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The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

novehiclesinthepark.com

341–350 of 1001 posts

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#341
post #336

A lot of comments here about how the intro instructed us to make a very literal interpretation. I'm not so sure. The exact wording is "You might know of some rule in your jurisdiction which overrides local rules, and allows certain classes of vehicles. Please disregard these rules; the park isn't necessarily in your jurisdiction." Rephrasing an earlier comment here, but - it's still a park right? On earth? What juris…

No the instructions are clear. Figuring out where the park is just isn't part of the exercise. In fact, by the letter of the rules, it's impossible to find out. Pick any definition of "local jurisdiction" you want and you still don't know where the park is. It is not necessarily in that jurisdiction (or out of it either). It's not necessarily even on earth or in this universe either.

It's not about finding the particular jurisdiction. It's that any jurisdiction will have almost all of this stuff in common.

If we're not even taking about earth or this universe then discussion is probably hopeless...

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#342

I'm fascinated by the fact that my takeaway is the precise opposite of what the author intended. To me, the answer to all of the questions was crystal-clear. Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) do…

What did you answer about bicycles and roller skates? It wasn't one of the questions, but I bet razor scooters would split the vote close to 50/50.

And what if the fire marshal is visiting the park to evaluate the maximum occupancy of the office — can they drive their official vehicle into the park for that?

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#343

I'm fascinated by the fact that my takeaway is the precise opposite of what the author intended. To me, the answer to all of the questions was crystal-clear. Yes, you can academically wonder whether an orbiting space station is a vehicle and whether it's in the park, but the obvious intent of the sign couldn't be clearer. Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) do…

It seems more like you didn't read the instructions

> Again, please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed).

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#344
post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people don't agree on it, then the clarity you feel is an illusion. The point of rules is common understanding of what is acceptable. Notably, you pulled a bunch of special cases and refinements from thin air. The way I read the setup, it was "crystal clear" that the rule was violated by emergency services, even if we could agree afterwards not to enforce it there. And, yes, of course, moderation questions are muc…

I feel the same way as the above comment. If you were an actual administrator in charge of fining people for violating the rule, almost none of these examples should give you pause. You wouldn't be trying to give a ticket to planes flying overhead, for example. With these examples, there really isn't much disagreement on whether action should be taken, so any discussion of whether a rule is technically violated is mo…

If you didn't think a bicycle violated the rule, what about an e-bike? Or a fully battery-powered bike that doesn't require pedaling?

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#345
post #243

Lawyer here. I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. I teach legal research and I do some open discussions in the beginning and (no judgment of course) someone ALWAYS brings up "if they wrote the laws clearer..." nope. nope nope nope. This is not how it works.

I'm not sure what your point is. The laws can't be written clearer? Even if they were, you'd still get stuff that's ambiguous? As a lawyer you don't write the law so you have to go with what's written? You like interpreting vaguely written rules?

It's just how language works. Language is inherently ambiguous in the strictest sense. It's why at times you need to use more and more words to convey a clear message to someone, but in some sense, it's a never ending rabbit hole. Most of the time though, you don't need to be super precise in order to get a general message across to someone. Just something good enough.

It's why, as some other people noted, you sometimes can't tell anyone anything: http://habitatchronicles.com/2004/04/you-cant-tell-people-an...

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that the whole exercise was about meticulous line drawing I think this bit of nitpicking is entirely appropriate. Clearly “is a vehicle” and “is in the park” were the two major axes that each question needed to be plotted on.

Interestingly, some people added others that weren't explicit in the rule. For example, the person riding a skateboard was considered a violation by roughly twice as many people as the person carrying one, despite both being identical on the "is a vehicle" and "in the park" axes. I suppose unless someone's definition of vehicle depends on it being in use.

Despite the instructions explicitly saying not to I suspect many people (like me) could not help but “look through” the stated rule to infer its intent, especially for the more unusual examples. It’s quite a lot harder to imagine a real world rule that prohibits a carried skateboard vs one being used, even if both situations represent the same 2-vector in the rule’s truth table. It’s hard to turn off the part of your brain that applies past experiences to every new situation.

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#347
post #20

Nitpick: The summary at the end labels your choices as "You think it is not a vehicle" or "You think it is a vehicle" based on whether or not you said the situation violates the rule, but some of the scenarios were clearly about whether or not something was in the park , rather than whether or not it was a vehicle. I can think a plane or a space station is a vehicle without thinking it violates the rule about not bei…

Similarly, the question asks "does it violate the rule" not "should the vehicle be allowed in the park". Of course driving an ambulance into the park violates the rule - but it's ok the break the rule for emergencies!

Which of course illustrates that in the real world there are always multiple conflicting rules that apply. Especially in content moderation.

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#348
post #18
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you do, honestly. The point of the exercise is exactly the ambiguity that stood out to you. Also, the question was very explicitly not asking if an ambulance in the park is "okay." The question is asking is it a rule violation. It's an excellent analogy, in my opinion, because what it's trying to be analogous to is the general ambiguity of language that makes content moderation difficult. It's hardly…

That makes a ton of sense. I was always confused by that. Reddit has a ton of rules in place, particularly against advocating for violence. I reported a few comments that called for death penalty for someone. Those comments were always greenlit. Maybe I just take stuff to literal. But some people sure have a hard-on for the death penalty...

But what if the statement is in context of jokes, like:

A: *saying something stupid as a joke B: "I hope the country will impose death penalty to those who support it"

Or when it's used as discussion, like this, is it violating the rule?

Re: The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

#350
post #212
post #16

The number at the end is unclear - it says I agreed with the majority 11%, but then it shows a bunch of charts. Yet the three I said were vehicles (the car, the police vehicle, and the ambulance) are the only 3 above 50% support, so it seems I agreed with the majority 100%. I even opened a second session in another browser and hit yes to everything to see if the numbers in the chart was the amount that agree with me,…

Did anyone not get 11?

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