Template:M intro design thin rules: Difference between revisions

Template:M intro design thin rules (view source)

Revision as of 02:58, 14 August 2023

5,143 bytes added , 14 August 2023

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

83,240

edits

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 In her illuminating book {{br|Rules: A Short History of What We Live By}} {{author|Lorraine Daston}} distinguishes between “[[thick rules]]” and “[[thin rules]]” as means of understanding the regularities of daily life.
-Thick rules are principles; [[heuristics]]; general statements that require interpretation and construal: judgment in light of prevailing circumstances. “Only cross a road when it is safe to do so, and would not unnecessarily impede traffic”. Rules of this kind depend on the intelligence, experience and trustworthiness of those applying them: users must have their own model of when, and what counts as “safe”.
+Thick rules are principles; [[heuristics]]; general statements that require interpretation and construal: judgment in light of prevailing circumstances. End-users must decide for themselves how to act. “Cross a road when it is safe to do so”. Rules of this kind depend on the intelligence, experience and trustworthiness of those they govern (both drivers and pedestrians): users must have their own model of when, and what counts as “safe”.
-Commerce is, in its raw state, a system of thick rules dependent on trust and good faith. “Credit” means, literally, “she believes”. Thick rules of this kind assign end-users with responsibility to determine how they act, and executive authority to act. They are correspondingly open to abuse by the unscrupulous: they imply a degree of interpersonal vulnerability. Trustworthiness — [[good egg]]ness — is an critical value in thick-ruled communities: without it, the thick rules will deteriorate. There is no mandated conduct in a given circumstance: the user retains discretion in how to act subject to evaluative boundaries which are somewhat open to conjecture: some how soft edged, with leaky boundaries. Thick rules are more flexible, tend to work better in uncertain circumstances
+A free market is a system of thick rules. It depends on participants’ trust and good faith. “[[I believe|Credit]]” means, literally, “she ''believes''”. There is no mandated conduct in a given circumstance, so markets imply a degree of interpersonal vulnerability, open as they are to abuse by the unscrupulous. Trustworthiness — [[good egg]]ness — is a critical value in thick-ruled communities: without it the thick rules, and quickly thereafter the community itself, will deteriorate.<ref>See [[Adam Curtis]]’ terrifying ''Traumazone'' for a vivid illustration of a society — Russia — that has lost all trust in its participants and institutions.</ref> This interpersonal vulnerability is a feature, and not a bug, in the system: there is a good argument that society itself depends on — or, really, ''is'' — a mutual framework of undischarged interpersonal debts.<ref>See {{author|David Graeber}}’s magnificent {{br|Debt: The First 5,000 Years}}.</ref> In any case, we have a series of soft-edged principles with leaky boundaries, and that we forebear from taking advantage of those weaknesses is what makes our polity [[Strength|strong]].
-create not just arbitrary obligations, loosely targeted at a principle, but arbitrary ''rights'' which people seek to ''enforce''. The arbitrary boundaries become a value, irrespective of the substance of the circumstances.
+Governments come and go in how far they trust their constituents to do the right thing. When it seemed like we were near [[The End of History and the Last Man|the end of history]], Reagan campaigned that “the Government is the problem”. The series of geopolitical events — 9/11, the [[global financial crisis]], [[Coronavirus|COVID]], the Russia/Ukraine conflict has persuaded regulators that society cannot be trusted to look after itself, and meanwhile the information revolution has vouchsafed tools and techniques increasingly permitting granular regulation, and we find ourselves in ''anno domini'' 2023 at the far end of the pendulum’s arc. Thick rules are in decline; wherever we look there are ''[[thin rules]]'' minutely prescribing behaviour and micromanaging risk.
-A [[thick rule]] is “only cross the road if it will not impede traffic and would be be safe to do so”. The thin rule would be, “do not cross unless there is a green man”.
+Thin rules are algorithms and not heuristics. They are specific and not general. They are deterministic and not aspirational. They take out doubt, remove uncertainty, and leave nothing to trust, judgment and interpersonal vulnerability.
+====The daycare experiment as an illustration of thin rules====
+Uri Gneezy’s famous daycare experiment points up the difference nicely. A daycare centre, frustrated that parents were arriving late to pick up their children, imposed a fine on parents arriving more than ten minutes late. Far from eradicating lateness, parents now felt there was a ''price'' to their lateness, which they were prepared on occasion to pay.<ref>''A Fine is a Price'',
+Uri Gneezy & Aldo Rustichini, Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1 (January 2000). Mentioned also in [[Dan Ariely]]’s {{br|Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions}}.</ref> Parental delinquency got ''worse'', not better.
+The daycare converted a ''thick'' rule into a ''thin'' one. The thin rule has the advantage of being ''clear'', but the disadvantage of no longer addressing the core moral principle: “the staff want to go home on time, so please pick up your children on time”. In its place is a derivative measure — a penalty — designed to ''incentivise'' parents not to be late. ''If you are more than ten minutes late you must pay 10 shekels per child''.
+But, being a simple trigger, the thin rule is a ''poor'' derivative of the complex sociological circumstances from which the underlying moral principle is constructed. The amount of the penalty and the point at which it applies are arbitrary. Neither has anything to do with the welfare of daycare centre staff: what difference is there whether parents are 14 or 16 minutes late? What difference is there whether the parent has one child or two? Is the penalty even passed to affected staff? If it is, does it fairly compensate each for her own specific, personal inconvenience?
+We can also see that as the thin rule imposes clear obligations upon parents, it also confers upon them clear ''rights''. Before it was introduced, the parents had an unconditional obligation to pick their children up on time, and ''no'' concomitant right to expect staff to wait for them should they be late. Staff would, of course, wait — crises happen, after all — and even though not compensated, parents would still incur some “social indebtedness” as a result which, in a strong community, would be subsequently reciprocated (a thank-you gift, a lift home, a return favour; some opportunity to help out later, and so on) and these undischarged informal mutual debts, for which there is no detailed accounting, themselves strengthen the community.<ref>[[Graeber]] is very good on this point too: the ''last'' thing a community wants is to finally settle all mutual indebtedness as it is the very thing that binds the community together. There is an argument that a community is little more than a group of individuals with inarticulable mutual debts.</ref>
+But as soon as it as a payable sum, there are now equivalent, equally arbitrary ''rights'' which parents may seek to ''enforce''. I have paid my 10 shekels, now you must stay for an hour: this is my entitlement. The arbitrary boundaries drawn by the thin rule become a quantifiable value, irrespective of the substance of the circumstances. We have created expectations where there are none.
+====Compliance culture====
+The same goes for our modern compliance culture. We replace “[[principles-based regulation]]” with detailed rules, hire a raft of outsourced drones to implement those regulations, and create careers for people whose job it is to enforce, analysing and defend and ensure compliance against formal rules. These compliance and audit staff need no grasp of the fundamental moral principles the rules they police are designed to deliver: they are complex sociological circumstances which require judgment and experience we should not expect compliance officers to have. and in any case the fundamental moral principals are beside the point. They are substituted by granular rules. The granular rules are all that matter: it is a distraction to understand the underlying principle. Where the two conflict it is a disadvantage. We see it again: the generational refrain: ''substance succumbs to form''.