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The pros and cons of placebo buttons

economist.com

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Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#91

Post by mactrey »

zimablue wrote: post #62
_bxg1 wrote: post #15

This makes me so annoyed. I much prefer ones without buttons because I don't have to mess with it; when there is a button, I assume I have to go over and press it, but it sounds like in some cases I don't (for a while now I've suspected them to be pointless). But there's no way to tell the difference so I still have to everywhere.

This whole piece, and to be honest most of the comments here come from such a dark, authoritarian, arrogant perspective. "lying to the plebs modifies their behavior very slightly in a good way or is it in a bad way?" It's irrelevant, treat your fellow humans with some modicum of respect and dignity. Terry Pratchett's first rule of morality "don't treat people as if they're objects". Anyone caught casually deceiving p…

It's not really lying if the buttons used to work, now they don't, but they're expensive to remove so the government just leaves them there. It's at worst a lie of omission. The moral question is more like, is it the government's responsibility to spend money removing a nonfunctioning button to save people the negligible amount of time/effort it takes to press it? The answer is probably not considering that there are lots of ways the government could save people time/effort by spending more money but doesn't.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#92

Post by andai »

it wrote: post #90
winrid wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to clarify your point?

In a country with millions of voters, a single vote isn't likely to be what decides who gets elected. In the limit of infinite voters, casting a vote is a lot like pressing a placebo button. It's not directly useful for the voter, but it makes the voter more likely to accept the outcome.

I wonder, has any research been done on the size of a democracy and how represented the average individual feels?

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#93

Post by polynomial »

claudiawerner wrote: post #69
zimablue wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole piece, and to be honest most of the comments here come from such a dark, authoritarian, arrogant perspective. "lying to the plebs modifies their behavior very slightly in a good way or is it in a bad way?" It's irrelevant, treat your fellow humans with some modicum of respect and dignity. Terry Pratchett's first rule of morality "don't treat people as if they're objects". Anyone caught casually deceiving p…

How is this relevant to this century? The concept of the Noble Lie has been around at least since Plato. Lying to someone isn't treating them as an object, it's actually confirming their subjectivity.

> Lying to someone isn't treating them as an object, it's actually confirming their subjectivity

Found the lawyer.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#94

Post by snarf21 »

zimablue wrote: post #66
snarf21 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure I'm in the minority but I don't even think it is that. If the button at each intersection prevents one accident (hospital or even death) then it is worth it. So people got tricked to be safer? Oh, the humanity. People who are going to cross anyway still will.

It's immoral because you don't have the right to deceive and make decisions for other people. Let's take the example further and see if you can find a point where it starts to be obviously unethical, then work your way backwards on the principle discovered. How about we lie to you about the contents of your food, in some way that manipulates you to be healthier? Still OK with that, why don't we tell you that somethin…

I'm sorry but I don't buy the slippery slope argument here. No one is saying that the ends justify the means. Is adding a stop sign to a random intersection any different? Who decided that people should stop there? In small towns, a lot of times it is because an elderly person went to the township meeting every week for years complaining so they gave up and added one, not because there is any inherent safety issue.

Governments and corporations literally lie to us every day. Not causing a light to change three seconds earlier (because it will still change) doesn't violate anyone's civil liberties or religion or cause their death. Governments do manipulate things already to make people healthier and safer. Soda taxes, seat belts, food pyramids (bought by the FDA) are all examples.

In this case, most municipalities have laws against jay walking. One could argue this is just an enforcement of that law.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#95

Post by threwawasy1228 »

bhauer wrote: post #67
_bxg1 wrote: post #15

This makes me so annoyed. I much prefer ones without buttons because I don't have to mess with it; when there is a button, I assume I have to go over and press it, but it sounds like in some cases I don't (for a while now I've suspected them to be pointless). But there's no way to tell the difference so I still have to everywhere.

Agreed. As a pedestrian, one of the most irksome circumstances is incorrectly assuming an intersection is automatic and losing a cycle because you chose to optimistically not press the button. So if you're not absolutely certain an intersection is automatic, you generally will press the button. Frankly, I don't think governments should engage in this kind of deceptive social engineering. If you have a problem with ja…

I like that you assume a reasonable person would only lose a single cycle.

