
The pros and cons of placebo buttons - atlasunshrugged
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/01/26/the-pros-and-cons-of-placebo-buttons
======
_bxg1
This makes me so annoyed. I much prefer ones without buttons because I don't
have to mess with it; when there is a button, I assume I have to go over and
press it, but it sounds like in some cases I don't (for a while now I've
suspected them to be pointless). But there's no way to tell the difference so
I still have to everywhere.

~~~
zimablue
This whole piece, and to be honest most of the comments here come from such a
dark, authoritarian, arrogant perspective.

"lying to the plebs modifies their behavior very slightly in a good way or is
it in a bad way?"

It's irrelevant, treat your fellow humans with some modicum of respect and
dignity. Terry Pratchett's first rule of morality "don't treat people as if
they're objects".

Anyone caught casually deceiving people for some tiny perceived benefit to
either themselves or the people deserves a severe lesson in how "irrationally"
angry people get when they're lied to.

You can save this page and the comments as an example to future generations of
how the elites of this century had become morally bankrupt.

~~~
TeMPOraL
There's a spectrum to "nudges". Some government nudging is actually morally
justifiable, IMO. Things like making retirement saving opt-out instead of opt-
in, or hiding information about a probable disaster to avoid panic[0]. Placebo
buttons I find somewhere between justifiable cost saving (if buttons were
working in the past, or could in the future) and being disrespectful to
people. But in this case, and in almost all cases, you can avoid _lying_ to
people.

Beyond that, I strongly agree with your sentiment, and I frequently point out
that if you were to apply standard marketing practice to your friends, you'd
quickly get punched in the face - and justifiably so. To me, lying needs
_heavy_ justification - on the level of saving lives.

I like this quote: "Promoting less than maximally accurate beliefs is an act
of sabotage. Don't do it to anyone unless you'd also slash their tires." [1]

\--

[0] - E.g. evacuating a city of million+ will necessarily cause a lot of
deaths _and_ heavily disrupt regional economy, leading to further deaths and
suffering. Therefore, it's IMO justified for the government to avoid
triggering evacuations if the risk is low, even if that means sitting on some
information.

[1] -
[https://web.archive.org/web/20130728200940/http://www.accele...](https://web.archive.org/web/20130728200940/http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/steven/?p=124),
via [https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XTWkjCJScy2GFAgDt/dark-
side-...](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/XTWkjCJScy2GFAgDt/dark-side-
epistemology)

~~~
kbenson
> To me, lying needs heavy justification - on the level of saving lives.

Agreed, and in case someone is looking for scientific justification, you can
just look at it as specialized market economy (as quite a lot of things can
be). Lying in this case reducing market information, which reduces efficiency.
In this case, that translated into you wasting a small amount time and effort
pushing a fake button. But multiply it across all the times you do it, and all
the people that do it, and it's actually a fairly large drain overall (not to
mention the frustration of expecting your actions to matter and them never
seeming to).

I think the common refrain against this is that people don't act rationally or
in the best interest of the whole in these cases, but I think that's more
often just another case of poor market information leading to inefficiency,
even if the source is different. The problem with manipulating the market by
reducing information even more (deceiving people) is that if it works it
likely only works while existing conditions persist, and may become much less
useful later as conditions change. I.e. if people were crossing before the
button was pressed and the placebo button helped, what happens when crosswalk
sings start showing countdowns and people then become accustomed to noting
that and waiting for them regardless if there's a button or not? Better
information has make the system more efficient... except for those that still
waste their time with the buttons that don't do anything, and now the prior
strategy to manipulate people is making the system _less_ efficient than if it
wasn't present.

Which is all just a really drawn out way of saying and showing that treating
people with respect and giving them as much information as possible (and
definitely not giving them false information) should lead to better outcomes
overall.

------
jkingsbery
I work in New York, but I go to Seattle periodically because that's where my
company's headquarters is. How people treat the buttons is wildly different
between those two cities. I hardly ever see anyone press the cross button in
NY, since the convention is to wait for there to be no cars and then cross
(and not bother with the button). In Seattle, I've seen people wait patiently
at a cross walk even though there's no cars anywhere in sight.

I would imagine rather than a placebo effect, it's more of a self-selection
phenomenon - rather than pressing a button making people more patient, the
people who are more likely to follow "the rules" are more likely to press the
button. And even if there is hypothetically a placebo effect, the result would
be irrelevant if almost no one presses the button.

