Template:M intro design thin rules: Difference between revisions

← Older edit

Template:M intro design thin rules (view source)

Revision as of 19:14, 30 March 2024

1,235 bytes added , 30 March

no edit summary

Amwelladmin

Bureaucrats, Interface administrators, Administrators

82,897

edits

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 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.
+====Knowledge and skills====
+Interviewed on {{Plainlink|https://open.spotify.com/episode/64rvZ3oWqxxSUHmOdOkJT1|Matthew Taylor’s Forward Thinking podcast}}, Daston discusses the relationship of thick rules and thin rules to knowledge and skills, and it occurs that this discussion could be transplanted quite easily onto the agency problem, particularly as it relates to the practice of law.
+In essence thick rules require skills to apply them; thin rules demand only the knowledge required to ''obey'' them. The former invites some kind of dynamic interaction between human and environment; the latter is more a case of symbol processing.
+This is precisely what an expert agent wants: a customer to whom it can supply rules comma and which the customer need only the wear with all to be able to competently follow, and who is therefore obliged to return to the agent repeatedly for refreshers about different circumstances. The agency model is to give — well, ''sell'' — a man a fish rather offering to teach him to fish.
+But at least when it comes to business as usual activity, this kind of specialisation, in Robert Heinlein’s phrase, is for insects. We should aspire to ensure our subject matter experts have skill and not just knowledge when it comes to carrying out [[business as usual]]. Buy the fish, that is to say, only when a special banquet calls for caviar.
 ====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’s famous daycare experiment points up the difference nicely.<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.
+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>
+{{quote|
+A daycare centre, frustrated that parents were arriving late to pick up their children, imposed a fine on those arriving more than ten minutes late. Far from eradicating lateness, parental delinquency got ''worse'', not better. Parents now felt there was a ''price'' to their lateness, which they were prepared on occasion to pay.}}
-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''.
+The daycare unwittingly converted a ''thick'' rule into a ''thin'' one. The fine was a ''proxy'' for the essential moral principle designed to achieve an equivalent outcome in a measurable way, in the form of a penalty. It was nicely clear and measurable but, being a simple trigger, was still a ''poor'' derivative of the complex sociological circumstances from which the underlying moral principle was constructed.
-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?
+But the amount of the penalty and the point at which it applied were arbitrary. Neither had anything to do with the welfare of daycare centre staff: what difference was there whether parents were 14 (free) or 16 (charged) 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>
+At the same time the thin rule imposed obligations upon parents, it also conferred clear ''rights'' upon them. 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 not obliged to compensate the staff, 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.