[WikiEN-l] Earth Deletion Discussion

[Ray Saintonge]

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 7:27 AM, Ken Arromdee wrote:
>   
>> Doesn't work.  Any rule which says to use common sense will lose out 
>> against
>> a more conventional rule.  The reason is that rules really become necessary
>> when you need to force someone else to follow them.  If the rule gives a
>> specific, detailed, description of what is and isn't allowed, with no room
>> for human judgment, you can force someone else to follow it.  If the rule is
>> based on human judgment, you can't.
>>
>> "If everyone agrees, this is what you can do" always loses to "if everyone
>> doesn't agree, this is what you must do".  After all, having a dispute means
>> that not everyone agrees.
>>     
> Not quite. If someone disagrees with you, you can explain why they are
> wrong, and at the end of the argument, you can appeal to common sense.
> Sometimes, if that person steps back and considers things with that
> mention of common sense in mind, they will be persuaded.
>
> I see appeals to common sense as a way to jolt people out of
> rules-lawyering. But sometimes in a more successful way than saying
> something like "Ignore all rules".

Explaining why someone is wrong presupposes that he is in fact wrong, 
and that you are right.  More often than not he feels the same way from 
the opposite perspective, and we have a POV battle.

It is unfortunate that some people aren't smart enough to live without 
rules to the point that mere guidelines become inviolable rules.  This 
creates a culture of winners and losers.  Keeping rules to an absolute 
minimum promotes innovation, and establishes more fertile ground for new 
ways of doing things.  Most new ideas get nowhere for their own 
reasons.  It's important to allow them a natural death through disuse; 
killing off these humble ideas quickly just gives something for people 
to argue about.

Ec