~~~
Balero
I believe jaywalking is illegal, and enforced in Seattle.

When I'm in the UK I will normally not press the pedestrian button (unless its
the type of pedestrian only crossing which only activate with the button, not
on traffic lights on a junction) . But when I'm in the US, or a different
country with jaywalking laws, I will stick to the rules much more rigidly.

I also really enjoy the first time crossing a road when I get back, the taste
of freedom!

~~~
s1mon
Jaywalking is illegal pretty much everywhere in the US, but enforcement is
very selective and regional.

~~~
Steltek
Jaywalking is a $1 ticket in Massachusetts. I believe it's there simply to
assign fault in a crash.

~~~
pc86
A crash involving whom? I'd be shocked if a driver can hit a jaywalking
pedestrian and not be at fault.

~~~
cannonedhamster
Massachusetts pedestrians are only guaranteed right of way in marked
crosswalks that do not have a signal. When there is a signal the light denotes
right of way.

[https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Ch...](https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXIV/Chapter89/Section11)

------
weavie
For my daughter quite often the highlight of our walk to the shops is that she
gets to push the button at the traffic lights. Whether they do anything or
not, she just loves pushing buttons.

~~~
markwillis82
My 3 little ones have to take turns pressing the button, otherwise it gets
messy... by the time they have all pressed the button it's time to cross

------
JansjoFromIkea
I notice a lot in London that there are a bunch of pedestrian lights in areas
witha steady flow of traffic that will only work if the button has been
pressed, yet every single day I see people, often the same people, stand there
until someone else presses the button.

Part of me wonders if there's almost an aspect of not wanting to cause offense
involved. If you're the person who presses the button, you're responsible for
the ire of whatever drivers you delay, so you'll either wait for an gap to run
across the road or someone else'll press the button and absolve you.

~~~
oarsinsync
Not a Londoner, but I have zero regard for the interests and sensibilities of
drivers. As a pedestrian, cyclist and driver, I feel safe in saying that the
worst road users generally are (in order) drivers, cyclists and pedestrians.

Amusingly, that also goes in the same order of 'who is more likely to kill you
if they run into you', which may play a part.

Eitherway, I always press the button. It doesn't matter if it's rush hour,
middle of the day, or middle of the night.

My safety is more important than saving a driver a minute on their journey.

~~~
rootusrootus
When I'm driving, it's the pedestrians that are idiots. When I'm walking, it's
the drivers. Something I've always noted with amusement, how quickly the
perspective changes. Like going through a Costco parking lot to find a spot,
then parking and walking into the store.

------
GeordiePowers
In Toronto, most of the buttons have long done nothing to control the light
cycle, and only trigger the audio crossing indicator. Lately they've been
replacing the signs signs on these, with each now saying "Button for audible
signal only". Good way to re-purpose the existing hardware.

See here for a comparison of old vs. new
[https://i.imgur.com/a0FXI5c.png](https://i.imgur.com/a0FXI5c.png)

~~~
mikepurvis
In Kitchener (just west of Toronto), we have a bunch of intersections where
there are two possible changes. For a car-triggered change (from the inductive
loop in the pavement), the light just changes for a few seconds, to get the
car through. If you push the beg button, you get the pedestrian change, where
there's a momentary walk signal followed by a countdown.

I get why this exists in terms of not having cars on the busy street waiting
for a countdown when there's no actual person there, but I find it very
frustrating that there's basically zero chance that I will just "get a green"
crossing the busy street, since it's such a narrow window now. And because I
can't trigger the road sensor with my bicycle, it also means I have to ride up
on the sidewalk to get to the button.

I would really rather it was just a timer.

~~~
goodcanadian
Interesting about the road sensor. In Vancouver (years ago, admittedly), I had
no problem triggering the road sensor with my bike.

~~~
mikepurvis
Interesting! I've never had success triggering them, though that's not
surprising given I'm on an aluminum and carbon frame.

