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Lumifer comments on [Stub] The problem with Chesterton's Fence - Less Wrong Discussion
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Comments (49)
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.