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Could we live in a world without rules?
A life without rules
Imagine living in a world without rules.
- Language follows rules. Breaking away from the rules of language makes us incoherent.
- Consider the rules of sport or games, the rules of chess or football. Without the rules, chess wouldn't be chess. A game without rules is no game at all.
- Daily norms tell us what we can and can't do and make our social interactions run smoothly.
- Rules about driving on the left or the right, not littering, queueing are the building blocks of a harmonious society.
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Key Ideas
Rules
We all feel the oppressive presence of rules. We think rules are hampering our freedom and argue that they should be broken.
It is not really the rules that are the problem, but the unjustified ones.
A life without rules
Imagine living in a world without rules.
- Language follows rules. Breaking away from the rules of language makes us incoherent.
- Consider the rules of sport or games, the rules of chess or football. Without the rules, chess wouldn't be chess. A game without rules is no game at all.
- Daily norms tell us what we can and can't do and make our social interactions run smoothly.
- Rules about driving on the left or the right, not littering, queueing are the building blocks of a harmonious society.
Anarchy
Some people would prefer a society without government, where individual freedom comes first.
However, a world that promotes anarchy is inherently unstable. Humans continually make new rules to govern and do so as quickly as old rules are overturned.
Spontaneous rule construction
Rules aren't just invented by rulers and imposed from the top down. They often arise from the needs of mutually agreeable social and economic interactions.
When people collectively have to manage resources such as common land or water, people jointly construct rules to govern the resources.
Arbitrary rules
If each of us had to justify each rule from scratch, we would grind to a halt. Because of rules, we are able to learn hugely complex systems of language and social norms without spending too much time.
However, rules can develop their own momentum. People can become so passionate about arbitrary rules like dress code or dietary restrictions that they may impost extreme punishments to maintain them.
Rule-creep
Some rules keep being added and extended so that our individual liberty is increasingly reduced. Regulations on drug discovery can be so onerous that a potentially valuable medicine is rejected.
It is best to always know why you are following a rule.
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Boundary rules for better decisions
They guide the choice of what to do (and not do) without requiring a lot of time, analysis, or information.
They work well for categorical choices, like a judge’s yes-or-no decision on a defendant’s bail, and decisions requiring many potential opportunities to be screened quickly.
These rules also come in handy when time, convenience, and cost matter.
Prioritizing rules for better decisions
They rank options to help decide which of multiple paths to pursue.
They are especially powerful when applied to bottleneck activities - pinch-points in companies, where the number of opportunities swamps available resources, and prioritizing rules can ensure that these resources are deployed where they can have the greatest impact.
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