Pretty Much All Rules Have a Shelf Life
Rules make life much easier and simpler! Because of them, we don't have to rethink things through every time. Instead, we can solve the riddle once, create rules that embody the solution, and go on from there.
As a society, rules enable us to do a lot of things together that we couldn't otherwise do by ourselves, such as keep food and drink on the table daily, put shelter over our heads, clothing on our backs, transportation to get places, and communication to talk to people instantly, even on the other side of the world. Rules help us to play in the sandbox nicely together.
I notice while working with technology that basically we're always coding rules to create solutions. Even artificial intelligence creates and follows rules based on mission. But with those rules come a shelf life. Some rules in society or in nature have a shelf life of hundreds, thousands, or even millions of years. Other rules, such as rules needed to transition from one computer system to another only last a few months. I imagine, with a little thought, I could even find examples of rules that last less than a day, such as rules for ad hoc games kids make up on a playground or a brief test of a new concept at work.
Basically, the purpose of proper government is to establish rules that will help make things happen. We have political government, government in business, government in family, and even government in our personal lives. Government is the rule-making component of any entity.
We like government when it supports our lifestyle and perspectives. It supplies rules to help facilitate mutual efforts among ourselves to make life better for all of us.
We gripe, though, when the shelf life of those rules move past their usefulness and the rules we once relied on get in our way. (When we move from a manual transmission in the car to an automatic transmission, the rules for the clutch pedal no longer apply since it no longer exists. A government rule saying we must keep the clutch pedal for rule's sake makes no sense, except, perhaps, for the clutch pedal manufacturer and its workers. We also gripe when rules become overly complicated or when new rules come along that might make sense for someone else but make absolutely no sense for us.
As a side note, our tendency is to think the entire world lives like we do when it doesn't. But because we think that, our tendency is to push for laws with rules that make sense for us in our world, but makes little sense for them. Yet, because we assume they live like we do, we think our rules should apply to them. Bills of lading and loading goods in a semi-truck make sense for a shipping company, but they make little sense when my neighbor wants to borrow an egg. Rules that make sense in a drought-stricken area may make no sense in an area with an overabundance of water and a lot of floods. Rules in a sparsely populated area will differ from a densely populated area.
Many rules will work wonders until new, revolutionary discoveries or developments make them obsolete.
Discoveries or inventions can set the shelf life of rules. Examples of rule-changing and behavior-changing inventions include the invention of the wheel (the pyramid builders in Egypt didn't have wheels), the printing press, the car, the telephone, the computer, windmills, watermills, fossil fuels, solar power, or even developments such as calculus in mathematics, discoveries in quantum mechanics, or writing based on phonetics (sounds) rather than pictographs (pictures).
Developments can dictate the shelf life of rules, such as developments from delivering a personal message to the use of professional couriers to the creation of the post office to the invention of the telegraph and the telephone to the development of the Internet. Rules change as the environment changes. When the printing press came about, elaborate new, formal rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation developed to make communication much easier for the reader. The fresh developments dictated new rules. But now, because of speed, expediency, and the device being used, the shelf life of some of those rules, as helpful as they were, are going by the wayside. Now, we reduce words in written communication to single letters many times. That used to not be acceptable. But the desire to speed up communications can turn what used to not be acceptable (the old rule) into an imperative (the new rule). Old folks might gripe, but that's the way it is. The environment forces the new rules. The old ones die with their shelf life.
Organizational changes can dictate the shelf life of rules. Different rules apply to different organizational structures such as:
- Hierarchical structure: In top-down structures of hierarchies, rules, or orders, get passed down from on high.
- Flat structure: Flat structures are networks where in a sense each person is his or her own business and works among other businesses as equals. Each person, or business, is a node in the network system. Rules are applied across nodes (from "equal" person to "equal" person or "equal" computer to "equal" computer). Events drive the activities and directions rather than the command-and-control system. Nobody is "at the top." Instead, it's a network working together to accomplish a number of different things.
- Linear structure: Linear structures are more like a river or a stream. They're similar to the flat structure, but activities are in one direction. People will respond to what's sent to them from upstream, do whatever they need to do, then pass them downstream to the next person. Nobody instructs them on what to do. Instead, they respond according to what's needed. The people, in this sense, are nodes in the system. Processing is done from node to node until the entire process is complete, but there's nobody "at the top" dictating. Rather than a person being the boss, the process itself is the boss.
Decision methods can dictate the shelf life of rules. Examples of decision-making methods include:
- Rules an individual inventor develops.
- Rules created by democratic vote.
- Rules created by the head of a hierarchical structure.
- Rules created by a committee within a hierarchical structure.
- Rules created through a bargaining process between a corporation and a union.
When a different decision-making process becomes needed because of changes in size, tastes, or environment, then rules have to change so they conform to the new decision-making environement. The shelf-life has come to an end for the rules related to the old decision-making process. The shelf-life for rules belonging to the new process has begun.
Even rules for social norms have shelf lives. At times, the changes come from a sense of fashion, a sense of liking new looks and new environments. Thus, we like changes enjoyable to us that are brought on by changes in fashion, music, interior design, entertainment, or even changes in ways to help others. At other times, changes to social rules are forced on us, many times not because of some devious organization lurking behind the scenes (although this does happen occasionally), but because of the cumulative effect of all the recent discoveries and changes require new social norms of activity. (New social norms can also be brought on by limitations, such as growing lack of water, food, housing, or other things.)
This doesn't mean all rule changes are good or necessary. At times, rules that should have been kept available on the shelf have been forced off the shelf because of society's poor judgment. Some rules are universally fantastic and have enabled many people to pursue dreams or to meet the needs of others. Other social changes, or rules of society. are terrible, such as when tyrants force misery and pain where freedom would have fixed things rather than bring on the tyrant's destruction.
The tyrant isn't the only thing forcing bad rules. Social attitudes, believed by many to be good, can cause severe damage for everyone. On the other hand, social attitudes, believed by many to be bad, can be what's needed to free people up for good things. Rules stemming from prevailing social attitudes can be good or bad. And because of this, within healthy relationships, we will at times argue and disagree fervently. We each fear that the other side's rules will bring harm not only to us, but to others, and at times all of society. We could be right. We could be wrong We also believe that our side's rules will bring freedom, health, and fulfillment. Again, we could be right. We could be wrong. Part of right and wrong can be predicted. Usually, though, there's a lot that can't be predicted. So either side could be right or wrong depending on how the unpredictable events play out.
Conclusion? Good rules are necessary for both the individual and for society. They enable society. But bad rules will bring harm. Rules have a shelf life. Most rules probably will become obsolete at some point. For some rules, though, the end of the shelf life is so far out there that as far as we're concerned, they're permanent. Writing laws to create good rules is tough because there's so much to consider and because there are so many unknowns. At large scales, we need a lot of debate to uncover as many pitfalls and opportunities as possible to make good decisions and good rules. We need to avoid becoming emotionally drawn into these debates since through our emotions the fight or flight instinct kicks in before we have the amount of information we need. We need to build on each other to develop good rules rather than harmful rules. Even then, good rules eventually can become harmful if clung to past their shelf life. But good rules are necessary and beneficial.