a day of wasting money on stupid cards/chocolate/flowers/supper, with a bit of genuine caring for your loved one. Same with why it's stupid how people are trying to subvert Thanksgiving, by talking about slaves. They completely miss the point of what the day is supposed to be, because their a bunch of urban edgelords, with no connection to their food production anymore. They don't see the months of effort put into producing food, so they have no context for the day, beyond the moments of history class that they only half remember(and likely weren't even taught the full story).
A similar rule I've heard is: "Good advice comes with an explanation, so you can tell when it becomes bad advice." That would be analogous to a sign on the fence explaining its purpose, so people wouldn't have to guess/think/research why it was up.
Programmers leaving comments...
I think a lot of good ideas get passed down with nonsense "reasons" -- particularly in cooking and in childrearing. In the latter, we have various "do X" / "don't do Y" bits that get treated like gospel, to the point where parents who choose a different method get judged by people who got raised on the advice that didn't come with appropriate when/where/why.
In the former, we get things like "salt the pasta water" passed down without the actual reason (it changes the physical composition of the pasta in a way that makes it tastier) but rather with either a minor reason or one that doesn't even make sense to begin with ("the salt gets inside the pasta" makes *no* sense to me -- how is that any different from taking a bite of pasta and sauce with the salt on the outside of the pasta? it all gets chewed up in your mouth anyway!). That's why channel like Minute Foods, or Epicurious's Four Levels of, are so crucial: they go into the science and help people understand the reason for this or that technique.
@@nicreven Out of curiosity, what gave it away? Was it because I took the quote from Raymond Chen?
@@TyphinHoofbun No idea who that is but your comment just SCREAMS "gotta comment my shit". I feel the urge to leave comments when I'm not even coding (like when playing factorio or when organizing things in my projects or something like that)
The fact that you're ACTUALLY a programmer makes this entire interaction all the better lmao
This is so true. I was a mainframe programmer for 40 years and I always presumed that code was there for a reason unless I discovered otherwise. At my second job there was a program that called a subroutine (of another language) to handle an array. It puzzled me, but I left it alone. Eventually it dawned on me that the original programmer didn't know how to handle arrays in the main language, so he used the language he was familiar with. I rewrote that piece and got rid of the subprogram.
On a different note, my older house has an upstairs porch over the driveway that I tore down because it was rotting. I dawdled about replacing it. Part of the reason was cost, but I was also nervous because only two 4x4s braced it. Over time (years) it dawned on me that the porch had been too big. The previous owners must have made it larger (I found the old railing in the garage). It needed to be smaller, just for shaking rugs and such. When my contractor rebuilt it, he put vertical boards against the house so that the angle 4x4s would lock into it. That resolved my other concern.
These stories are different but share a theme: given time and thought, I figured out exactly what the situation was and how it got that way. So when I took action, I was confident that I was doing the right thing.
SIde note: I read a story long ago where a woman was cooking a ham and cut the ends off first. Why? Because her mother did. They traced it back to the grandmother, who said, "Because it wouldn't fit in the pan." So sometimes the original reason no longer exists, but the tradition continues.
Thank you for posting this comment!
People often want the world to be simple. They want it to make sense. They want "common sense" to align with reality so it's easier and less cognitively draining to navigate.
The world's a messy place, though. It's confusing, and jumbled. There are factors at play that we often aren't aware of.
So yes, it does make sense to consider WHY a decision was made, a policy was implemented, or a procedure was put in place, before you go changing or removing it. This is rational, logical, and responsible.
However, The Chesterton's Fence analogy is often an argument used as a pretense for inaction when change is necessary.
Old, outdated policies and procedures, resource, and modes of thinking are left in place because attempts to reform them are met with the resting inertia of those invested in keeping those boundaries in place - whether it's because they benefit from the status quo, or because they don't acknowledge the problems that precipitate reform.
A prime example being the hesitancy of the White moderates during the Civil Rights era to embrace social change with regards to minority rights in America. They cautioned for more gradual change, fearing that upending societal norms would cause chaos.
It's easy for someone to caution for slow and gradual shifts when the status quo isn't hostile to their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. It's frighteningly easy to support unjust laws and social norms when they don't affect someone personally.
And here's the inherent problem with the analogy of the Chesterton Fence - at least when it's evoked in ideological debates (rather than discussions of practical action): the assumption from the start is that the person knocking down the fence is oblivious to the fence's function.
This amounts to an appeal to ignorance: a fallacious argument that says "well, we don't KNOW why that fence is there, but it MUST have a good reason to be there, so we need to leave it in place for the time being until we fully understand it's purpose".
Again, that isn't to say there's no wisdom in approaching things analytically: far from it, that's exactly how it should be approached. Reform should be based on observation and consideration. No one really profits from reforms made for their own sake: as has been discussed all around these comments, that sort of "proof of purpose" reform is rife in corporate culture: people coming into a new position and shaking things up to "make their mark" or "justify" their role.
However, "Let's keep the fence here just in case there's a good reason" is making the assumption that the reason for the fence being there is "good" or "beneficial" or "rational" to begin with.
It's the same fundamental error that plagues a lot of similar social and economic ideology: the core assumption that people make decisions that fit the ideology based on rational deliberation, while those who make decisions counter to the ideology do so irrationally (and therefore, recklessly).
So really, you can just as easily say "Before accepting that there must be a GOOD reason for a tradition, examine it and try to figure out what the original intention was, and consider what progress it might be impeding."
Essentially, it's the same advice used to stop the reformer from bulldozing the tradition. It's just that, as with any appeal to ignorance, it starts from the assumption that the one making the argument is correct (i.e., "there must be a GOOD reason for this fence, because no one would put a fence up without a reason, and if it's not a GOOD reason, no one would do it in the first place").
That's the irony. If the conservative and progressive mindsets collaborate to determine why the fence is where it is, we could make a great deal of progress that's built on a solid foundation of tried and true policy and social tradition.
But the argument here isn't really about the fence. It's about who and what the fence benefits, and who and what it's there to impede. And that's the discussion that people hiding behind this analogy often want to avoid.
Those who are resistant to change are happier with inaction. So as long as the discussion about the purpose and impact of the fence's placement never really gets resolved, they can count that as a win.
Which is just as troublesome as bulldozing reformers. In one case, problems happen because the solution in place to solve them is removed. In the other case, problems persist because effective reform is stymied by perpetual uncertainty.
I'm a programmer as well, and my experience is that yes, many times surprising code is there for a reason. However, sometimes it really is a mistake, and sometimes trying to get to the bottom of a rabbit hole would sink far too much time, and there is no guarantee of success. However, leaving old code in place simply because nobody understands its purpose anymore is also a bad strategy - this way, your project will accumulate hard-to-understand code since nobody dares to change it. Also, people will start working around the parts they do not dare to change, adding further to the complexity.
So yes, it's definitely a good idea to think hard about why someone put the fence in the way. However, when you still can't find a good explanation and your best judgement says that the fence is probably really a bad idea, sometimes you need to tear it down even without fully understanding why it was put up. You'll have to consider whether the cost of having to go around it every day outweighs the risk of unintended consequences.
As a fellow developer, had a very similar array problem where it has been wriiten in a c++ call to a pure assembly subroutine. Some "experts" tried to quickly replace it, and the new routine was slower but within acceptable limits. After a few days of go live, a slow memory leak developed, and took down a critical server, reboot fixed it of course, but there was downtime, and weeks of isolating the problem, eventually the original routine was "put back" until it was replaced properly, with proper time to test the new solution. So elapsed time to replace it properly was 5 or 6 times longer than just doing it properly in the first place.
Some of the best blueprints I saw as a toolmaker had a box for the REASONS revisions were made. When the blueprints were updated electronically, the "genius" doing it deleted the comments as superfluous. Then any change seemed to repeat past mistakes, with bad tools and scrap parts to show for it.
Pig, get in the pan!
This is a good lesson, I always found that just telling people to blindly follow the rules may lead to them disregarding them when inconvenient, but if you explain the reason they exist they might be more inclined to follow them, or at least be better able to choose when they don't apply in a given situation, or when a better solution that performs the same goal exists.
