The rule says, “No vehicles in the park” • Hacker News Board

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

#681

Post by whelp_24 » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:22 AM UTC

atchoo wrote: post #642

jstummbillig wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instructions read: > Every question is about a hypothetical park. The park has a rule: "No vehicles in the park." Your job is to determine if this rule has been violated. Violation of a rule is a logical operation. It's the answer that comes before the ", but ..." part. Things you explicitly don't have to do in the context of this game: - You don't have to like the rule - You don't have to consider exemptions (be…

"break" / "violate" have same semantic ambiguity. You can't separate language from the rest of one's comprehension of the world e.g. most would probably agree that in general, "a rule" cannot prevent someone from saving a life. Overriding moral necessity is built into the understanding of the limitations of "a rule". It's implicit and does not need to be spelled out explicitly. When you face this sort of thing in phi…

No room of 100 people will ever agree if a rule that was broken was only technically broken. What should be an exception is in fact an opinion.

Rules can absolutely prevent you from saving a life, for example a rule preventing rescue workers from entering a dangerous area like a cave until conditions improve. Or a police no chase rule.

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

#682

Post by whelp_24 » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:24 AM UTC

jaza wrote: post #452

Qwertious wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign. I answered that the police and ambulances were obviously breaking the rules, because they are. The difference is that ambulances/police are allowed to break the rules in an emergency - famously, ambulances have a legal ri…

I answered in the same way. I chose to interpret the rule as "no functioning registered terrestrial road vehicles", in which case emergency vehicles are violating the rule.

Would a dune buggy be allowed?

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

#683

Post by jstummbillig » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:24 AM UTC

atchoo wrote: post #642

jstummbillig wrote: post #635

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instructions read: > Every question is about a hypothetical park. The park has a rule: "No vehicles in the park." Your job is to determine if this rule has been violated. Violation of a rule is a logical operation. It's the answer that comes before the ", but ..." part. Things you explicitly don't have to do in the context of this game: - You don't have to like the rule - You don't have to consider exemptions (be…

"break" / "violate" have same semantic ambiguity. You can't separate language from the rest of one's comprehension of the world e.g. most would probably agree that in general, "a rule" cannot prevent someone from saving a life. Overriding moral necessity is built into the understanding of the limitations of "a rule". It's implicit and does not need to be spelled out explicitly. When you face this sort of thing in phi…

Please note that I have 0 interest in inciting anger in this absolutely (to me) fascinating topic. The way I present my arguments are very strongly detached from how this should be handled in any real world scenario. On that part from, what you wrote, I am relatively certain that we would be in easy and relaxed agreement. I don't want people to die in parks because EMTs are vehicles. Please keep that in mind while reading on :)

> You can't dismiss ambiguity with a "you just need to"!

Granted, ambiguity is built into language – for example, what exactly is a vehicle seems to not be conclusively answered for every edge case, and I would allow for the confusion around that – but if you are creating additional ambiguity by overloading the task you have been given and adding "technical" distinctions and "implicit" rules, you are not only no longer playing the game, which is for you to judge if the proposed rule has been violated.

You can of course chose to not judge if this rule has been violated in favor of something else you think more interesting. In that case you are playing a different game.

Interpretation is a tough one. Something might be technical or implicit to me. It might not be technical or implicit to you. Or vice versa. Mostly, on most things, we might agree – but if we do it this way, there are bound to be cases, where we don't, which is precisely the dilemma the creator of the experiment is talking to.

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

#684

Post by denysvitali » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:25 AM UTC

graftak wrote: post #667

denysvitali wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign" They basically said to ignore local jurisdiction laws. Depending on where the sign is placed, this might not be so obvious. If you take the sign rule to the letter, an ambulance is a vehicle and thus cannot enter the park as well. Police can enter the park, but without a vehicle.

In that scenario the duty to help citizens in need simply supersedes the rule that vehicles are not allowed in the park. So pedantically the EMT and police officer are breaking the rule, but breaking the rule of idly standing by in an emergency is worse. The reason to allow emergency vehicles to go through the park must then outweigh the benefit of the ‘no vehicles allowed rule’. Something trivial like a pedestrian i…

Yes, I'm not questioning whether in real life this sign would cause issues or not. The question is "Does this violate the rule?", To which the answer is "yes" for an ambulance.

Whether it's fine in certain scenarios to break some rules it's a different topic though.

