Comments on: Rules as thinking substitutes http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2006/02/08/rules-as-thinking-substitutes/ Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:24:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Rules and people || March || 2006 http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2006/02/08/rules-as-thinking-substitutes/comment-page-1/#comment-1383 Eric Nehrlich, Unrepentant Generalist || Rules and people || March || 2006 Fri, 10 Mar 2006 02:04:45 +0000 http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/?p=454#comment-1383 [...] Rules as thinking substitutes [...] [...] Rules as thinking substitutes [...]

]]> By: Beemer http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/2006/02/08/rules-as-thinking-substitutes/comment-page-1/#comment-1124 Beemer Thu, 09 Feb 2006 07:08:45 +0000 http://www.nehrlich.com/blog/?p=454#comment-1124 One of the tricky aspects of this problem is that there are not just people who don't want to make judgements, but people who are incapable of making good judgements. I'd go so far as to say that EVERYONE has arenas where that's true. Nevertheless, people sometimes still need to make decisions in those arenas. So we need ways to cope. Rules are one way. Delegating judgement to an expert is another (and I think that rules are generally delegation at one remove -- I trust X's judgement in this matter, so I'll follow the rule he gave me). The problem you're describing arises (and I'm just paraphrasing what you've already said) when people don't see that rules are just a heavily context-bound approximation of judgement. It seems like it might help if we had better social tech for recognizing when someone is operating with high-quality judgement instead of rules or low-quality judgement. (And for being able to recognize it reliably in ourselves.) It would be like being able to call up the customer service hotline and have the magic phrase to say "yes, I do know what I'm doing, and I already tried the obvious stuff, so we're going to go off-script right away and I'd like you to escalate me to a live technician please" and have them listen to you. But in whatever arena of life it is under discussion. And to be able to know, reliably, how you compared to the average caller's competence level so you knew whether or not to use the magic phrase... One of the tricky aspects of this problem is that there are not just people who don’t want to make judgements, but people who are incapable of making good judgements. I’d go so far as to say that EVERYONE has arenas where that’s true. Nevertheless, people sometimes still need to make decisions in those arenas.

So we need ways to cope. Rules are one way. Delegating judgement to an expert is another (and I think that rules are generally delegation at one remove — I trust X’s judgement in this matter, so I’ll follow the rule he gave me).

The problem you’re describing arises (and I’m just paraphrasing what you’ve already said) when people don’t see that rules are just a heavily context-bound approximation of judgement.

It seems like it might help if we had better social tech for recognizing when someone is operating with high-quality judgement instead of rules or low-quality judgement. (And for being able to recognize it reliably in ourselves.) It would be like being able to call up the customer service hotline and have the magic phrase to say “yes, I do know what I’m doing, and I already tried the obvious stuff, so we’re going to go off-script right away and I’d like you to escalate me to a live technician please” and have them listen to you. But in whatever arena of life it is under discussion. And to be able to know, reliably, how you compared to the average caller’s competence level so you knew whether or not to use the magic phrase…

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