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TheMajor comments on [Stub] The problem with Chesterton's Fence - Less Wrong
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Comments (49)
How very deep. But if I'm not mistaken the original argument around Chesterton's fence is that somebody had gone through great efforts to put a fence somewhere, and presumably would not have wasted that time if it would be useless anyway. In your example, "the common practice of taking down Chesterton fences", this is not the case. The general principle is to not undo that which others have worked hard for to create, unless you are certain that it is useless/counterproductive. Nobody worked hard on making sure people could remove fences without understanding them (or at the very least I'm willing to claim that this is counterproductive), so this principle is not protected.
This seems false to me. I agree with Stuart's opening suggestion that democracy, free markets, and the Enlightenment more generally are in part designed to make it easy to dismantle historical patterns (e.g. religion, guilds, aristocracy, traditions; one can see this discussion explicitly in e.g. Adam Smith, Locke, Toqueville, Bacon). Bostrom's "status quo bias" also comes to mind.
Every time I read about Chesterton's fence, it seems like the implication is:
I think that's a terrible statement.
That's not the Chesterton's fence at all.
In plain words, the Chesterton's fence says that if you want to remove something because you don't understand why it's there, you should first find out why is it there.
That, as you notice, has nothing to do with "worked hard" or "took a long time".
My response was to this statement—specifically, toward the assumption that, since someone has gone through great efforts to put a fence somewhere, it's ok to assume said fence isn't useless. I'm not seeing where my comment is inconsistent with what it's responding to (that is, I'm seeing "gone through great efforts" as synonymous with "worked hard.")
I was about to say that every time I've read of Chesterton's Fence, it seems silly, but then I decided to read Wikipedia's take on it (I do love me some Wikipedia), and came across this:
This, to me, seems like an obvious good idea—and it also seems independent of what TheMajor was saying. My initial qualm came from the claim of why something might have unknown use (i.e. - someone "presumably would not have wasted that time if it would be useless anyway"). I don't believe this to be true, or a good thing to assume, anymore than assuming something that didn't take a large amount of effort is useless.
On the other hand, "Find out why something is in place before commenting on it, regardless of how much effort was put into it" seems much more reasonable.
[IGNORE THE ABOVE COMMENT (I don't know how to strikeout)]
Lumifer, I've interpreted your comment within the context of your implying TheMajor's statement is correct. When I think about it more, I don't think that's what you intended—and, in fact, probably intended the opposite.
Am I correct?
If that is the case, then it is applicable even less often than it is applied, since it tends to be applied in cases where the removers have reasons that go far beyond "not knowing it is there". Invariably, they want something removed because they don't like its consequences.
Your statement doesn't look falsifiable.
Maybe not, in the sense that most politically charged claims aren't falsifiable.
Now that doesn't look true to me. What may be true is that many of them are not concerned with the truth of the claim, but that's not quite the same thing.
The idea has been extended to cases where no-one can articulate a good reason for the fence ( https://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2015/09/06/mistakes-3-breaking-chestertons-fence-in-the-presence-of-bull/ ), which is a more powerful argument.
Which is not the same as nobody having put great effort into placing the fence.
You mean that no one has gone through great efforts to remove the existing Chesterton fences? Seems false.
Nobody has gone through great effort to create a Chesteron-fence-demolishing-machine.
Those are usually called "revolutions".