The pros and cons of placebo buttons • Hacker News Board

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#111

Post by InitialLastName » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

claudiawerner wrote: post #77

zimablue wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying to someone for their benefit is treating them as an object because you're not respecting their right to honesty or dignity, you're just treating them as an object that might or might not get run over and deceptive technology as just another input. You're optimizing them without their consent like they're some code you're trying to speed up. In the same way that PUAs is objectifying women because you're not resp…

Isn't the whole market based on things like this? The way supermarkets are organised, how advertising works at all, the government applying import tarrifs to dissuade you from buying from abroad, etc. I don't think there's anything wrong with incentivizing the behaviour you want to see. In the end, every modern corporation does the exact same thing as what you claim nanny states do: try to make your desire align with…

To add, everyone's boss everywhere pretending the economic value their workers create is approximately in line with what those workers get paid.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#112

Post by mactrey » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

nikofeyn wrote: post #98

mactrey wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

1. Is is better to, say, spend $2mm to remove nonfunctioning buttons, or instead to reduce wait times at the DMV? I think you could make the argument either way; personally, I don't experience much mental anguish about the existence of buttons that might or might not work -- I would rather save the time/money at the DMV, DEQ, filing state taxes, etc. Note that adding signage still costs money and is also only a temporary solution - signs need to be replaced every few years, depending on the initial implementation.

2. If it's overly difficult for handicapped people to press the buttons then they should never have been implemented in the first place. But considering that they exist, if they are difficult to press and pressing is required to cross, isn't that just altogether worse for disabled people than if they are difficult to press but entirely nonfunctioning/nonrequired?

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#113

Post by laken » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

r_klancer wrote: post #49

Worse yet, at least in Somerville and the general Boston area, I'm seeing touch-sensitive buttons instead of physical buttons that depress--with no haptic feedback; and only some of them play a recorded "Wait" when you press. I'm gradually training myself not to jam my finger painfully against them to be "sure" I pressed. If it turns out they're also placebos, I think I'm just going to give one a good kick next time…

Those aren't placebo buttons, rather for the hard of sight. The audible "Wait" is to tell to not cross yet, and it will then tick when it's safe to cross, and increasingly tick faster the time lowers.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#114

Post by mikepurvis » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

goodcanadian wrote: post #107

mikepurvis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

Interesting about the road sensor. In Vancouver (years ago, admittedly), I had no problem triggering the road sensor with my bike.

Interesting! I've never had success triggering them, though that's not surprising given I'm on an aluminum and carbon frame.

There was actually a kickstarter a few years ago to build a magnetic loop you could put on your bike to trigger the sensor via a button press, but unfortunately it didn't meet its funding target and seems to have gone underground: https://www.veloloop.com/faq/

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#115

Post by arantius » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

Steltek wrote: post #32

jkingsbery wrote: post #10

I work in New York, but I go to Seattle periodically because that's where my company's headquarters is. How people treat the buttons is wildly different between those two cities. I hardly ever see anyone press the cross button in NY, since the convention is to wait for there to be no cars and then cross (and not bother with the button). In Seattle, I've seen people wait patiently at a cross walk even though there's n…

In Boston, we cross in front of cars that have a green light :). Although honestly, the cars aren't moving because there's too much traffic to go anywhere as box-blocking laws aren't enforced as it is in NYC.

> ... box-blocking laws aren't enforced as it is in NYC.

I'm from NYC and they're definitely not enforced. (Outside of rare exceptions?) They happen all the time. On the major street I live on (two lanes each way), they recently converted one lane each direction to "bus only". There's more cars than fit in one lane, and so there are /regularly/ cars blocking the box, and I've never seen any kind of enforcement, just awful effects to traffic. (Even as a pedestrian. It's hard to predict what the drivers of those cars are going to do, even if you have the signal and you're in the crosswalk.)

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#116

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

Shorel wrote: post #106

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 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". If we want to get philosophical, just the existence of a police force treats people as an antagonist, and interaction between people and the police makes it clear that respect and dignity are out of the question. Nothing is more authoritarian and ar…

> If we want to get philosophical, just the existence of a police force treats people as an antagonist

That seems specific to United States, or maybe even to United States' media coverage. Elsewhere, existence of police treats people as vulnerable and in need of protection from occasional dangers that pop up.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#117

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:36 PM UTC

dazc wrote: post #38

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…

I avoid pressing the button if there is a chance of crossing without having to delay traffic. The only reason being that, when driving, I wish people would do the same since I always seem to get held up by a red light when the person who pressed the button has long since gone.

I do this, if the crossing interrupted traffic immediately then it would be better (imo; I'm both a driver, pedestrian, and cyclist), but they often wait, which when it's raining ...

Some low-use crossings on busier roads (in UK) will interrupt immediately. Presumably they realise that delay causes pedestrians to choose crossing without the traffic signals assistance; and so signal controllers go for the safer option of immediately acting on pedestrian request.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#118

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:37 PM UTC

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…

There's a spectrum to "nudges". Some government nudging is actually morally justifiable, IMO. Things like making retirement saving opt-out instead of opt-in, or hiding information about a probable disaster to avoid panic[0]. Placebo buttons I find somewhere between justifiable cost saving (if buttons were working in the past, or could in the future) and being disrespectful to people. But in this case, and in almost all cases, you can avoid lying to people.

Beyond that, I strongly agree with your sentiment, and I frequently point out that if you were to apply standard marketing practice to your friends, you'd quickly get punched in the face - and justifiably so. To me, lying needs heavy justification - on the level of saving lives.

I like this quote: "Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act of sabotage. Don't do it to anyone unless you'd also slash their tires." [1]

--

[0] - E.g. evacuating a city of million+ will necessarily cause a lot of deaths and heavily disrupt regional economy, leading to further deaths and suffering. Therefore, it's IMO justified for the government to avoid triggering evacuations if the risk is low, even if that means sitting on some information.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20130728200940/http://www.accele..., via https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XTWkjCJScy2GFAgDt/dark-side-...

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#119

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

nikofeyn wrote: post #98

mactrey wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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?

These days, I think it would suffice for the local/national (depending on the scope) government to announce that pedestrian lights buttons are no longer working because $reasons. Rebroadcasted by media, it would reach many people, and anyone else would know where to look for answer, if they become interested in the question.

There's no real need to lie. It could be as simple as a tweet.

Re: The pros and cons of placebo buttons

#120

Post by tzs » Fri, Jan 25, 2019, 8:51 PM UTC

skaomatic wrote: post #22

This reminds me of an elevator's "Door Close" button. Manufacturers still include them for the peace of mind of passengers, despite computerized systems and many area laws (in the US, the ADA has language regarding door-open timespan for wheelchair access). EDIT: Thanks to a_c_s for pointing out that the button can work when the elevator is in emergency/service mode. More fun information on elevators, crosswalk and o…

Elevator "door close" buttons can fall into several categories.

1. They work as labeled, immediately closing the door.

2. They work, but only after door has been open longer than a threshold time, or only if the door open time has been extended using the "door open" button.

3. They work, but only when the elevator is in some special mode such as fire/emergency mode.

4. They are supposed to work, but broke. A broken "door close" button does not put the elevator out of service, and might not even be noticed at all (especially if it is a category #2 button) for a long time, and so a broken "door close" button can stay broken for a very long time.

5. They would work except they have been disabled by the owner, perhaps to comply with laws, or perhaps because there were too many assholes prematurely shutting doors.

6. They are placebos.