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More magical thinking.
Jan. 16th, 2011 04:13 amWell, not "magical". But it's related.
One of the more famous/infamous NRA slogans/bumper stickers gets ignored or made fun of because it's a truism that the other side just *can't* deal with mentally:
"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"
For some reason, these folks have trouble grasping the concept that "laws only stop the law-abiding from doing things".
*Punishments* dictated by laws will only stop folks who think they'll get caught (another major flaw in the thinking of many people who propose laws to "fix" things).
And even then, you have to really stop and consider mindsets.
Somebody who has decided that they need to kill a bunch of people (which pretty much carries life in prison or the death penalty, depending where you are) is *not* going to *care* that there are penalties for using a gun, having a gun in the area, etc. Ditto for laws about explosives.
But the "sheep" type people can't envision someone thinking that way. So they propose laws, mandatory sentences (which really, *really* mess up the court system) and so on. All because they fail to grasp the essential truth that the folks they want to stop *don't* think the way they do.
This is a major cause of social problems. And the closer to the "majority" view most people are, the more likely that they'll have trouble understanding that "everyone" *doesn't* think like they do.
Likewise, they'll have trouble understanding that thinking differently isn't wrong.
I've got another post somewhere about folks like that assuming that people who think differently *must* be deliberately trying to be obtuse or trying to be "evil".
Writing laws based on how fellow "do-gooders" would act when presented with them always fails. Prohibition is a great example.
To be obeyed, a law needs to make it easier/more beneficial for the person the follow the law. Or else the laws will get gamed to maximize the return for the person gaming. Usually with results that the writer of the law won;t like.
Classic example: smokestack emissions rules that specified the levels of pollutants at the base of the stack.
They results in really *high* stacks, to get the pollution away from the base. Also designs that encouraged the pollution to go higher and stay there for awhile. Which turned local problems into regional ones.
Contrast this with a water pollution law from on of the Scandanavian countries. It simply required that if you discharged waste into a stream (directly or indirectly) your water intake hand to be *downstream* of the discharge point.
Suddenly, you have something easy to check, easy to do, and that means folks suddenly have an incentive *they* will go for to lower the pollution level in the discharge.
One of the more famous/infamous NRA slogans/bumper stickers gets ignored or made fun of because it's a truism that the other side just *can't* deal with mentally:
"If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns"
For some reason, these folks have trouble grasping the concept that "laws only stop the law-abiding from doing things".
*Punishments* dictated by laws will only stop folks who think they'll get caught (another major flaw in the thinking of many people who propose laws to "fix" things).
And even then, you have to really stop and consider mindsets.
Somebody who has decided that they need to kill a bunch of people (which pretty much carries life in prison or the death penalty, depending where you are) is *not* going to *care* that there are penalties for using a gun, having a gun in the area, etc. Ditto for laws about explosives.
But the "sheep" type people can't envision someone thinking that way. So they propose laws, mandatory sentences (which really, *really* mess up the court system) and so on. All because they fail to grasp the essential truth that the folks they want to stop *don't* think the way they do.
This is a major cause of social problems. And the closer to the "majority" view most people are, the more likely that they'll have trouble understanding that "everyone" *doesn't* think like they do.
Likewise, they'll have trouble understanding that thinking differently isn't wrong.
I've got another post somewhere about folks like that assuming that people who think differently *must* be deliberately trying to be obtuse or trying to be "evil".
Writing laws based on how fellow "do-gooders" would act when presented with them always fails. Prohibition is a great example.
To be obeyed, a law needs to make it easier/more beneficial for the person the follow the law. Or else the laws will get gamed to maximize the return for the person gaming. Usually with results that the writer of the law won;t like.
Classic example: smokestack emissions rules that specified the levels of pollutants at the base of the stack.
They results in really *high* stacks, to get the pollution away from the base. Also designs that encouraged the pollution to go higher and stay there for awhile. Which turned local problems into regional ones.
Contrast this with a water pollution law from on of the Scandanavian countries. It simply required that if you discharged waste into a stream (directly or indirectly) your water intake hand to be *downstream* of the discharge point.
Suddenly, you have something easy to check, easy to do, and that means folks suddenly have an incentive *they* will go for to lower the pollution level in the discharge.