In the coal mines if a mechanic was called out for a breakdown during the night, he was awarded a free breakfast and a cup of tea. The accountants put a stop to this so the guys felt devalued and refused to turn out for breakdowns. We then lost millions of pounds in lost production because the machinery was standing idle. Pennies saved and millions of pounds lost.🤷🏻♂️
I worked in Construction for many years growing up before getting into software development Chesterton Fence is perfectly displayed in the real world in both professions. You will have coders or tradesmen come across someone else's "custom" work and have no clue why it's there. Rather than take the time to investigate, they start tearing things out and "improving" things only to create new problems in hindsight. You can argue that "it should have been done "right" the first time", but some solutions are unique not just to a situation, but a specific function that creates positive effects. Example: You come across some "Old code" and remove it for something new. Well the code might be newer and better but now all the older systems that used your code are incompatible or creating errors. Now you either have to patch or revert. I know some people will say "why do that want that old stuff?" There are many reasons. Simplicity. Reliability. End User Preference. This is especially true when dealing with older clients.
I worked many years in feminist/leftist clinical counselling in many facilities and specialist areas such as schools, prisons, community health and welfare, aged care, youth, men's issues, drug and alcohol,........ and everywhere that I have worked my feminist/leftist colleagues want to wreck every western tradition and institution, and even our language, just so that they can "make a difference" and supposedly equalise society and destroy the (white male) "patriarchy". The social problems that my colleagues create and receive government funding to address and then further exacerbate and create more problems has to be seen to be believed. Every crazy social thing that is going on -- declining language skills, puberty blockers for children, castrations and mastectomies of youths, "safer" use of "recreational" drugs, marriage being devalued, gender roles being attacked, shame being generated about white male ancestors, hatred being generated against masculinity, against western culture, against God and Christianity (although all other religions are good), all sorts of lies and troublesome ideas being perpetuated -- the psychology/counselling field is wrecking every traditional social good, and replacing it with social problems. Personally, I am glad to be retired but remain sad for the social problems that so many in psychology and counselling are creating or contributing to.
I remember seeing a meme about this and Sis (who did programming early in her adult life as a job) had to explain the concept about it to me.
Let's assume it's a farmer and he built the fence to divide portions of his property and it's dividing regions with different soil compositions to help him optimize his crop locations. That would not be a progressive reason for the fence. Neither would using the fence to divide grazing land from crop fields. Conservatives do not refuse progress but tend to want to take the slower approach of analysis before change. Progressives tend to push change for the sake of change because the old ways are obviously wrong. When both sides agree that a change is necessary, it's conservatives saying that we don't necessarily have to throw the old rule out because there's a chance that all it might need is a small tweak.
@@ianbelletti6241 I'd go further and point out that "conservative" and "progressive" labels have political "Right" & "Left" connotations in the modern world for a reason. The "Progressives" are prone to two fallacies which compound the error of tearing down the 'fence'.
1) Progressives insist that the reason such efforts have caused widespread death & failure in the past was because of the methodology itself, rather than the behavior. Often their opponents mock this as "this time the right people will be in charge". Another one is, "Socialism has only killed 100 Million in the 20th Century; let's give it another chance!"
2) Progressives insist on increasing the authority of those tearing down the 'fence'. In political terms, this is decreasing the freedom of the individual to increase the power of the State. While this is nominally in order to overcome poor decisions made by those who like 'fences' because they're reactionary tradition-bound fools, it's actually a great way to prevent cooler & wiser heads from prevailing.
@@fyrchmyrddin1937 conservatives do call for removal of some of the fences but understand that we cannot get rid of all the fences because fences help keep an orderly society.
This is a great principle, for sure. It's important to remember that this principle isn't teaching that "old fences" should never be torn down, but rather that truly understanding the original reasons for them, and there were reasons, will help to avoid the unintended consequences of removing them. Sometimes, the original reasons, valid as they may have been, are no longer valid, but we would do well to make sure!
I agree, except with assuming there was always a reason. You should definitely assume there was a reason until you can prove otherwise, but sometimes things are done purely out of stupidity, carelessness, or lack of understanding.
@@Programmable_Rookstupidity or lack of understanding is also a reason, just because is a bad reason doesn't mean it isn't a reason and if you don't try to understand it you will never know if the reason was valid or not, if anyone follows your mindset they will always asume nothing has reason and will live in ignorance because as you said nothing has a reason until proven othewise
@@plfaproductions Yes, stupidity or lack of understanding does count as a reason. I actually said the exact opposite of “Everything is done without reason until proven otherwise.” I said everything should be assumed to have valid reason until proven otherwise.
@@Programmable_Rook isn't that the same thing ? If you already know or assume to know that the reason is valid or not, you will not look to understand it and will act on ignorance, isn't mutch more simple to start with the assumption you don't know the reason and needs to learn about the subject to make any judgment on the validity of the reason Instead of make a conclusion based on knologe you don't have? By assuming that the reason isn't valid until proven otherwise, you are being ignorant and will either not search or you will search with bias
@@plfaproductions We should be searching with bias. At the very least, we should be biased in assuming that there is a valid reason as to why something was done. If we don’t make the assumption that there is a reason, then we must assume that there isn’t reason. And, like you said in your first reply, this assumption means no research will be done. The only time we should start believing something was done with invalid reasoning is if we have already proven there was not valid reasoning.
A hilarious example is one my dad told me about his cousin who was head of a development department at Ericsson.
The bosses didn't understand why Nokia was successful and thought about saving money by cutting a few development sectors.
He was offered leave with FULL salary up to retirement at 65 with full pension.
And one year later they realized: We're a development company for phones and communication! We're made of development!
So they called my dad's cousin and asked him to come back. He said no cause he was getting full pay for doing nothing.
?
I don't follow. They wanted to cut costs, so they kept a development worker on their pay roll? Only removing the costs of development, but not the salery costs? This sounds made up, as no company would realistically do this.
In Soviet Union an inspector came to a collective farm to check how they are doing and noticed all their plows had a hole in same place. He asked why and the answer was the original plow they were sent had a hole in it and they were ordered to copy it perfectly or else so they cut holes in every plow they made. Some of the people sent to work at the farm must have known what a proper plow looks like, but saying so would have been against the orders of the Party...
🤦♀️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏻🤦♀️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏻🤦♀️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏻🤦♀️🤦🏼♂️🤦🏻
ANother story of the same. The Soviets were replicating an American Lend-Lease Aircraft for use in their own design, and they copied it down to every facet... even the hole where the riveter missed...
@@Kalmaro4152ещё скопировали фотоаппарат висевший в кабине штурмана. Но в целом было много адаптаций, например была замена всех элементов, сделанных под дюймовый формат производства
ppl will just believe anything anti communist nowadays huh
@@qfurgieNot exactly "nowadays" given the tale is at least half a century old.
Some might think it says Soviets were too dumb to notice the plow was defective, but that is unlikely(though the workers doing the gruntwork on the plane probably did not know much about aircraft design, so they were right to copy it exactly). More likely either a corrupt person sold a defective plow or there was a mistake at a factoryand the workers were afraid to admit it and not meet their quota.
Comrades Stalin and Beria were exiling or executing people for slightest insubordination, for saying the wrong thing, for annoying them or some other Party member, or simply to fill up the paper the list of names was written on, so things like this definitely did happen.
25 years ago I was a supervisor in banking operations at a midsized US bank. One day I got a new boss. His philosophy was to break down fences without understanding the reason for the fence. I think his underlying motivation was his annual bonus and that there was at least a 50/50 chance that something very good would come out of breaking down the fence. When by sheer luck something good would come out of breaking down the fence he would communicate his triumph to his boss. When something very bad happened by breaking down the fence he would leave the mess for others to clean up and not so coincidentally, he would leave the defeat out of hit the reports that he would provide to his boss. I vote understand what you are destroying before you destroy it. It doesn’t take very long learn about what are contemplating destroying.
Typical manager behavior, when something fails, it's the underlings' fault and problem to deal with.
