I am, of course, upset about the rioting in England. I am worried for the people there. I really hope this is resolved soon and with very little violence
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Yeah, if they already think the system is unfair and this is how to get heard, being severely punished for it just doesn't sound like a deterrent. We see this all the time in so many of the misguided attempts at law - people who are otherwise law-abiding citizens making laws that would deter *them* from "misbehaving" without understanding what makes a person "misbehave" in the first place - because they aren't people who "misbehave".
tacit wrote an interesting piece on rule-making that I can't find right now. It was about a government office that had no waiting room. People *had* to visit this office because it's a government office and there's no way around it (DMV maybe?). But since there was no lobby, people waited outside because they just couldn't fit inside.
Except there were no chairs outside. So people sat on the low wall encircling a planter filled with trees and other plants. So the owners of the property started putting up signs that said "no sitting on the wall". It didn't stop people, of course, so they had to resort to harsher and harsher penalties, including broken glass and stuff on top of the wall.
For some reason, it never occurred to anyone to just put some benches outside. People just seem incapable of putting themselves in someone else's position. They think that because *they* would never do something that's against the rules, that making a rule can stop people, without understanding what kind of situation might make a person break that rule in the first place.
tacit wrote an interesting piece on rule-making that I can't find right now. It was about a government office that had no waiting room. People *had* to visit this office because it's a government office and there's no way around it (DMV maybe?). But since there was no lobby, people waited outside because they just couldn't fit inside.
Except there were no chairs outside. So people sat on the low wall encircling a planter filled with trees and other plants. So the owners of the property started putting up signs that said "no sitting on the wall". It didn't stop people, of course, so they had to resort to harsher and harsher penalties, including broken glass and stuff on top of the wall.
For some reason, it never occurred to anyone to just put some benches outside. People just seem incapable of putting themselves in someone else's position. They think that because *they* would never do something that's against the rules, that making a rule can stop people, without understanding what kind of situation might make a person break that rule in the first place.
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