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This year has elevated an interesting old philosophical question, the "Sorites Paradox". The paradox states that 1000 grains of sand are a heap. If you take a single grain of sand from a heap, its still a heap. So if you do this 999 times it seems like 1 grain is a heap. 1/?
So anyway, having "too many" people over is bad, but you take one away it doesn't SUDDENLY become good, unless in NSW the number of people you have over is 11 because 10 is the "good" number. State borders cut thru towns, but why is a meter north more dangerous???? 2/?
It all seems very arbitrary, but the deep truth behind the Sorites paradox is that these sorts of boundaries are simply subjective. Something becomes more heaplike the more things there are - a gathering becomes more dangerous the more people are at it. 3/?
The question then becomes, why do I choose to respect these subjective and arbitrary judgements? The reason is simple: they're useful abstractions. 4/?
We don't look at a recipe asking for a heaped teaspoon of sugar and add 1 grain, or question what that means. However, if you're an industrial food producer and its mandated that you have a heaped teaspoon of sugar in all your products, it suddenly becomes important. So, 5/?
it is actually the enforcement of the boundaries that matters. The interplay of the useful abstraction and the concrete reality. When you exist on the border between heaps and non-heaps, states, too many or too few, the issues occur. 6/?
With so much enforcement and defining a heap this year, people have been really talking, in a sideways way, about the Sorites paradox... but for getting on the beers. 7/?
hardest It seems utterly heartless to most people that you can - for some reason - have 10 people but not 11. But the Sorites paradox works both ways. Why not 100 visitors if you want 11? A thousand??? Its obviously ridiculous to have that many. 8/?
So the fundamental learning and point is this: If you're enforcing a limit, the line has to be drawn somewhere. And that line is Almost Always subjective. So can the issues those that exist on the boundaries experience, be mitigated? 9/?
No.
10/?
10/?
There's no way to draw a line that doesn't fuck at least one person. There are unique concerns everywhere. There's a saying in philosophy that goes "the map is not the territory" and it basically means that a representation of a thing or limit, is not the thing, ever. 11/?
What this means for people in Albury/Wodonga is that a line is drawn and cuts off their very real everyday territory on the un-real map. But any other map, literally any one, would have the same problem. It sucks, it fucking sucks. 11/?
What you want to do, as a result, is draw as few lines and limits as possible, while still remaining useful, right? But a global rule within a line will be too loose in some places and too tight in others. A line and limit for each person then? 11/?
But then we have an unmanageably large amount of lines and limits! Convoluted rules! And if the lines are drawn from a great height, they will undoubtedly be somewhat wrong. If the individuals draws them, why have a line or limit? Just use personal judgement! 12/?
Anyway the solution is to try your hardest. Ok bye. 13/13