Just about all of mid management nowadays 🙁
Chesterton's principles apply in that case. But a single company with a problem with management is relatively easy to grasp and to deal with. When Chesterton's ideas are applied to very complex and long-term situations it can become easy to use the same arguments to defend partisan interests and resist change. Do I really need to know the origin of and the reasons for the American privatised health system to see that it is unjust and urgently needs radical change? If Chesterton had thought to discuss the situation where you encounter a broken fence, where it no longer performs its function or where someone is likely to be hurt by a broken post or bar, it might have been more helpful. The cartoon implies that the only motivation in removing the fence is vandalism, but the fence may be broken or dangerous and harmful to people. Thus, one might, temporarily, replace the fence with a wall. On the other hand, you might discover that the fence is not old, but has in fact, replaced an ancient gate. Here in the UK we have what are called "Rights of Way" - that is the right to walk along ancient paths, in many cases even when these paths cross private land. However, some landowners have either tried to get the right removed or have simply fenced off the path to prevent trespass on their land, even though the "right of way" still exists. So, the existence of a fence, a law, a tradition or a rule, does not necessarily represent the truth or the best practice, some supposedly ancient situations are the product of relatively recent actions - for example, some large country estates in the UK involved the fencing in of common land and even the destruction of ancient villages. In another instance, some of the supposedly wild areas in Scotland are the result of sheep herding and the forced relocation of the local populace in the so-called Highland Clearances. Of course, Chesterton would probably not approve, but the people who did these things did so on the basis of their "traditional" authority and rights.
The worst part is, it's usually not who actually think about the purpose of the fence, who have the call to destroy it.
This is also a fantastic example of respect (about other people's decisions) and trust (believing they have thought it through - which unfortunately nowadays is getting more and more unlikely. And it is a HUGE difference of *not knowing* or *not caring* about the consequences!)
The problem today is that Conservative Republicans are the one's that do not know why their traditions exist and yet they insist on keeping them, even when they cause grave harm to many people and we Democrats explain why the old traditions need to be changed in order to help people but the Republicans just chant slogans and incite violence rather than listen to the truth and the facts.
That's just stupid. If others have got it right by thinking it through they should share the reasoning. Constructing a fence and saying don't break it and not explaining is fine until you leave. Then no1 knows if they should maintain or repair it or break it.
If people have a reason to do something then they should share the reason, there is 0 need for beliefs.
@@pianissimo7121 *Stupid is:* complaining about another person's *opinion* especially after not reading and/or understanding their comment properly in the first place.
The worst part is, when clever people sees the reason behind the fence, many others don't see that and they decided to break the fence anyways.
Or sometimes clever people see a reason to break the fence but many others dont so it stays there and causes damage, sometimes it is important to break old things
@@arikrex9978the problem is that you are not using Chesterton's fence. Your "clever people" aren't explaining [Why?] they are breaking the fence and creating conflict.
@@MalekitGJ the others do not accept the explanation due to bias or similar issues. A problem with this idea is that it assumes everyone acts logically
@@arikrex9978 again, you aren't applying Chesterton's fence. You use it when you rationalize why there is or there is no a "fence".
Basically Chesterton's fence is a rational exercise one must apply when facing a [Law] or [Custom], does said Law/Custom still applies to our actual standard? Why it was created & why do we still keep it?
After that one applies the rational exercise and determines if said Law/Custom deserves to be left/modified/removed.
Everything after that, is outside of the scope of this rational exercise.
plus-sign wrote, _"The worst part is, when clever people sees the reason behind the fence, many others don't see that and they decided to break the fence anyways."_
A perfect example of why Socrates was opposed to 'democracy', i.e., majority rule; the majority don't always agree upon the correct, or best, conclusion. This is why, despite centuries of contrary narrative, 'voting' is just stupid: it takes whatever a numerical majority agree upon as the thing to do. People who believe voting is a 'good thing' don't understand it, nor the basis of it, which is the fallacy of appealing to popularity (aka 'ad populum').
When the CFO was hired at Netscape in 1995 he tried to do the same thing, chard employees for sodas.
We were working 60-80 hour weeks as the startup was taking off like a rocket.
There was a quick response.
Knock it off or the core developers were going to walk out.
He got the message.
Netscape had a chance to be google chrome 25 years early but they couldn't see what was happening. I fully expected Netscape to be an OS in 1996 and it just never happened. Who no one thought of making a Chrome like OS back then will always be a mystery to me. Considering how good linux installers were at detecting hardware and how quickly people were ready to upgrade their computers a company would have brought a turnkey browser OS to market even back then. I wanted that to be netscape. People would have paid for netscape browser os as an alternative to MS especially back then...
@@Cyril29a Who cares about another OS, the market doesn't really care.
Windows and MacOS own the desktop.
Linux can't get its act together due to fragmentation of too many options for apps and package formats. The wider market doesn't care about linux.
Chrome OS....*yawn*.
No. One. Cares.
@@lohphat I care
And I also asked
Whoever is teaching these hypercapitalistic nonsense needs to be strung up by their unmentionables...
@@lohphat That sounds right.
But familiar, there were similar responses by Univac, Data General, ICL and IBM to PCs and DOS in early1980's.
The owner of our 21 million dollar company hired a bank manager as a General Manager. When this general manager was done cutting costs we had lost so many customers that we became a company valued at somewhere between 4-8 million. He ruined our company His name was Ray Byrne. His cost cutting drastically effected our ability to service our customers in the great manner to which they were accustomed so they didn’t re-up their contracts. Plus the workers such as myself lost so many benefits that our morale was terrible.
how the hell did this Byrne stumble his way to become a general manager?
@@aljo8200 I know right. This Ray Byrne was president of the Wells Fargo branch where the owner of our company did business. It takes nothing but smiling and hand shaking to be the President of a bank. It also helps to be tall. They are really just a figurehead. Their job is to smoosh big businesses taking people to lunch to get their banking business. Most of them know very little about banking and are terrible at running a business (which is why they end up as bankers, instead of owning their own businesses). Anyway, our owner was a great salesman, and up until Ray, he had hired great People to manage our sales and to manage the service/maintenance end of our company. I’m guessing that he/Ray knew just what to say to earn our owners confidence. The whole thing was really sad and unfortunate as Ray just ruined our company. Sorry for this long winded explanation. Take care.
@@michaelslater6839 What did the company do?
@@aljo8200 By having been a bank manager.
It tracks.
@@nejsonsvejson9861 The original owner sold out to a large Japanese company Kyocera at the lower price, and then he retired.
Yeah, I heard of that sparrow thing. There was something similar in America but with wolves. Wolves were nearly wiped out because they were a supposed threat to human campers in Yellowstone. What actually happened was that the removal of an apex predator nearly caused the collapse of Yellowstone's ecosystem. Wolves were reintroduced and the ecosystem stabilized.
The Chinese sparrow example is also cited as the law of unintended consequences.
When making change, pause to check or think of any unexpected consequences.
I'd not heard of this before, but I like it.
"Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".
But not taking action because faer of failur and/or hope a even better solution may present themsefl can just be as distructive.
@@MB-yk1qk That doesn’t really apply though. The gate refers not to whether it’s working or not, but whether the reformist understands the situation. If it is already known what a system does and whether it’s working, it begs a different question of how to fix it, or if there even is a better solution.
@@Programmable_Rook I was refering to the "fools rush in" saying not so much the fence-idea
Leroy Jenkins
@@ScottSavageTechnoScavenger I love this one/two.
After understanding why something is/was done, it can sometimes be found that due to other changes, it is no longer needed, and then it can be removed.
If we start changing stuff simply because we don't know why it is the way it is in the first place, we will only bring back problems that we didn't know existed in the first place.
congrats, you understood the basic purpose of the video
I must admit, I have worked in some businesses where the processes and rules had calcified and rotted horribly.
We took out a ton of rules and boosted productivity by 85% with net increase in quality of work and removed a ton of busy work.
I think some managers are not as technical or a lot more rules based so can come up with a procedure to make them feel like they are making things, so careful destruction can be a helpful force also.
I absolutely agree with this principle. Learning the intention behind a structure, legal or literal, lets you avoid the consequences of recklessly tearing it down. And sometimes, understanding the purpose might actually give you more reason to get rid of the thing.
G K Chesterton is also the writer who penned the Father Brown Mysteries. His principles regarding the wall are relivent in all subjects, but most commonly applied to religious subjects.
As a reader and watcher of Father Brown, and given the current social mores in UK, I’m surprised Chesterton hasn’t been condemned to the triple death for his choice of words regarding skin color in his FB stories, possibly he he’s been granted amnesty and will have his writing pc scrubbed
I find that a good portion of people don’t think before they act or have a severe lack of common sense, or even follow what others are doing without questioning it. Chesterton Fence is a real thing, time and time again people do things without question why.
