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Comment by throwaway201103 | Hacker News Reader

throwaway201103

There seems to be a line somewhere between doing one's duty, and enabling other's bad behavior, based on the examples given. E.g. why am I enabling the city's negligence in keeping the park clean or the potholes filled by doing these things myself, when I already pay taxes ostensibly to pay other people to do these things.

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We take our dog to a park where dogs are permitted but must be leashed. Signs are posted that the “leash law is strictly enforced” but it’s not, and in fact has never been.

Most dog owners follow the rules but there is a small cadre of regulars who don’t. These people are aware of the rules (I know because I’ve sometimes reminded them of their existence) but choose to ignore them.

Now, who cares, right? What does it matter if some people choose not to follow this nanny-state rule?

Well, here’s what: once or twice a month we’re forced to end our walk early when someone has an unruly dog off leash in the direction that we’re walking. We’ve spoken to others who have had the same experience.

The park has a children’s playground and multiple sports fields. Many of the regular users are elderly and they choose this park because the path is paved and level. Not everyone appreciates being approached by an off leash dog.

So the off leash dog owners either don’t care about or don’t comprehend the effect of their actions on the rest of the community. This is a minor example of a lack of duty contributing to a “tragedy of the commons”

similar is the "return the shopping trolley" thing - identified as almost uniquely representing an act demonstrating commitment to community. Not returning the shopping trolley to the designated space is not punished. But if enough people don't return their trolleys then the whole system breaks down and the car park becomes unusable.

waits for American to suggest shooting the shopping trolley to solve the problem

shoot the unruly dog in defence of a child. problem solved.

You should not be ashamed to get rid of an animal that threatenes people.

What an incredibly boneheaded comment. The kind that makes me worry about the future of HN.

Not only are you asking someone to literally kill an animal, something many people are de-facto not going to be comfortable with, you're knowingly recommending something I'm almost certain you know deep down isn't reasonable because it'd be a heinous overreaction, and it'd result in a mountain of paperwork and legal troubles for the commenter you replied to.

Ridiculous.

There is a dangerous animal on the loose, threatening people. The owner is failing. Public authorities are failing. Community pressure doesn't work. Killing the animal is a legal and possible option that remains. Care to point out another one instead of baseless criticism?

I get it. But this is the antithesis of Duty.

That wasn’t the point. The point is people’s illegal enjoyment of the park is actually impeding the legal enjoyment of the park by others.

Some sense of duty along the lines of “I’ll follow the rules in the park even if it inconveniences me” seems to be missing.

Maybe that and the sense of duty of the city police.

I can imagine a few reasons why a leash ordinance isn't being enforced, ranging from the relatively benign "no one has actually made a formal complaint to animal control", through the scandalous "one of the scofflaws happens to be a prominent local citizen, city official, or member of law enforcement" or " the park in question is in a poor or minority-dominated neighborhood", up to and including the entirely tragic "local law enforcement is preoccupied with a rampant violent- and property-crime wave". Most of these imagined scenarios are not mutually exclusive.

I'd bet on some combination of the above like "nobody has even made a complaint in 20 years because 'everybody knows' such complaints are ignored, but the Good Old Boys responsible for stonewalling back then have since retired".

Part of it is probably just the cost of doing one's "duty". Picking up a piece of litter and throwing it in a nearby trash can is a very low cost thing to do, so even if technically the city is supposed to have someone picking up the trash in a public park, an individual who sees some litter can still clean it up with minimal effort.

Filling potholes, OTOH, is a much higher cost thing to do, and so people are more likely to feel that the city should be using the money they have already paid in taxes to do it. (Another aspect is probably also legal risk--if I decide to fill a pothole and do it wrong and someone suffers damage to their car, I might get sued. The city has many ways of mitigating that risk that I, as an individual, do not.)

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