This is a great one. It’s crazy to think how little most rules matter.
I remember in high school chemistry class this kid pulled the emergency shower chain and flooded the room with disgusting rusty water. I vividly remember thinking, “wow he just ruined his life.” He’s a doctor now lol.
It’s also funny how I was a total stickler for the rules and my brother just disregarded them entirely. He enrolled into ROTC in high school and once he figured out the instructors couldn’t do anything but yell at him he just let them yell. They’d tell him to run a mile and he’d walk it as slow as he wanted while they screamed right in his face the whole time.
Now that I’m older I definitely don’t think about the rules as much anymore. Somebody at work said we “had” to do something and I was just like, “Who said that?” And they couldn’t figure out why they thought we had to do it. So we just did it.
There’s a line in the new Elon Musk book where he says something like, “The only rules are the laws of physics. Everything else is just a recommendation.” When I was younger I would’ve thought that was a terrible philosophy. Now it makes a lot more sense.
I worked with a guy called a Lau once for this semiconductor company.
There was an email about going to China and do some support which everyone answered but Lau. Everyone who answered went to China and hated it. It's a filthy place.
But Lau didn't because he didn't care and didn't answer the mail even when it told him to answer it.
So this is the Lau-method for me. Don't do anything your management thinks is important. It seldom is.
Permeating through all human activity are the varying but powerful laws of opinion, favor, desire, fear, and belief. The rule breakers you described simply poked at some imagined rule and discovered it wasn't among the ones that ended up making a difference. Still, to become a doctor one must submit themselves to years or trials, you must at the very least care for the rules crucial to that kind of success.
> Also rules like traffic laws certainly aren't "recommendations"
The point is that recommendations are exactly what they are.
The recommendation is "Drive no faster than 45mph on this road unless you want to risk getting a ticket (or killing someone or whatever)."
But who's physically preventing you from driving 60mph? If you were taking your dying relative to the hospital would you drive 45mph?
Perhaps a law of physics is involved and you are physically prevented from going over 45mph because of a governor on your engine, but you could pay someone to remove it (or do it yourself). Speedbumps may increase the danger and consequence of going 100mph and that is something of a physical limitation.
You can think it's asshole philosophy (and perhaps it is), but you're not seeing the world the way it really is, which I think is heart of the matter.
It's like the clip of the guy talking about the German who can't drive because they don't have a license:
By their very definitions, laws are not "recommendations". There's nothing deeper here. I can make this simpler using your examples: at the time, your school mate was an asshole for flooding the room and your brother was just a brat. Nothing more to it.
Laws can be broken, so why are they different than a recommendation?
I can tell you, "don't touch that hot pan" and it's a recommendation but you can still do it. The government can say "don't speed" and it's a recommendation but you can still do it.
This kind of thinking is how we arrive at a low-trust society. We could all be individuals indulging our inner-asshole, but it would quickly lead to the enshittification of what remains of communal life.
The 'Recommendation' quote just sounds typical of the edgy posturing we've seen Musk fall into. Once the pithy zing fades, we have an idea scales poorly.
There are a lot of dumb laws, but they are typically there to protect us and our fellow citizens from human beings (you and me) doing dumb shit. They are hardly recommendations. If anything, laws are the network protocol of society that allows us a semblance of reliability and stability in our operating environment.
You can sit here and say how things should be all day long. But it doesn’t change how things really are. If you want to delude yourself for the alleged betterment of society, go nuts.
If those recommendations (laws) mattered so much wouldn’t there be serious consequence to the insouciance?
Laws are just recommendations that some people see as more serious than others. If you’re willing to take the risk and accept the consequence, it’s your choice.
I remember in high school chemistry class this kid pulled the emergency shower chain and flooded the room with disgusting rusty water. I vividly remember thinking, “wow he just ruined his life.” He’s a doctor now lol.
It’s also funny how I was a total stickler for the rules and my brother just disregarded them entirely. He enrolled into ROTC in high school and once he figured out the instructors couldn’t do anything but yell at him he just let them yell. They’d tell him to run a mile and he’d walk it as slow as he wanted while they screamed right in his face the whole time.
Now that I’m older I definitely don’t think about the rules as much anymore. Somebody at work said we “had” to do something and I was just like, “Who said that?” And they couldn’t figure out why they thought we had to do it. So we just did it.
There’s a line in the new Elon Musk book where he says something like, “The only rules are the laws of physics. Everything else is just a recommendation.” When I was younger I would’ve thought that was a terrible philosophy. Now it makes a lot more sense.