There was actually a kickstarter a few years ago to build a magnetic loop you
could put on your bike to trigger the sensor via a button press, but
unfortunately it didn't meet its funding target and seems to have gone
underground: [https://www.veloloop.com/faq/](https://www.veloloop.com/faq/)

~~~
toast0
If you've got metal rims, and the loops are reasonably tuned, you should be
able to trigger them if you're well positioned. Apparently, adding a copper
wire loop under your rim tape will work for carbon fiber rims as well.

There's some pretty good information here:
[https://www.bikewalknc.org/bicycle-detection-at-traffic-
sign...](https://www.bikewalknc.org/bicycle-detection-at-traffic-signals/)

But I've been lucky enough to have California government on my side, I guess.

------
r_klancer
Worse yet, at least in Somerville and the general Boston area, I'm seeing
touch-sensitive buttons instead of physical buttons that depress--with no
haptic feedback; and only some of them play a recorded "Wait" when you press.

I'm gradually training myself not to jam my finger painfully against them to
be "sure" I pressed.

If it turns out they're also placebos, I think I'm just going to give one a
good kick next time I go by...

~~~
laken
Those aren't placebo buttons, rather for the hard of sight. The audible "Wait"
is to tell to not cross yet, and it will then tick when it's safe to cross,
and increasingly tick faster the time lowers.

~~~
cimmanom
Which doesn't explain the ones with neither haptic nor audible feedback.

------
Konnstann
I'm fairly certain most, if not all, the lights in my area are automatic,
however pressing the button rapidly causes the "wait" message to repeat as
fast as you press it, which is a good way to pass the time while waiting.

More on topic, I wonder if people who jaywalk don't press buttons, or people
who press buttons don't jaywalk? Seems like people who are already not going
to jaywalk are more predisposed to button presses, but will not cross against
the light even if they don't press the button.

~~~
notatcomputer68
I'll press if I think I can't jaywalk in a reasonable timeframe. If I can then
no sense holding up traffic.

------
it
"people more readily obey a system which purports to heed their input". Sounds
like democracy.

~~~
winrid
Care to clarify your point?

~~~
it
In a country with millions of voters, a single vote isn't likely to be what
decides who gets elected. In the limit of infinite voters, casting a vote is a
lot like pressing a placebo button. It's not directly useful for the voter,
but it makes the voter more likely to accept the outcome.

~~~
AgentME
>In a country with millions of voters, a single vote isn't likely to be what
decides who gets elected.

Forget worrying about single votes: even having most of the votes isn't
necessarily enough to influence things! (Referring to the 2000 and 2016
presidential elections, and to the concept of gerrymandering.)

------
edoo
If people's behavior can be modified simply by giving them the perception of
their input mattering then I would expect the coming AI interfaces/assistants
and goal oriented concierge services to pick up on this and leverage it, which
could get pretty creepy depending on the goals involved. Advertisement
disguised as meaningful interaction.

------
carbocation
I feel like there is a bit of ethical hysteresis here.

If you have buttons that are designed to be placebo from the start, I find
that unethical.

If you have buttons that work, but have to be disabled due to a change in
plans, that strikes me as less problematic (but they should still eventually
be removed).

So, how you get there matters.

~~~
fredley
Eh. I think although it's a 'dark pattern', it's one with measured effects on
behaviour that result in less people crossing against the light, which (I
would assume) correlates with less accidents. I think calling it unethical is
a bit much.

~~~
snarf21
I'm sure I'm in the minority but I don't even think it is that. If the button
at each intersection prevents one accident (hospital or even death) then it is
worth it. So people got tricked to be safer? Oh, the humanity. People who are
going to cross anyway still will.

~~~
zimablue
It's immoral because you don't have the right to deceive and make decisions
for other people.

Let's take the example further and see if you can find a point where it starts
to be obviously unethical, then work your way backwards on the principle
discovered.

How about we lie to you about the contents of your food, in some way that
manipulates you to be healthier?

Still OK with that, why don't we tell you that something is vegetarian if you
can never tell the difference, by your utilitarian metric you've increased my
happiness, I got to enjoy some delicious meal.

If I find out you have one day left to live and that day will be happier not
knowing that fact, do I have the right to lie to you about it? The utilitarian
benefit calculation goes up so case closed right?

If someone if a devout Jehovah's witness, give them a blood transplant and
deny that it ever happened, do you have the right to do that?

