Comment by dvt
3 years ago
The lesson here is one worth learning, but the vehicle (forgive the pun) is very poor. The lesson is: we can't agree on what to moderate and what not to moderate. There are very good thought experiments here, including citing actual prose. Should we ban parts of the Bible (the sexually explicit ones, or the ones that seem to approve of slavery?), should we ban books like Lolita or the Scarlet Letter? Should we allow Neo-Nazis to protest? What about Stalinists?
These are questions worth asking and answers worth hearing, but the problem with the question here is that the rule "no vehicles in the park" already comes with a lot of baggage. For example, it's obvious that the rule is meant to prevent driving engine-propulsion vehicles through a park (a rule that we've seen many times in our own parks), so naturally police cars and ambulances will (or should) be exempt, especially if trying to save a life. Otherwise the corollary would be that saving a life is less important than the rule "no vehicles in the park." Which most would very obviously disagree with.
I like the idea of the website, but there's probably a better way to convey the complexities of rule-making and rule-following in the context of both our own moral (or religious, or ethical, etc.) frameworks and the social environment at large.
> These are questions worth asking and answers worth hearing, but the problem with the question here is that the rule "no vehicles in the park" already comes with a lot of baggage. For example, it's obvious that the rule is meant to prevent driving engine-propulsion vehicles through a park (a rule that we've seen many times in our own parks), so naturally police cars and ambulances will (or should) be exempt, especially if trying to save a life. Otherwise the corollary would be that saving a life is less important than the rule "no vehicles in the park." Which most would very obviously disagree with.
That's the point, though! Everyone arrives at these moderation discussions with baggage, and it's not the same baggage.
Like, it is very much not obvious to me that the rule is "meant to prevent driving engine-propulsion vehicles through a park". Plenty of parks prohibit bikes and skateboards. If we care about "saving a life" then I actually don't think we should make an exception for cop cars. Reasonable people can disagree! Even the most obvious-seeming judgments are, in fact, not obvious.
> Even the most obvious-seeming judgments are, in fact, not obvious.
I kind of disagree with this. The question leaves the definition of "vehicle," "in," and "park" purposefully ambiguous, so everyone kind of tries to fit the most "common sense" solution. In fact, I'd contend that the rule "life of a person outweighs park rule" is not even remotely controversial (apart from some maybe unreasonably staunch environmentalists). This is why our legal code is pretty exhaustive (and moderation systems should be, too).
With that said, there is plenty of grey area even with extremely exhaustive rules: see abortion, euthanasia, animal rights, etc. I think that this is what the website tried to do, but sort-of failed because it purposefully got us wading through a semantic quagmire.
IMO the point is that those semantic quagmires always exist, especially if you're trying to make rules about something as nebulous as human language. And ambiguity is really common, too. Like, consider a rule against "hate speech" — that's ambiguous as heck! Even if you try to really nail it down, there will always be a zillion ways that people can try to skirt by on a technicality.
And even if you do agree on the spirit of the rules, they're still up for interpretation! Like, maybe everyone agrees that human life outweighs park rules, but disagrees on whether making rule exceptions for cops helps or hinders that directive.
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