That includes following traditions without questioning their intent.
@@mikevides4494 definitely and unfortunately that leads to more hurt.
As we are seeing today. They JUST want to destroy and have NO IDEA why - just to destroy what THEY do not like.
I think it's a rather stupid rule. Because it's just a specialized version of "think before you act". But in my opinion a worse version. Just because something has been a certain way for a long time does not mean it had great thought behind it. In fact it might exist because no one has ever thought about it.
For example: Yes you should think of the consequences before getting rid of a dictator. But you should also not keep him in power, just because you don't know how or why he got there.
@@0ntimetaiment921 you should think about the reason the dictator rose to power and plan to keep what little good he might have done while creating a freer society
This type of design and thought experiment is extremely important, in all aspects. From policy writing and reforms, to cultural habits, all the way down to game design (my area of expertise). It's especially important to consider the "why", because once you understand it, you often glean a better solution than you originally had. Even if a somewhat arbitrary limitation is in place, it's often there to serve a purpose. And if you can fill that purpose in a less arbitrary way, everything becomes more efficient and coherent.
This is highly under-rated! Should be required learning universally.
Yeah, the initiatives in the Great Leap Forward was a humantarian disaster and a disgrace that few people take pause to reflect on today.
I hadn't heard of Chesteron's Fence until now, and I think it is a prudent form of conservativsm. Not to stop reform (that would be reactionary of a different kind), but to pause and reflect on the impact and consequences of that reform. And why something is the way it was in the first place.
Mostly because the media banning in China, and the high-pressured censors of “dangerous words” about the Chinese superpower, such as the 8964 incident and the Great Leap Forward.
And I think the best part of the Chesterton Fence is that, when the person successfully think of why the fence is set up there, they can choose to destroy the fence or keep the fence, why leave the space for reforming and “evolving”, but not blindly follow and appreciate, or destroy and ignore the tradition.
Unfortunately, the people most likely to try to enact such policies either are unaware of history, ignore history, or worse. New plans are being enacted now that could be as destructive as the great leap forward, such as banning or greatly reducing nitrogen with farming. Some global groups are trying to dramatically cut farm yields.
I am not convinced that the great leap forward was not intentional. Stalin thought there were too many peasants when he planned the Holodomar so why asume Mao was just an idiot.
@@Scott-hy3gs Or heck if they know why the fence is there, they might see that it is failing in its intended purpose and opt to build a better fence before tearing down the now obsolete fence.... Or try to fix it up, because they now know if one fence has failed their new fence can fail too, and that there might be value in having redundant systems when it comes to important things people rely on to live... (Such as backups for food and water distribution/access... Emergancy shelter in case ones primary home gets destroyed.... Land lines in case the cell towers go out, battery powered radio in case the land lines go out, backup heating that doesn't require electricity to function in case the power goes out in a blizzard.... Or just backups for any form of infrastructure that could be disrupted by a natural disaster, like a flood, fire, or violent storm...)
Too bad the term "conservatism" is more draconic than logical when it comes to US politics :/
This one is very very good.
So appicable to almost everything in current day.
My anecdote...Not as cutting edge as the staff quitting but still appies using the same law.
We had a drinks machine. All staff and customers used it.
In came a new manager and said...this will cost you this much each month from now on.
Nobody paid. Instead staff brought their own drinks in and took the time to make a hot drink themselves. Previously they just grabbed the drink and carried on working. The time lost from people making their own drinks far outweighed the small cost of the drink in the machine. It aslo caused bad feeling. The morale went down. Nobody worked as well as they did before.
Further...the machine was so unused that it became unviable and had to be removed.
To poorly quote Oscar Wilde “ he who knows the cost of everything doesn’t know the value of anything”
As a professional engineer, I have been abiding to my own version of this: « If you don’t know when NOT to apply a standard or a rule, you should not be applying this standard at all and change job». Unfortunately, lots of people do not know why the rules were made, even within those who have to apply ou enforce then on a daily basis.
I worked for a company that was acquired by another company. The acquiring company soon transferred their management types to replace the existing ones. Each of these new managers viewed their new position as simply a temporary slot that would allow them to punch their ticket to then move on to bigger things in the bigger organization. They knew that they had to make their mark quickly, so they would immediately begin tearing down fences. Rarely did this result in long-term improvements. Often it resulted in worsening morale, confusion, resignations of knowledgeable employees and other inefficiencies. But by then the new guy had already moved on to other things.
When I trained as an instructor, it was standard to explain to employees why they were doing a task a certain way. Mostly, the reasoning behind the task made sense and they were more likely to remember it. Very occasionally a task was done an odd way simply because some numpty high up liked it done that way.
You can't win 'em all - ! 😅
Yup, I always added the “why” as an instructor because I need the “why as a student!
One time , one of the father during the marriage ceremony caught the cat and tied it to the fence because the cat was stealing food and milk . The son of that father saw the father tying the cat but he didn't Question him why he did so.
Evey marriage of their descendant then started to tie the cat on the fence because they thought it is a ritual to do so. So even when there was no cat in the area , the generations started to find or buy the cat from the market and started to tie them to the fence during marriage ceremony as a ritual.
A real life example: The mother teaches the daughter how to roast meat in the oven. She takes the narrow end of the piece of meat and cuts it off, putting it on top of the piece. The daughters asks why she did this, the mother answers, that this is how her mother taught her to do. So the daughter asks her grandmother about the cut- off piece, but the grandmother tells her the same, that this is how her mother used to do it. Luckily, the great- grandmother is still alive and the daughter visits her in the hospital. As she asks her about the roast, her great- grandmother laughs and tells her, that back then, the oven was just too small, so she always had to cut off a piece of meat and place it on top of the rest so everything fits inside.
Its a powerful thought process that i use almost daily. I am always left feeling that there needs to be a caveat. Always assume the fence was placed by someone at least as smart as you. However this is often not the case and this fence might be the result of a fence demolition in itself.
I think many of the new "fences" put in the last 140 years are a result of haphazard and myopic fence demolition.
This falls under the, "nobody should have to be told this, yet we've somehow arrived at a point in our society where that is necessary," category of advice.
Chesterton's superhero alter ego is Captain Obvious, who enforces the Law of Unintended Consequences and whose catchphrase is "Well DUH!"
I have found this to be a valuable principal in my work in information technology. When I find something that appears to be useless, I have learned to find out what its purpose is or was before removing or changing it. Somebody went to a lot of work to do something there is usually a reason. Once you know that reason you can decide whether to keep or change.
Hi, I was also a coder (you might call me a software engineer, these days), some times the code is there for a side effect on ICL machine (my memory of the details for this maybe not quite right, it was 1970's) if you do a divide using 1 register it clears the register below and uses less machine performance than just clearing the register. There were also occasions where you would perform some nonsense to delay your code either to wait for some external event (which you were not able to test for), or because you knew that the machine was going to be busier soon, if the user gets used to current response times they will be very unhappy in 3 months, or at month end or some other event, if I slow it now, its fast enough and gives me the ability to speed up process easily without impact (note this was rare).
FYI, "Chesterton's Fence" is from an essay by *G. K. Chesterton,* (Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who was, among many other things, the author of the famous *_"Father Brown"_* stories), not F. K. Chesterton, as you stated in the video.
Yes and I think he would have chuckled to hear himself described as a philosopher and illustrated as a rather skinny Einstein-looking man :) Good simple explanation of the concept though!
Thanks Christopher for pointing this out. It was a typo in the script... We failed to spot. O_O
@@clarekappenman5564 i think he qualifies as a Philosopher
Traditions are solutions to forgotten problems. I don't remember who said it, but it's one of my favorite quotes.
My job is currently trying to change how everything works to make it more like Wal-Mart. We aren't Wal-Mart. This is causing a lot of delays, incomplete orders, and getting other people from other departments to fill in the gaps. I'm watching and participating in this in real time.
IT often remove or disconnect something to check what happens or who complains. If you have a way to monitor changes and can revert, it might be the best way
Also, estimate the potential impact of what the removal or breaking of something might be, though this can require more knowledge of how and where and why something is being used, information often not easily begotten, either because people do not know or feel they have other good reasons for keeping you in the dark (such as “security”)
Ah yes. Good old "scream testing."
Do a thing. See who screams about it.
