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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7823162" data-attributes="member: 4937">I think you keep cutting to the pithy heart of this, and I think you've just convinced me that there will never be any agreement about this.There are two basic ways of looking at problems. One is that if there is a problem, then you should introduce a change and the burden of proof exists on the people who don't want the change. Those people have to argue why you shouldn't change, and there inclination is to assume that the people doing the argument are either part of the problem or the cause of it, and they should get out of the way or be forcefully removed. After all, there is a problem, so there should be a change.The other way to look at problems is to assume that problems are complex solutions are difficult. An almost infinite number of solutions could be proposed, but most of them will likely be ineffectual or even counter-productive. So when someone proposes a solution, the burden of proof is on those people to prove that the proposed solution not only makes things better in some narrow way, but won't in fact make things worse in other ways. They have to show a cost benefit analysis, and then if their presentation is impressive the proposed solution should be tried on a rational basis. If they don't want to or can't show this cost benefit analysis, then the typical assumption is that the people are either ignorant or malicious.Neither approach is entirely wrong, but people with the two different outlooks can end up completely talking past each other.For my part, I hear a statement like, "It's a very important step, however, in making the hobby welcoming and a little more aware.", and I wonder why in the world would anyone believe anything like that. And when this topic came up, I went on the internet and read literally scores of comments and essays about the document from people who were saying that very much like what you just stated. And all of them just sort of took it for granted and offered up no compelling evidence to make me think that would actually work any of the miracles they were subscribing to an index card. But I eventually developed what I think is a pretty sound theory for why everyone was saying that it was going to do things like "make the hobby welcoming and a little more aware".Because they'd been told that that it would.That is to say, a large number of people believe that it makes the hobby welcoming and a little more aware, and because they believe it, when they see the card, for them it does. It's a matter of, not to put to fine a point on it, faith. For them this is a real thing. They see the card, they think, "That's a safe and welcoming place.", and for them that makes the feeling of being welcomed real.I think the whole thing reminds me of those home owner alarm systems that you see advertised. They don't provide any security what so ever, but the home owner alarm systems aren't selling security - they are selling what the X card sells: "peace of mind". What they are selling is feelings of security which, for most homeowners in the USA, is as good as selling feelings of security since home invasion is so rare in the USA. The ads for those systems are in my opinion predatory, in as much as they aren't selling a service of real utility and they always have these unintentionally comic ads where these burglars see that the home has a home security system and on that alone are terrified and run away, but presumably for some people the "peace of mind" is enough.Now personally, I don't think the cards are going to do a lot to help anything. I think that they are useless 99.99% of the time, and I think that they set a bad precedent for encouraging emotional and illogical thinking. However, I also think that they aren't going to do a lot of harm most of the time, and the degree that they make me feel unsafe and uncomfortable is trivial. But I do also think that not only will they not fix problems, problems are going to go up by a small but measurable degree, because I don't think they actually create a safe place in any place that wasn't already safe, but rather just the dangerous illusion of one in places that are not.</blockquote>

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