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The rule says, “No vehicles in the park”

novehiclesinthepark.com

361–370 of 1001 posts

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

#362
post #68
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, by your wide standard, any footwear would also be considered a vehicle.

That would depend on your definition of "carry." I personally wouldn't say that shoes "carry" people any more than floors do (which is to say, they don't).

Just to pick the nit, what about stilts? Are they shoes or vehicles?

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

#363

I think the police and ambulance examples are interesting. To me, they're clear and blatant violations of the rule. To be sure, I certainly think it's ok that they broke the rule, but they still broke the rule. Yet some (45% of respondents) clearly think the rule wouldn't apply to them in the first place?

I agree with you, but also the first time I did it I started answering in a different way, before realizing I should change my interpretation.

I started answering by interpreting the choice as "is this allowed in the park", not "does this violate the rule".

I'm not sure if this page makes its point better or worse if you know what it's testing. It's interesting though how explicit you have to be if you want people to not add any additional context. But also, so much of the questions rely on context. So it feels like an unfair test, but it's hard to say exactly why.

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

#364
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The instructions for the exercise tell you straight up to ignore any and all exceptions, yet 30% of people chose to apply their own judgment in the police and ambulance case because it felt right to them. Very telling.

If you believe that the spirit of rules is more important than the text, then those people were obeying the spirit of the rule to not include exceptions, not the text.

Those people failed to follow the spirit of the quiz.

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

#365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It’s funny, I first thought the game was going to be a commentary on the “no mechanical transport in the wilderness” rule that he mentioned at the end. You cannot have a bicycle in the wilderness. You can’t push it or carry it. I guess this simplifies enforcement. If someone is camped with a bike, they can be ticketed.

I have friends that do long bike camping trips, and they sometimes want to pass through areas of wilderness on their trips. What do they do? They take apart the bike and pack it, because you are allowed to have bike parts in the wilderness.

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

#366
post #72
post #23

What this highlights is that online we have lost - or at least eroded - social norms. If I see a sign that says "no vehicles allowed", it's obvious they don't mean wagons and strollers. In almost all cases the police and the public are 99% in sync. Online, though, the moderators are forced to do a careful study of every action and become asinine literalists lest a horde of boundary-pushers ruin it for everyone.

Social norms are quite culture-specific. Online people from all countries and cultures interact, and that's where some misunderstandings come from. It's not a big problem if everyone is civil and existing moderation mechanisms aren't overwhelmed; people quickly learn from online faux pas and the online social norm is restored.

> Social norms are quite culture-specific.

This is an argument against migration then.

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

#367
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.

You seriously don't think some clarity could have helped? Like, if the law explicitly said strollers are okay and that bicycles are [not] okay, you think the quiz wouldn't have more consistent answers?

Or maybe the rule was only supposed to be for things with motors/engines and after clarifying instantly 2/3 of the questions are an easy objective "allowed".

You can't fix subjectivity, but you can reduce it, and this quiz is based on super low hanging fruit.

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

#368

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.

There should be a question then, "4 people carry a small car into the park"

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

#370
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…

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