The reason scream testing is usually used for decommissioning servers or services is to find the undocumented users. I setup the server for department A & B. A user in Department C finds it and starts using it without checking with IT, or someone missed documenting it. Or, a bad handoff resulting in knowledge loss. One or more of these is inevitable on a complex system. It's the last step, after getting everything you know about done.
Sometimes the old has to give way for the new, be it property, law, tradition or something else.
But as Chesterton basically pointed out: think before you do. Then think again, and if the change actually makes sense go and break down the old. We need to progress after all, but we should always pick a way that has more merits than demerits.
All would-be managers should be required to watch this little video. I have seen this scenario in the workplace many times.
I also see an adjacent POV for this theory. The fence goes across the road, blocking all access. The fence maker had a valid reason to make it, but i don't know what it is. What's a way to modify the fence without destroying its function? Add in a gate! If change needs to happen, figure out how you can keep old functions in place while updating to a newer, more desirable function.
That is an amazing way to look at it! I'll definitely use this way
If you don’t have time nor the resources to test them out - it’s better and bodes well in thought to follow traditions❤ loved this video
Not always. Sometimes you have to take calculated risks if you have no other choice.
@@Dice-Z why? unless its a civilizational collapsing event, why is a little prudence not a virtue?
I don’t why this is recommended to me but this is very informative and engaging.
Thank you! Keep learning:)
This is one that resonates with me. Simple and true in many situations, encouraged me to think through before dealing with situations that can change things I wasn't fully in the know of.
I love all of the sprouts videos. The illustrations are great and the concepts are beautifully explained.
I think this is a useful rule of thumb. I think this incentivizes people to do their due diligence. I don't think this is really a conservative mode of thinking. I think it's simply what you should do before you make systematic changes. That being said, when people have done their due diligence, where people have done their research you should seek to break the fence, especially when that fence is preventing people from being able to survive.
Yes
I couldn't agree with you more! At it's core, the idea that you should understand a rule before you change it is solid advice, and applies equally to progressive and conservative mindsets.
Because the core question is: is this working as it should now? And also: can this be made better?
Where this tends to overlap with conservative ideology is that conservatives want to preserve traditions and the status quo.
To that extent, the core assumption of the conservative point of view is that the status quo is a good thing, and the policies that buttress it were put in place for sound reasons (even if those reasons aren't immediately apparent).
That's why a fence is used as the analogy. It's easy to look at it and immediately understand its function. It's a barrier. It keeps things in or out.
It's hard to imagine a fence being placed there for no reason at all. And while we can consider irrational motivations for why the fence might be there - irrational motivations tend to be nonsensical (why put one three-foot panel of fencing over a 20 foot property line that it doesn't properly cover?).
So right from the get-go, the analogy favors the conservative mindset: it approaches policy as something that is most likely there for a good reason to begin with, and as something that would be plainly obvious if its reasoning was unsound. In this analogy, the policymakers are the rational actors.
After all, why put a fence where it serves no good purpose? Emphasis on the word "good": The analogy assumes the reason for the policy is something inherently beneficial (fences are there to protect property), when it's possible a policy might have been put in place that's currently harmful to some people, even unintentionally (like old zoning laws that are still in place, stifling development and renewal, even though the area's changed in the intervening decades).
It's hard to imagine how a fence is directly impacting people, so the analogy blunts criticism of the conservative viewpoint.
Simultaneously, this casts the reformers (the person knocking down the fence, in the analogy) as bumbling, irrational actors. Which is how conservatives often frame government regulators, for example: people who come in and make a mess out of an otherwise streamlined and efficient process, usually for emotional (rather than logical) reasons.
If you stay at the very top level of the analogy, it seems to be just saying "think before you act" or "look before you leap."
But when you drill down and explore how the analogy maps onto discussions of social reform, public policy, and political ideology, it becomes apparent that the framing is meant to appeal to conservative interests of maintaining the status quo, while cautioning against progressive interests like removing outdated policies and traditions.
It's perfectly reasonable - even vital - to ask the question "is this policy/tradition really outdated?"
But google "Chesterton fence" and the top hit is a Mormon magazine article using the analogy as a defense of the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.
I.e. "Redefining marriage is tearing down the traditional institution without considering the reasons that traditional definition was originally put in place."
Which is not at all how, say, the fight for gay marriage equality went down. The Church of LDS - or at least Meridian Magazine's editors - correctly identified that the institution of marriage was a fence that delineated heterosexual couples from gay couples.
They think tearing down that fence was a bad thing, though tellingly, they tip-toe around WHY it was bad in the article. Rather than offer any reasons for why the "fence" here was put in place, they instead caution that more deliberation is needed - and without that deliberation, we're just removing the "fence" without understanding why it's there.
Which is ironic, given they start that paragraph by saying "many of us are used to receiving insults when we argue for preserving the one-man-one-woman legal definition of marriage - [that] we are bigoted, hateful, unfeeling, insular, etc."
I.e., they know full well what the arguments against the traditional, legal definition of marriage are. But they offer no counter-argument beyond "but no one's considered the benefits!"
(and again, tellingly, they offer three footnotes concerning counter-arguments to the Church or LDS's rule that civilly married couples in the US must wait a year before being sealed in the temple - arguments people are using in petitions to try to overturn the rule. They offer no such counter-arguments for the legalization of gay marriage - instead casting those who disagree with the traditional legal definition of one-man-one-woman as being hostile and antagonistic toward church members).
Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying: the core thrust of the Chesterton Fence analogy is sensible, but the analogy is very weak, is designed to favor the conservative point of view, and is used by some disingenuous conservatives to argue against changing the status quo by putting the burden of proof on the reformer to show why reform is necessary (even when that work has already been done) - without themselves having to show why the policy is still sound and relevant.
@@mikevides4494 To be honest, the reason for the fence analogy might in part be the analogy dating from a time when very old traditions were still largely intact and many were rightfully afraid of Marxism and other destructive ideologies. In that exact context the fence analogy is brilliantly on point since its saying don't change things willynilly during time where people were pushing for objectively destructive changes. That you should never destroy something without understanding why it exists for fear of making the world worse or destroying something good.
It's definitionally conservative -- "don't change things without good reason" is the core of what conservatism is about.
You may be confusing that with reactionary thinking, which is essentially the opposite problem of Chesterton's Fence, where the individual automatically rejects all reforms on the premise that tradition is intrinsically good and any change will make things worse.
@@ikillstupidcomments @ikillstupidcomments Absolutely right, but I'm not confising anything.
What I'm saying is that the fence analogy is - as you put it - reactionary, but it's masquerading as run of the mill conservative "common sense."
People - especially those tasked with knocking down fences - generally don't go around knocking down fences without a reason. And I'm hard pressed to think of a literal scenario like the analogy describes in that vein.
It's absurd. So the analogy doesn't map effectively to what it's trying to convey.
What it does do is imply that reformers are prone to acting without understanding what they're doing.
Whether or not that's true, the analogy doesn't help support the claim it's making. It relies on us not actually thinking too hard about the simple situation ("see fence: fence bad! Me smash") so that the complex situation ("this regulation doesn't seem to be working/seems outdated/doesn't work like we think it should, so let's tighten up our policy here") can likewise be presented as something the regulators look at with their lizard brain and start smashing without consideration.
Again, I have nothing against conservitivism itself. I'm saying this is one way it devolves into reactionary thinking.
Because of course people should understand what they're trying to change before they change it.
A fence is not an effective analogy for that. What it is though, is an effective way of suggesting the inefficiency of government using rhetorical tricks.
I think it's a great rule of thumb. Especially useful when it comes to arguments. How can you agree or disagree with someone, if you don't understand the argument that they are making. Only when you fully understand, can you begin to tear down or support something.
This doesn’t always apply to arguments though. For example, how do you apply this to argue with flat-earthers? Their position is so illogical that it’s impossible to understand their side, because they don’t. Given, someone had to break this rule to come up with flat earth in the first place.
@@Programmable_Rook Flat Earthers are an offshoot of radical empiricism: no knowledge is justified unless they've personally observed an experiment that they understand. Sabine Hossenfelder discusses this in "Flat Earth "Science" -- Wrong, but not Stupid".
Look around, if you don't perform any basic experiments, how do you know whether the Earth is flat or round? It looks flat until you perform some basic experiments. It looks like you're sitting at the bottom of a vast universe until you perform experimentation.