Once I walked up to a pedestrian scramble intersection with several people standing at it and it went around the cycle once in front of me and I realized none of them had pressed the button. I clarified aloud to them that you have to press the button as I pressed it. They exclaimed that they thought something was wrong with it as they had been waiting for 2 cycles already and didn't realize you needed to press the button.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#96

Post by mikepurvis »

GeordiePowers wrote: post #57

In Toronto, most of the buttons have long done nothing to control the light cycle, and only trigger the audio crossing indicator. Lately they've been replacing the signs signs on these, with each now saying "Button for audible signal only". Good way to re-purpose the existing hardware. See here for a comparison of old vs. new https://i.imgur.com/a0FXI5c.png

In Kitchener (just west of Toronto), we have a bunch of intersections where there are two possible changes. For a car-triggered change (from the inductive loop in the pavement), the light just changes for a few seconds, to get the car through. If you push the beg button, you get the pedestrian change, where there's a momentary walk signal followed by a countdown.

I get why this exists in terms of not having cars on the busy street waiting for a countdown when there's no actual person there, but I find it very frustrating that there's basically zero chance that I will just "get a green" crossing the busy street, since it's such a narrow window now. And because I can't trigger the road sensor with my bicycle, it also means I have to ride up on the sidewalk to get to the button.

I would really rather it was just a timer.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#97

Post by dsfyu404ed »

oarsinsync wrote: post #60
JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #14

I notice a lot in London that there are a bunch of pedestrian lights in areas witha steady flow of traffic that will only work if the button has been pressed, yet every single day I see people, often the same people, stand there until someone else presses the button. Part of me wonders if there's almost an aspect of not wanting to cause offense involved. If you're the person who presses the button, you're responsible…

Not a Londoner, but I have zero regard for the interests and sensibilities of drivers. As a pedestrian, cyclist and driver, I feel safe in saying that the worst road users generally are (in order) drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Amusingly, that also goes in the same order of 'who is more likely to kill you if they run into you', which may play a part. Eitherway, I always press the button. It doesn't matter if it's…

I find that the worst pedestrians make the worst cyclists and drivers (and vice versa).

Being courteous in mixed traffic is all about predicting what others will do (and choosing what you do to not conflict with that) and behaving in a way that will let them predict what you will do (so they can act in a way that does not conflict with you). Being able to predict what others want to do is very important to be a courteous pedestrian/cyclist/driver. Generally speaking I find that people who hate a certain type of traffic do so because they do not empathize with that group of road users are bad at predicting what that group will do. This consequently makes them likely to be bad drivers/cyclists/pedestrians because it is harder for them to optimize their actions to not conflict with that other road users.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#98

Post by nikofeyn »

mactrey wrote: post #91
zimablue wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole piece, and to be honest most of the comments here come from such a dark, authoritarian, arrogant perspective. "lying to the plebs modifies their behavior very slightly in a good way or is it in a bad way?" It's irrelevant, treat your fellow humans with some modicum of respect and dignity. Terry Pratchett's first rule of morality "don't treat people as if they're objects". Anyone caught casually deceiving p…

It's not really lying if the buttons used to work, now they don't, but they're expensive to remove so the government just leaves them there. It's at worst a lie of omission. The moral question is more like, is it the government's responsibility to spend money removing a nonfunctioning button to save people the negligible amount of time/effort it takes to press it? The answer is probably not considering that there are…

if that's actually the case, how about put a small sign by the button? but is it really that hard to remove or disable the button?

do people really need another data point that interactions with government services are filled with pointless exercises and things that may or may not matter?

and it isn't negligible. what about people in wheel chairs or other handicapped situations? and how many times are people wasting time, energy, and conversation discussing traffic light buttons? it's wasteful and disrespectful.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#100

Post by grkvlt »

zimablue wrote: post #66
snarf21 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure I'm in the minority but I don't even think it is that. If the button at each intersection prevents one accident (hospital or even death) then it is worth it. So people got tricked to be safer? Oh, the humanity. People who are going to cross anyway still will.

It's immoral because you don't have the right to deceive and make decisions for other people. Let's take the example further and see if you can find a point where it starts to be obviously unethical, then work your way backwards on the principle discovered. How about we lie to you about the contents of your food, in some way that manipulates you to be healthier? Still OK with that, why don't we tell you that somethin…

If action X is unethical/immoral in some situation S, this in no way implies that for all situations, X is unethical/immoral. See killing people for an example, perhaps, or maybe telling people they are (not) ugly?
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