Astral Codex Ten

Chesterton’s Fence

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Chesterton’s Fence

Article

Chesterton’s Fence is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 5 times across 5 issues between April 30, 2021 and April 15, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “focus on trying to understand complex systems holistically , Chesterton’s Fence style”; ““Chesterton’s fence!””; “I am at least willing to listen to that particular Chesterton’s Fence”. It most often appears alongside Scott, ADHD, American.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 5
  • Issue count: 5
  • First seen: April 30, 2021
  • Last seen: April 15, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Your Book Review: The Wizard And The Prophet
April 30, 2021 · Original source
In Caliban’s War, the second book in The Expanse series, there’s an excellent metaphor for how having more smart people working on problems fails in an atmosphere of increased complexity, offered by fictional future UN government higher-up Chrisjen Avasarala: "You take part of a problem and you put it somewhere, get some people working on it, and then you get another part of the problem and get other people working on that. And pretty soon you have seven, eight, a hundred different little boxes with work going on, and no one talking to anyone because it would break security protocol." Except instead of security protocol, you could substitute any number of Moloch-y reasons, or just regular old-fashioned human tunnel vision. If there’s one thing we can take from the Prophets, it’s their focus on trying to understand complex systems holistically, Chesterton’s Fence style, instead of as piecemeal problem-boxes in a hundred siloed experts’ rooms. Each of today’s systems is more like Chesterton’s Maze of Forking Paths, where pulling out a brick here (say, trying to prioritize equity in vaccine distribution) leads to a catastrophic tunnel collapse there (more deaths, including in the historically underprivileged populations you were trying to save). The Prophets may have a less than stellar track record of questioning new technologies, but I think they’re right that the Wizardly tendency to reduce complexity to a discrete number of problem-boxes can only get us so far – and, as we saw with the myriad of expert box factories talking past each other in the global COVID pandemic response, it can harm as well as help. If we’re always hotfixing as our big picture grows bigger and more complex, we’re also always creating new inadvertent problems with our hotfixes, and are in ever more danger of forgetting about that one critical problem box until it’s too late.
Inline links: trying to prioritize equity in vaccine distribution, more deaths, including in the historically underprivileged populations you were trying to save
Highlights From The Comments On Missing School
August 26, 2021 · Original source
“Chesterton’s fence!”
Contra Resident Contrarian On Unfalsifiable Internal States
November 11, 2022 · Original source
I don’t recommend having multiple personalities, and I’m careful to stay away from this sort of thing myself. All of the people who take psychotherapy seriously say it’s important to have a well-integrated personality, and splitting off parts of your personality sounds like the opposite of that. If, as Jaynes hypothesizes, the ancients’ relationship to their deities was similar to a modern DID patient’s relationship to their alters, then the most important commandment of my ancestral religion is to STOP DOING THAT, and although I am not a religious Jew I am at least willing to listen to that particular Chesterton’s Fence.
Your Book Review: The Educated Mind
July 14, 2023 · Original source
I think you see it, for example, in the community’s penchant for yelling “Chesterton’s Fence!” whenever anyone criticizes something they don’t understand. Philosophic understanding is obsessed with things making sense; Ironic understanding says, reality is always a few steps beyond you. “Chesterton’s Fence” is a Rationalist shorthand for the idea that we should expect the world to be more complex than our models; if something looks stupid, you should consider that the stupidity may be in you.
Highlights From The Comments On POSIWID
April 15, 2025 · Original source
Chesterton’s Fence