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

#685

Post by d110af5ccf » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:25 AM UTC

jstummbillig wrote: post #635

atchoo wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I answered that the police and ambulances were obviously breaking the rules I think the ambiguity here is not what the rule means, but what "breaking the rules" means. IMHO it should have been phrased as "would you refuse entry to" i.e. whether you would enforce action based on the rule. If you would not bar entry to emergency vehicles, that would be the same as what others mean by "not breaking the rules" i.e. it…

The instructions read: > Every question is about a hypothetical park. The park has a rule: "No vehicles in the park." Your job is to determine if this rule has been violated. Violation of a rule is a logical operation. It's the answer that comes before the ", but ..." part. Things you explicitly don't have to do in the context of this game: - You don't have to like the rule - You don't have to consider exemptions (be…

I think it's a fascinating practical example of how "baked in" cognitive bias is. The sort of people that use HN tend to be highly analytical. Yet nonetheless we see a massive public display of people rationalizing their failure to directly answer the question that was very clearly and unambiguously asked while pretending that they did.

The logical exercise is extremely close (by design) to one that commonly occurs in everyday life. In real life people want to bend the rules to achieve a certain outcome when applying them. They don't want to say "well a rule was violated but I'm exercising discretion". That's on full display here even though no meaningful outcome is actually being determined in this case.

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

#686

Post by kevincox » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:27 AM UTC

derefr wrote: post #149

To me, if I see a rule trying to ban "vehicles" without defining "vehicles", I take my concept of "vehicles" by deduction: I think about all the ways that things that I know of as being "vehicle-esque" could be problematic in various different ways such that you'd want to ban them — being loud; having a lot of inertial momentum when colliding with pedestrians; littering (the horse example); property damage (skateboar…

But rules are a "contract" between two parties. The people who put up a sign are trying to fix a problem and they care about the intention behind the sign. But the visitors need to try to follow the rules, so they need to decide of the activity they were considering is allowed.

This ambiguity can cause issues. In a perfect world it doesn't exist. But in reality it usually does because you don't want to hire a lawyer to help you understand if the 30-page sign prevents you from bringing a toy boat into the park.

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

#687

Post by ilyt » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:28 AM UTC

carlmr wrote: post #673

ilyt wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which can be ordered on top using a siren. This is why they need to run the siren for 2ish seconds before running a red light for example. Pretty sure that's because people need time to notice the siren and take appropriate action, not because of some rule

But you need to put that in the rule, otherwise you have crashes.

Yeah but rules are not "listen for siren sound for at least 2 seconds to move out"

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

#688

Post by newaccount74 » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:31 AM UTC

codetrotter wrote: post #677

crazygringo wrote: post #198

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…

> obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign Most likely true. But to me the answer for the question itself is not about whether the rule can be overridden by any other rules. It’s purely about the rule itself. The intro supports this: > You might know of some rule in your jurisdiction which overrides local rules, and allows certain classes of vehicles. Please dis…

I think the website is very disingenuous because it purposely asks the wrong question. The question is not "is the rule technically violated", the question is "should they be fined for violating the rule". If you asked the latter question, then 99% of people would agree on all questions.

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

#689

Post by bilekas » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:32 AM UTC

natch wrote: post #337

dmattia wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the author should have made the statement "A sandwich is an item of food consisting of two pieces of bread with meat, cheese, or other filling between them". And then asked questions like: - Is a grilled cheese a sandwich? - Is two pieces of bread with a third piece of bread in the middle a sandwich? - Is a hotdog a sandwich? - Is a taco a sandwich? - Is a breadbowl a sandwich? - Is a poptart a sandwich? - Is…

More split than what? Only 11% agreed with my correct answers. Seems pretty split to me and I can only see the results for one person.

11% here too.. Although it looks like 11% is the majoritiy of results here.. Interesting

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

#690

Post by whelp_24 » Sat, Jun 24, 2023, 10:33 AM UTC

willsmith72 wrote: post #378

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars/trucks/motorcycles aren't allowed, and obviously police and ambulances (and fire trucks) doing their jobs don't have to follow the sign. Obviously emergency vehicles are going to do what they need to do, but even if they are allowed to break the rule they are still breaking the rule. I also think a park sign that says no vehicles also applies to bicycles and skateboards.

What??? Please explain. I can't fathom how a no vehicles sign would apply to bicycles or skateboards

I similarly can't fathom how a bicycle is anything other than a vehicle. It has wheels and gears, it's a machine, it speeds you up significantly, you get one an off it, you have to learn to ride it, it can carry additional items. And you have to follow traffic rules (which is like circular reasoning but shows that governments say it is a vehicle).