@@Programmable_Rook In what way can you not understand flat earth arguments? They may be wrong and fallacious but from what I've seen, most flat earth arguments remain pretty clear.
At least that's the impression I got from most flat earth debunks I've seen: "the logic isn't stupid but you're missing something critical".
@@Kiwi-fl8te Looking at individual arguments you can understand on some level and point out what’s wrong, but the “model” itself is full of self contradictory statements that make it impossible to understand. The individual arguments make some semblance of sense, but the whole thing doesn’t.
@@Programmable_Rook I think that if you are able to correctly point out where you believe someone has erred in their logic, then you have understood the argument that they were making. You should then be able to use that as a reason for why you don't agree with what they are saying. But if you don't understand their argument, then how can you say they are wrong?
I've worked a low-level to mid-level jobs in multiple organizations, and if I stayed in one place long enough eventually a new manager would be hired from outside who'd roll out a "new" program. Often it was something that seemed like a good idea, but turned out to be a bad idea _when we tried it before._ Pointing out that "we used to do that, until... " didn't help me get ahead. I learned to go along with bad ideas until they figured it out for themselves and got promoted again so they'd go away. I've rarely been the guy they promoted, despite having more relevant education and experience, and working harder than the nephew/in-law or diversity hire they chose instead.
Insightful!
A simple benefit to cost analysis is a must for any change one suggests.
It is only when you understand why the fence was built in the first place that you can see that the proper solution is to build a gate. A gate with certain considerations and constraints so that people with wheelbarrows can cross it, but sheep and wolves can't.
It also helps to understand and realize the existence of both sheep and wolves.
Chesterton knew about stiles -- they just didn't serve the analogy, so he left them out.
I think it's good to break down rules, old and new ones but understandig their cause first will truely save people from struggeling in many situations. Great video!
there's traditions, rules and policies that once we learn why they were put into place, it is even more of a reason to tear them down.
i can respect this way of thinking because it leads to informed reform and a greater awareness of the issues some things cause.
Alot of people should use this logic nowadays. I especially like the aspects of it that involves communities, considering that companies don’t understand that people will happily comply with the company if the company keeps them happy.
You could always build a self closing gate therefore modifying the fence to your needs but keeping its function.
But if it's not your fence, find out who it is first!
What if the purpose of the fence was to stop you from going into an area that was radioactive. Stopping you was the point, and you just missed the whole point
Before altering anything, you also need to know what it is supposed to do (and what it is doing). Even painting the fence a different colour should start with making sure changing the colour doesn't impact its function.
What if there's a large angry bull on the other side?
This rule is want management needs. I can't tell you how many times I've seen one supervisor change a rule only to have the next one apply "thier idea" and change it back to how it was before it was changed.
Even though it isn't the same thing I ironically can't help but get reminded of one of the lyrics of the song The Times are A-Changing "And don't criticize what you can't understand."
Sometimes something's got to be broken so something new takes it's place. Allow me to propose an addendum: "If you sre prepared to destroy a fence, you best be ready to replace it."
The wise man learns from the deaths of others.
A bird in the hand is worth several million people. So much for Confucius.
The change management system in the medical device industry I worked in for decades was the most complex system in the organization. To change a thing is almost hubris - believing you know better than the original designer, but being humble enough to do it to correct failures or unintended consequences takes tremendous effort, and guts. Apparently it takes a huge mallet too ; )
Therac-25
For a long time I've believed that it's best to hear someone out before straight up antagonizing anyone, whether if something is bad or good, it's nigh beneficial to everyone if something is understood first
I agree that before you make a change to an established policy or rule that doesn't make sense that you should take time to try to figure it out. That being said, there are some rules that are archaic or outdated, having been outmoded by something else. So yes, take time to try to figure out why something is the way it is, but don't let it stall you for too long. Don't forget to talk to others who might have some insight as to why it is there, and don't be afraid to make a change to a rule or established custom that still doesn't make sense with the knowledge that you might have to walk that change back when it doesn't work and put forth the appropriate apologies, THEN DOCUMENT IT THOROUGHLY! By documenting it the next time someone suggests the same change you tried they can be pointed to what you did and have more insight as to why it doesn't work and the same mistake can be avoided.
Destroying something because you don't understand it is the pinnacle of stupidity. If you don't understand it, how do you know that you want to destroy it?
I have, however, witnessed many people do just that because they felt an emotional need to destroy something, even when it wasn't actually causing them any problems.
We also see this emotional response used by politicians to their advantage: don't encourage the voters to think, tell them how to feel! The Leave campaign in the UK used emotional language to sway voters, and Brexit happened, despite Leave's arguments making no logical sense.
Point, right on. :)
Of course, that was also an error on the party of "Stay" camp: they *didn't* use emotional language, they went for an intellectual explanation. When people don't have full understanding of the facts, they're going to be swayed by emotions. If there are any unknowns in an equation, and there are usually unknowns when discussing the future consequences of an action, emotions fill in the blanks.
It was an error on the part of "Stay" to undervalue emotions, when they could have harnessed them, and at least evened the field.
Unfortunately, that's a mistake I see repeatedly on the part of the "intellectual" camp.
@@Galastel I don't think you people understood what the brexit vote was about, it was about bringing accountability back to the british isles, it was evident that the levels , frequency, and kind of immigration was totally and irrevocably changing the UK for the worse for the vast majority of peoples, both the locals and ironically the foreigners, and over and over, the main response was that it was an EU directive and that UK politicians had no control over it. The brexit vote was to give accountability back to westminster so the voters could have a measure of control or atleast corner UK politicians on their failures to tackle issues like immigration.
in a sense, the EU integration was the breaking of a fence, ie national sovereignty and therefore the lack of accountability from elected officials, the brexit vote restored that fence between the UK and EU, thus restoring national sovereignty but unfortunately, the westminster politician still refuse to be held accountable for their delirious policies regarding immigration.
@Galastel i don't agree with you. I'm from Pakistan and here one so called Oxford graduate leader of a political party uses every type of emotional appeals, rhetoric, and cheap optics to prop up his popularity. His rallying cry was corruption of his opponents. Sure they corrupt but he blown it so big that it became his only concern. Pakistan went from really bad to worse even in corruption in general. Politics far from substance and just optics and psychological manipulation is extremely dangerous for a society, opponents should NOT resort to the same either. If every party resort to such cheap tactics, one party or the other may win at elections but nation loss. Bulwark against such inimical campaigns is some sort of curbs against liars.
@@randomdosing7535 So psychological and emotional manipulation is bad and should be left out of politics? Completely agree, but now we have to rewrite the majority of politics… Which requires current political agreement.. Which requires using said psychological and emotional manipulation.
I'm always concerned over these mosquito eradication strategies. It is one thing to reduce populations but another to be looking at eradication. I keep thinking and worrying, what will fill the ecological niche that the mosquitoes filled?
From what I understand mosquitos don't really fill any worthwhile niche besides as supplemental meals for other animals.
From everything I’ve seen, mosquitoes are annoying without any benefit. Anything that eats them has other food sources which are as good or better. I don’t think they even have any other non-obvious effects, like plants not only acting as food but also stabilizing ground with roots. If we do decide, as a species, to eradicate mosquitoes (Or anything else), I think we should probably keep some sort of large container of the species. Then, if the solution has unforeseen negatives, we can immediately release the contained creatures to undo the solution.
@@AbstractTraitorHero There's one very big one you're not seeing, probably because you're thinking only the female mosquito during laying season; males are obligate pollinators, while females only seek blood meals when laying eggs and otherwise are pollinators.
@@KainYusanagi Their are many MANY other mosquito sub species that don't really drink blood. Exterminating the blood drinkers is not a problem
@@AbstractTraitorHero Go ahead, start applying DDT to all the places that the bloodsuckers spawn. Watch the insect diversity (and thus plant diversity) plummet, again, because there is no way to exterminate just one or two species of mosquito separate from all the others. Let alone find a way to fill that ecological niche that they serve, even within the bloodsuckers.
This actually happened with Mum’s work.
About a year or so before she retired, they started doing a lot of little things to try and encourage the older workers to quit. Aparantly it’s an absolutely terrible place to work now and they’re having trouble hiring people that know what they’re doing.
In this case, the broken fence was the older generation working passed retirement age. They can't hire talented people because the older generation didn't train them for "job security."
