It’s just a logic exercise that advicates forethought when enacting change. The bigger problem is people taking parables and thought experiments as gospel, faithfully adhering to the text without considering it’s intent.
I honestly don’t understand what’s insightful about it. It encourages a functional viewpoint that results in you inventing proposed uses for something that is a vestige of an inefficiency. Justifying something useless isn’t curiosity, it’s just masturbation. You should identify how a structure interacts with it’s current environment. There’s a reason functionalism is considered worthless in sociology.
I think the point is more that you should take care to consider why it was put there because it might be something that is not immediately obvious.
You should identify how a structure interacts with it’s current environment.
OK, but what if it was put there to stop something that only happens once every 10 years? Without taking the time to learn this, you might tear it down and then after a few years you’re scrambling to solve a problem that was already solved.
I agree with your broader point about linguistics, but Chesterton’s fence has never sat right with me. Consider the inverse:
This annoying and unnecessary fence is an inconvenience, but since nobody can remember what it’s for, we dare not remove it
Chesterton’s fence is a warning not to commit this logical error: I don’t know what this fence is for, therefore I know there is no reason for it.
It doesn’t say never to remove it. It means you should try and figure out why it’s there and ask around before removing it.
It’s just a logic exercise that advicates forethought when enacting change. The bigger problem is people taking parables and thought experiments as gospel, faithfully adhering to the text without considering it’s intent.
More people need to read Asimov’s Foundation
I honestly don’t understand what’s insightful about it. It encourages a functional viewpoint that results in you inventing proposed uses for something that is a vestige of an inefficiency. Justifying something useless isn’t curiosity, it’s just masturbation. You should identify how a structure interacts with it’s current environment. There’s a reason functionalism is considered worthless in sociology.
I think the point is more that you should take care to consider why it was put there because it might be something that is not immediately obvious.
OK, but what if it was put there to stop something that only happens once every 10 years? Without taking the time to learn this, you might tear it down and then after a few years you’re scrambling to solve a problem that was already solved.