Not everyone is on the same utilitarian value curve as you and you don't have
the right to mess with and deceive them because you think you're smarter than
they are. Some (most) people value truth, dignity or reality in their utility
function, and you might not even be smarter than all of them.

~~~
snarf21
I'm sorry but I don't buy the slippery slope argument here. No one is saying
that the ends justify the means. Is adding a stop sign to a random
intersection any different? Who decided that people should stop there? In
small towns, a lot of times it is because an elderly person went to the
township meeting every week for years complaining so they gave up and added
one, not because there is any inherent safety issue.

Governments and corporations literally lie to us every day. Not causing a
light to change three seconds earlier (because it _will_ still change) doesn't
violate anyone's civil liberties or religion or cause their death. Governments
do manipulate things already to make people healthier and safer. Soda taxes,
seat belts, food pyramids (bought by the FDA) are all examples.

In this case, most municipalities have laws against jay walking. One could
argue this is just an enforcement of that law.

------
skaomatic
This reminds me of an elevator's "Door Close" button. Manufacturers still
include them for the peace of mind of passengers, despite computerized systems
and many area laws (in the US, the ADA has language regarding door-open
timespan for wheelchair access).

EDIT: Thanks to a_c_s for pointing out that the button can work when the
elevator is in emergency/service mode. More fun information on elevators,
crosswalk and other buttons can be found here:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/placebo-buttons-
elevat...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/placebo-buttons-elevators-
crosswalks.html)

~~~
majewsky
In my office (in Germany), when the elevator door opens and I hold the "close
door" button, it _immediately_ starts closing as soon as it's finished
opening. So at least that one is definitely not a placebo.

~~~
CM30
Same here in the UK. Both the close and open buttons work immediately after
being pressed in my office, so they're clearly not placebos.

------
NPMaxwell
Pros: You save money & reduce jaywalking. Cons: you spread germs and further
erode trust and respect for government. The saved money and jaywalking
compliance are Pyrrhic victories as citizens sass officers and vote for tax-
cutting politicians.

~~~
grkvlt
> you spread germs

Really? I don't think there would be _any_ change or effect regarding microbes
passed around the population if pedestrian crossing buttons did not exist.
They just aren't a disease vector, or at the most optimistic are down in the
statistical noise at a one in millions chance of having an effect.

~~~
NPMaxwell
Yeah. Given that coffee pots are the most virulent vector in the workplace, it
seems unlikely that a button everyone presses with their fingers is not an
important vector as well. The issue is getting germs on your fingertips, and
then wiping your eyes or nose with those fingers.

If pump handles are a problem, I bet traffic buttons are as well.

~~~
grkvlt
Interesting, did not know about coffee pots. However for pump handles the
contact area and time in contact is _much_ greater than a single touch of one
fingertip, plus the fact that it is much more likely for the hand on the pump
to then immediately be in contact with drinking utensils or even wiping the
mouth etc. So I still think crossing buttons are not a plausible vector. Be
happy to read any sources that contradict this though...

~~~
NPMaxwell
Just a quick and dirty literature search on pubmed:

When you have a cold or flu and wipe your nose, pressing a light switch
transfers active viruses to the switch. (J Med Virol. 2007 Oct;79(10):1606-10.
Environmental contamination with rhinovirus and transfer to fingers of healthy
individuals by daily life activity. Winther B1, McCue K, Ashe K, Rubino JR,
Hendley JO.)

Flu and cold viruses found on handrails, TSA luggage trays, & buttons of
airport payment machines (BMC Infect Dis. 2018 Aug 29;18(1):437. doi:
10.1186/s12879-018-3150-5. Deposition of respiratory virus pathogens on
frequently touched surfaces at airports. Ikonen N1, Savolainen-Kopra C2,
Enstone JE3, Kulmala I4, Pasanen P5, Salmela A5, Salo S4, Nguyen-Van-Tam JS3,
Ruutu P2; PANDHUB consortium.

Viruses contaminating touched surfaces last for about 7 days, maybe more. (Am
J Infect Control. 2018 Jan;46(1):105-107. doi: 10.1016/j.ajic.2017.07.014.
Epub 2017 Oct 12. Isolation and identification of human coronavirus 229E from
frequently touched environmental surfaces of a university classroom that is
cleaned daily. Bonny TS1, Yezli S2, Lednicky JA3.

Viruses on contaminated surfaces last longer outdoors in sub-zero temperatures
than in heated indoor environments (Appl Environ Microbiol. 1983
Oct;46(4):901-5. Survival of human parainfluenza viruses in the South Polar
environment. Parkinson AJ, Muchmore HG, Scott EN, Scott LV.)

Touching a surface and then wiping your eyes or nose gives you a 50% chance of
getting a cold/flu (Am J Epidemiol. 1982 Nov;116(5):828-33. Transmission of
experimental rhinovirus infection by contaminated surfaces. Gwaltney JM Jr,
Hendley JO.)

------
EugeneOZ
So it means sometimes cars should stop even when there is no pedestrian trying
to cross the road? I thought initially these buttons were made to improve road
traffic.