I think this is a great and powerful rule for us all to live by.
It makes me think of the statement "Don't talk (authoritatively) about things you don't understand."
Everything that exists or has existed has had a specific purpose, whether it was good or bad. And when we 'break down the fence' (i.e. try to change certain policies, cultures, ideas, etc.), it will always have consequences, intended and unintended.
Thus, I think we should follow the thought process of:
1. Why does this thing exist?
2. Does the existence of this thing do good, cause harm or creates neutrality (neither good or bad)?
3. What would the consequences be (intended and unintended) if this thing didn't exist anymore?
4. Could this thing be replaced by something 'better' and what would the new consequences thereof be?
5. Based on the questions to above answers, should this thing be taken away/destroyed/changed and replaced with something new?
So to use the Chesterton Fence example:
The fence could've been erected to keep wild animals from preying on farm animals.
The fence is doing good in the sense of protecting the animals and the farmer's livestock; it could be bad for the wild animals because the have to either work harder to catch their prey or search food somewhere else, which may cause them to die from exhaustion and hunger.
If this fence didn't exist anymore, wild animals would start killing the farmer's livestock, perhaps be a danger to the farmer and/or his family (intended); the fence could perhaps indicate that this is the property of the farmer, and without it, people might start using the land for themselves (unintended), people could also use the farm as a path, trespassing on the farmer's land (unintended).
The entire fence mustn't be replaced, but perhaps a part of it could be replaced with a gate for passers by to go through. This will also need the farmer's permission for people to walk on his farm.
The consequences hereof will be that people have a new path to walk on, the farmer wouldn't have to worry about the fence being destroyed if there is a gate for people to use, his animals will still be relatively safe; it could also cause the people using the gate/path to be attacked by wild animals, which might lead to legal issues with the farmer, it could lead to the farmer having to maintain the gate, some of his livestock might get out or wild animals in if the gate is accidentally left open.
Thus,
The fence shouldn't be taken away, but can be upgraded with a gate for people to use. With this, the farmer should also then instate rules of use for the gate like "close the gate to prevent wild animals from getting in; the farmer isn't responsible for wild animals attacking you while on the path or using the gate."
Thus, I think if we can answer the 5 questions above, we can determine whether or not to destroy something, change it, upgrade it or replace it with something new - it all comes down to if we understand why the fence is there.
Someone once said, "Compromises tend to last only for as long as they are convenient." It seems only natural for someone ignorant would get rid of things that only he believes are inconvenient. This is the base reasoning behind a logical fallacy so common there is a name for it, Argument Against Consequences.
That seems like a fair rule. Though I will say some people try to build fences back up that we've already torn down.
Especially when destroying the fence was a mistake in the first place.
Understanding, similar to an honest man, is a rare commodity.
I think it's good to understand something before dismantling it. I think it is just important to understand that sometimes the reason "why" is not altruistic, but self-interested. So part of understanding why things are the way they are is being careful to see if they are that way specifically to benefit one person regardless of the harm or detriment to others.
We used to call that "plain old common sense". Also, destroying someone's fence would usually get you in a lot of trouble, as there was good reason for it to be there. Nobody, ever, destroyed a fence, unless they were at dispute with the owner of the adjoining property. Usually, it ended up getting settled fairly and without undue trouble. If someone accidentally broke someone else's fence, they would of course go and find them so it could be fixed, and often would help out, if they could.
You've pinpointed the critical flaws in the Fence analogy:
1. Fences are usually placed on property by their owners (whether that's the government placing it on public property owned by the citizens, or a private owner on their own land). So someone coming in and destroying it is usually doing so with the permission or approval of the owner (who presumably knows why its there). If not, then you have a legal matter, not a philosophical one.
2. Fences have a specific reason and function: to prevent movement across the area where they're erected. Asking the question "why is this fence here" is intentionally obtuse: common sense tells us it's there to keep someone or something outside or inside the perimeter (or both).
The real question is: "who or what is the fence meant to obstruct?"
And the follow-up of course is: "is that obstruction a good thing NOW?"
The Chesterton Fence analogy starts at the first (irrelevant) question of "what's the fence's function" and then assumes no one's bothered to ask the follow-up questions before taking a hammer to the fence - and posits that answering those follow-ups requires slow and concerted deliberation, lest we unintentionally cause worse problems.
But, as you point out - it should be pretty obvious why a fence is there, and it shouldn't take a series of committee meetings to determine what the intent behind it's placement was or what the current impact is.
Someone inspects the fence, makes sure it's up to code and it's not straying off the owner's property, and goes from there.
3. No one really goes around knocking down fences just because they're there - unless they're engaging in vandalism.
So once you actually consider the analogy of Chesterton's Fence, it falls apart almost instantly.
In another comment, I mentioned how the Chesterton Fence is essentially an appeal to ignorance ("we don't know why the fence is here! So lets assume there's a good reason").
But you've elegantly explained why it's also (and perhaps more tellingly) a strawman argument: It's casting policy reformers as the kind of contractors who go around knocking down fences without even the most basic due diligence to inform their hammer swings.
So from the very get-go, the analogy is made in bad faith, because it assumes irrational action from the reformer while also assuming rational action from the original policy makers.
I would argue that isn't common sense so much as respecting private property. One of the many holes in Chesterton analogy is that fences that are respected can sometimes(read: often) be used to cordon off things that are for the public good, primarily waterways and grazing land. It often puts the private individual over the public and causes a lot of problems.
@@mikevides4494VERY well said.
@@mikevides4494 Actually, it assumes irrational action from those who would remove something without doing careful consideration first. Aka its a rebuke to people who act to hastily.
@@gary9346 The point of the analogy is that its a bad idea to change or destroy something without thinking through why its that way in the first place, also in someways putting the rights of the private individual first is necessary because that is the only real safe guard against the government confiscating everything and repeating the crimes of communism.
Me looking at me 150+ lines of unused variables, functions, and commented out code that seemingly have no purpose but i'm too scared to delete:
Informed decisions.
Informed design.
Informed reform.
Scientific method.
These are fundamental principles that must be learned and reviewed constantly.
I have been in several 'start up' companies. It was great to start, we were innovative and responsive to doing what was needed to be successful. Then 'administrators' came in to "tame" us down and be more practical. Within a few months it was just another job. Leaders know how to do the right things. Administrators know how to do things "right".
There also needs to be a reasonably compelling reason to tear down and re-invent an old structure in the first place. There is an investment in time, cost, and focus examining and re-assessing the value of old or obsolescent structures when sometimes it costs less time and limited resources to just keep such in place. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" comes to mind--at least until there is a clear reason to prioritize such..
The thing is, while the principle works really well with processes and objects, such as real fences or work practices - where it is reasonably easy to see what goes wrong when they are messed with, Chesterton only used the image of the fence as an analogy for ancient laws, rules and traditions. These are often both far-ranging and extremely ancient, so that people no longer know why the law exists and wouldn't know where to go to find out. There are obviously times when Chesterton's caution is well-placed - for example, the modern marriage ceremony was not invented to trap people, but to protect young women from predatory men who would "marry" them in a purely private ceremony, get them pregnant and then leave them. By insisting on a public ceremony before witnesses, the Church protected women from this sort of behaviour. On the other hand, there are situations where ancient practice is so old, no one knows why we do things any longer or the practice is used to justify unjust structures. Chesterton tended to assume that very little was broken and he was defending the old ways against those who want to disrupt them. He did not see how some of his opponents might be right. George Bernard Shaw supported women's rights and championed public toilets for women (traditionalists thought that such things were shameful, as if women had no bodily functions or as if they could wait until they got home.)
@@charleshayes2528 While you bring up a couple of good examples--one a certainly needed reform--it would be disingenuous not to note how far out of balance things have gone since feminism degenerated from needed reforms into absolutely toxic forms of misandry that poison intergender relations to the point where most young people are no longer forming healthy two parent families based on mutual love and support, which allows for the best chance for resulting children to thrive and succeed in the future. I shudder to think of what kind of world the very few children that will be born into the next generation will have to contend with in a society which for the most part will be adrift in a sea of toxicity and delusionality.
I love this example of when traditions need to end.
Grandma's Recipe for Easter Ham
Cut the ham in half.
Roast in pan 325 degrees for 45 minutes
While the ham is roasting, combine 1/3 cup water, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon allspice.
