Comment by ComputerGuru
3 years ago
I think the police and ambulance examples are interesting. To me, they're clear and blatant violations of the rule. To be sure, I certainly think it's ok that they broke the rule, but they still broke the rule. Yet some (45% of respondents) clearly think the rule wouldn't apply to them in the first place?
The instructions for the exercise tell you straight up to ignore any and all exceptions, yet 30% of people chose to apply their own judgment in the police and ambulance case because it felt right to them. Very telling.
If you believe that the spirit of rules is more important than the text, then those people were obeying the spirit of the rule to not include exceptions, not the text.
Those people failed to follow the spirit of the quiz.
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I'm far more worried about the people who think a man should die because the sign must be obeyed at all costs.
It's telling that 70% would apply immoral guidance. "Just following orders."
Just because we acknowledge an ambulance would break the rule doesn't mean we wouldn't break the rule anyways.
One thing that makes this exercise fairly useless is that any real world law or rule would have exemptions for such circumstances, and a definition of “in the park” and what a vehicle is… not just one sentence with no clarification. Beyond that, also a history of previous legal interpretation to which one could refer.
I actually disagree. I assume every law is subject to "at the discretion of the DA/judge" (or whoever is in charge). Do you think everyone needs to account for every emergency circumstance possible in every law? In real life, there's the law and then there are mitigating circumstances.
(A few years ago I could have said "we don't get ticketed by an AI that only follows the rules it was given." Well, we do now in many places and that's a problem.)
Legal decisions are made based on historical interpretation, assumed intent of lawmakers and legal precedent. If needed legal interpretation can go back the English Common Law or the Magna Carta. A law or rule like this could be challenged in court as so vague as to be meaningless, and unenforceable.
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This exercise is not about a court of law but any random online forum, for example the kind we are on right now. If you look up the HN participation guidelines you will find they are exactly as vague as the rule in the exercise and open to endless interpretation.
I understand the point of the exercise is to shed light on the vagaries of internet moderation. It’s not a very precise analogy. HN is essentially private property, and nobody needs to wonder things like “is flying a satellite over HN the same as posting on HN?” or “what is a a comment?”
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My reasoning was that in emergencies, typically, certain rules don't apply to certain groups of people if their actions are related to the emergency. Therefore, a police officer driving a police car into the park (assuming they're doing it because of the emergency) is not a violation of "no vehicles in the park" because for that officer, in that situation, there effectively is no such rule.
In the real world, we might debate whether it was actually an emergency and so on, but here we're told straight up.
I thought the instructions were pretty clear that it's a violation, even if e.g. your religion says it's okay.
I think the instructions are ambiguous. The instructions first say to disregard any "rule in your jurisdiction which overrides certain rules", or whether your "religion allows certain rules to be overridden". But both of these hypotheticals are reasons why you might disregard the desires of the hypothetical park owner who instituted the rule. This is different from the police and ambulance examples, where the park owner would almost certainly want to allow those vehicles.
The instructions then continue, "Again, please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed)." But again this could be interpreted two ways.
One interpretation is that an emergency vehicle entering the park would technically violate the rule, but everyone (including legal and religious authorities and the park owner) would agree that the violation "should" be allowed. However, I interpreted "should" more in line with the previous statements as referring to some kind of controversy (park owner says it's not allowed, but for legal or religious or moral reasons I think it should be allowed). Under this interpretation, the rule has an implicit exception for emergency vehicles, so they are not violating it. The exception is just so obvious that it's not worth including (especially given the text length limits of the signs where park rules tend to be written down).
My interpretation might sound like a stretch. But imagine if the rule instead said "No vehicles in the park, including emergency vehicles." Wouldn't that be materially different? Yet the difference doesn't affect whether a violation should be legally/religiously/morally allowed. At most, it might hint that there might be some practical reason why emergency vehicles shouldn't enter (perhaps it's dangerous), and perhaps a reasonable emergency vehicle operator should take that information into account when determining whether violating the rule would be justified. But that's only an indirect effect, and there's clearly more to it than that. Regardless of whether there is any justification, the clause would clarify that the park owner really doesn't want emergency vehicles, when otherwise we would assume they do. And to me that difference is best interpreted as affecting "whether the rule is violated".
The exception for emergency vehicles is just another rule. And even that rule can be more complex, like a police car could be not allowed to drive on railways. Or military rules that are above emergency vehicle exceptions. A police officer is not above the rules.
And in the given case we had none of them. It was just one simple rule - no vehicles inside the park.
Thanks for the thoughtful reply!
I don’t think there’s ever effectively “no such rule” but only “(expected) immunity from consequences of said rule” which is subtly different.
This is very jurisdictional dependent, and the exercise was pretty clear that you are not in any of those jurisdictions.
I agree with you, but also the first time I did it I started answering in a different way, before realizing I should change my interpretation.
I started answering by interpreting the choice as "is this allowed in the park", not "does this violate the rule".
I'm not sure if this page makes its point better or worse if you know what it's testing. It's interesting though how explicit you have to be if you want people to not add any additional context. But also, so much of the questions rely on context. So it feels like an unfair test, but it's hard to say exactly why.
I think a questionaire telling you to ignore all preconceived notions about a topic in a note and then ask fairly unspecific questions about that, will have a lot of people answer without ignoring their preconceived notions about that.
I'd assume the answers would be different if the questions was phrased differently, restating the assumptions and some of the consequences, e.g., that there might be exceptions, we just don't look at them yet.
It's about common sense.
Police/fire/ambulances are there for emergencies, their drivers have better training (theoretically) in safe driving, and the vehicles bring attention to themselves.
Uncle Jim Bob trying to drive his Buick around is what's obviously prohibited as that's the vehicle/driver most likely to cause harm...
> Police/fire/ambulances are there for emergencies, their drivers have better training (theoretically) in safe driving, and the vehicles bring attention to themselves.
By this logic, it’s ok for a police officer to drive through the park’s green on his way to work, with no emergency.
I mean, having seen pissing matches between civic authorities and cops play out, that's what I'd expect at the end of the day.
I'd argue that:
* if the siren is off, then “the vehicles bring attention to themselves” doesn't apply.
* if the siren in on, then they're not violating the park's rules, but they are violating the rules of their emergency vehicle.
Except most jurisdictions have rules governing things like that.
No vehicles in the park is a rule for the people that use the park. The emergency vehicles aren't 'using' the park so it doesn't apply to them.
> No vehicles in the park is a rule for the people that use the park
Says who? So I can park my car in the park and take the train so long as I don’t “use” the park? Or drive through it on my way to work?
But then you'd be "using" the park (for parking), which means you fall under the definition of "use"!