~~~
rootusrootus
In the article they point out that the switches have been removed/deactivated
on intersections where there is no benefit. In other words, there is nearly
always a pedestrian waiting at that point in the cycle. Some intersections
that don't see that same pattern continue to have a working button.

------
TheAlchemist
You don't have this kind of problems in Paris. Nobody cares about the crossing
lights here :)

It's pretty impressive, or scary, when you come from a country where people
respect the crossing lights, but once you're accustomed to it, you just can't
stand waiting for the green light if there is no car in sight (let's be
honest, no car in 30m range is enough)

------
Tepix
In Germany, there is a twist: When you press such a placebo button, a white
light that reads "warte" (wait) starts flashing.

~~~
Semaphor
We have many different kinds of buttons. Difference 1, of course, is
functional vs non-functional. Both exist. Then there are acoustic buttons that
activate the sound upon turning green. Sometimes these are normal buttons,
sometimes you can't press the normal ones and the sound button is below it,
and sometimes there are two buttons. Some traffic lights have some kind of
notification that one of all these types of buttons was pressed, sometimes
they don't.

There is no rhyme or reason for how traffic light buttons work in Germany. It
all seems random.

------
squarefoot
With all that AI fuss and widespread video surveillance, would it be that hard
to mix the two, then count the number of cars and optimize traffic/pedestrian
lights accordingly?

~~~
justtopost
The number of frusturating failure modes and possible abuses simply boggles
the mind.

------
yholio
Seems there is an important opportunity here to apply machine learning to
video feeds of incoming traffic and people flow, and shape the phases to
minimize wait time for all citizens, equally. The current systems require
expensive induction loops and only care about cars and button pushers, this
being how we got here.

If people learn the system acknowledges their needs and tries it best to let
them cross safely, it might lead to much better long term compliance then some
fake buttons which are bound to be exposed as fake. The whole idea of giving
higher priority to cars is an insult to taxpayers walking their neighborhoods.

~~~
shereadsthenews
It would be better to just build smaller intersections that do not need
millions of dollars worth of signals and cameras and ML inference rigs.

~~~
yholio
The cost of smart trafic lights is peanuts compared to the costs of
reconfiguring and rebuilding a major intersection.

~~~
noobiemcfoob
Your comment is based on no data at all and just a handful of assumptions that
are most certainly far from true.

~~~
yholio
I happen to work for a council and know the general order of magnitude for
road infrastructure investments - I participate in their approval. I would
file this suggestion of "building smaller intersections", that is, completely
re-routing the traffic flows in a given area, in the _purely fantastical_ bin.

If we could squeeze 20% more traffic capacity from a given congested
intersection with a one time investment of, say, under €200K, it would be a
major breakthrough. We use a complex system that involves periodically
measuring traffic flows using pneumatic tubes, then feeding that data to a
computerized model that will produce the timing sequences for the lights
lights and their evolution during a day. There is a crew moving around the
district installing these tubes and counters for a week or so.

The current state of the art are induction loops embedded in the asphalt that
measure the number of incoming vehicles and adjust the timings in real time. A
purely optical detection that can work in all weather and recognize all types
of vehicles or even pedestrians would be quite a feat.

Anyway, thank you for your factual and data infused contribution.

~~~
noobiemcfoob
Hahaha well that's all you had to say! You're more informed than your first
comment led me to believe. Thanks for writing this out. If you wish to avoid
my disparaging remarks in the future, lead with this and not vacuous
negativity on someone else's thoughts.

------
empath75
To me the only purpose for having a button is for intersections that only go
red when there is a car or pedestrian waiting to cross.

------
dshuang
[https://outline.com/kAmVHb](https://outline.com/kAmVHb)