Wish in saucepan in medium heat until all sugars dissolve.
Drizzle glaze over cooked ham and return ham to oven for 15 more minutes.
Recipe is passed from mother to daughter for generations.
Finally, one daughter asks. Grandma, why do we cut the ham in half? Hmm? Well, if I recall, when I was a little girl and my Grandma made the ham, could not afford a proper roasting pan. She only had a 9x9 pan. So we could only fit half of it at a time. So that's why we cut the hams in half.
Ohhh ... roasting pan size makes so much sense. The version I heard was the turkey couldn't fit in the oven. I understood the moral of the story but was doubtful about how someone could end up with weirdly sized oven yet afford a gigantic turkey. 🤣
Actually many recipes cut the meat in half as it allow the other ingreditents taste to better penetrate the meat. There also those who use knifes to stab the meat instead of cutting.
The taste is actually affected by the fact that the ham is cut or not. So even if the cutting the ham tradition started for the wrong reason, there might be some value to it.
In the same way there are many types of pasta who have the same ingredients but different shapes. The shapes actually affect the taste. I suggest for you to read about it, you will be surprised.
If anything this example reinforces the narrative. Do your research before changing! It's silly to just keep doing something & never ask why, but get the answer, so you know it's safe to make a change.
This reminds me of the cost that accompanies refactoring someone's code.
It is a balance between the cost of understanding their code, and re-building one from scratch with better structure. We never really know which way is more worth it until we actually do it.
The same applies to artistic guidelines. You can do what the prior greats say not to do and still create a masterpiece, but if you don't know their rationale, you'll probably just make a mess.
It's like doing a cost/benefit analysis, except you decide to skip one side of the equation and think only about the cost of keeping the fence and completely ignore the benefit.
This can be true for traditions.
Somewhere we rebel against certain traditions in our culture before questioning the reason behind its existence in the first place.
@@ScottSavageTechnoScavenger Jews do encourage questioning, so I think most would encourage questioning it, unless I am wrong, in which case sorry lol. The reason for the jewish doing it is to remind themselves of Him which is a more logical part, wearing a symbol causes you to remind yourself of what it represents, and to show humility towards Him when under his presence(some argue that it is when you go outside, others debate you always should be covering your head except in a few specific cases, it generally varies) which is a more belief-based part, along with serving the purpose of distinguishing them from other cultures, as are many of the jewish traditions relating to clothing- to remind themselves of something else, and/or to show that they are a part of something different, and/or are going through a certain thing(ethnic clothing, priestly robes, sackcloth, shaved head, etc)
and protestants don't wear head coverings because of what was said by Paul in Corinthians, mostly due to his philosophy about heads he said that men covering their heads would be like them trying to cover Christ and women not covering their heads at the time was the sign of a prostitute, as they did that to signal that was their job, (that is why it would "dishonor her husband" as Paul said, because people would think whoever "she" was, was a prostitute) though I guess in the time of today wouldn't be very relevant.
I am just giving the reasonings for those traditions and do not really care about debating on whether they are true or not, should be torn down or not, etc etc, I am just trying to give the reason behind it, and I'm sure there are many more people more knowledgeable about the subject than I am.
An example of this can also play out in video games like Foxhole, a war simulator game with a heavy focus on logistics. Too many times, people will steal assets and burn them up on the frontline, instead of creating new assets to bring to the front line. What happens is that all the bases they steal from behind the front line end up not having the supplies to hold out when the enemy breaks through, causing a domino effect where a breakthrough goes far further than it otherwise would have, even if the bases at the frontline had not been supplied at all. It loses wars all the time (A war in Foxhole can last nearly a month in real life).
I think it's less people not understanding why some supplies is locked away, and more about scarcity is the worst thing the devs added in, and logi being an overly manual, tedious and unfun endavour (especially doing the actual delivery to the frontlines).
As an Engineer, I do a lot of work improving systems.
The first step in improving a system is understanding it, so you know what you can change to improve it, and what changes will be to the detriment of the system.
See three 'failsafe' routines in a machine's code that look redundant? Look for the edge case. Even if the 'load section for editing' and 'save section for editing' check for a zero value in a key register and force it to a small but non-zero value, the third 'failsafe' to replace that register value it it turns out to be zero might be there because an incorrect function call may cause a fully-cleared section (all zeroes) to be loaded into the 'active section' area, allowing a zero register to 'sneak past' the other two 'failsafes.'
One of the most valuable things, besides time, is understanding. It's thanks to understanding that things are created and made to function as intended.
If there's no understanding, there's no order, only chaos and ruin waiting for us.
It’s good to find out why the fence was built, and see if those circumstances still apply. But sometimes the fence is so old the reason is lost to the ages. Sometimes the only way to figure out what something does is to break it.
But you have to check first. You don't know that the reason "is lost to the ages" until you ask.
Why do you assume they haven't?
This is a great thing to teach kids who think they know everything.
But they won't listen.
G.K. Chesterton also invented the word "Squiffy", as in the phrase, "I'm feeling a bit squiffy", in one of his novels.
He also wrote the "Father Brown" series of sleuthing novels.
The obvious flaw of this argument is that with this principle for discarding or stopping rules and traditions it will become impossible to abandon a rule/tradition that no one any longer knows the reason for - if the only remaining argument for a rule is: this is the way we've always done this - then it is time to discard it or at least consider changing it.
A more moderate version of the maxim can then simple state that if you REALLY thought long and hard, asked around, and in general went above and beyond to discover the cause, then you've probably learnt enough in the process to implement the change. The biggest problem is just changing without thinking, along the lines of "I don't see a reason immediately, so I'm just going to assume there isn't one".
On the other hand, there's the famous problem of constructing a message to warn future generations not to intrude on nuclear waste storage sites. Best we might be able to manage is a tradition of not going there and some enigmatic message about the place being bad, but anyone willing to figure "people in the past were probably stupid and wrong about everything" is just going to die from radiation sickness.
This strikes me as a deliberate mis-interpretation of the rule....since it explicitly imposes a requirement to understand that "fences' require effort to erect and thus should not be dispensed with casually" but does NOT state that all fences are eternally necessary.
It seems to me that only those who wish to tear down EVERY barrier, EVERY fence, EVERY gate, EVERY obstruction without pause or consideration, are the ones who simultaneously suggest that every barrier, every fence, every gate, and every obstruction was only ever constructed for nefarious purposes to maintain some patriarchal oppression. If you can depict very fence as serving only one purpose...then you don't have to explain or apologize to anyone for the unintended effects of its destruction........
Agreed
There is always a third option. Modify without minimizing the objects purpose.
But what is the purpose? If you know and understand the purpose then you can do what you think is right to the fence, either destroying, modify, or even adding second layer. So i don't think there is another solution when we meet Chesterton's Fence because the real problem that we face at the time is not the fence but that we don't understand yet what the fence is doing
_Working Effectively with Legacy Code_
That’s not a third option, that’s just a possible outcome of going through this analysis.
I love this video, very smart.
However we have the same issue in the opposite direction.
People upholding old structures and systems without any thought of whether it is useful anymore.
We have to apply that at the office way more often than not as "if things work leave them be" and "if you want to make things work more efficient first you need to understand how things work and why things work", and not jump straight to "I think things should work this way"
I definitely think common sense should be taught in schools properly, and Chesterton's Fence is the theory (and literal explanation) behind it. Make it an essay in school ever so often, put in many situations to test the ability.
When I heard a campaign slogan "Hope and Change", my first thought was that change for change's sake is stupid and destructive. It is something I have seen in my life over and over again.
When I first heard the slogan "Make America Great Again" my first thought was that racism and fascism were popular once again. We know why systemic oppression exists, it has a purpose... it's purpose is to allow the wealthy to exploit the poor. You may not want to give that up but moral people are.
"We go to build that wall"
Reminds me of part of a sci-fi story I read. Humans were invited to an alien colony and told not to ever start fires. Well some southern kids decided they were going to do so anyway, as they were never given an explanation for the rule.
Turns out the planet has a population of giant moths with a skyscraper sized bulletproof queen that lays eggs in warm ash, and the smaller moths will kamikaze into the flames to help it spread.
Always be willing to explain yourself, never assume someone else will automatically understand your reasons for doing something and people are very much inclinded to destroy what they don't understand.