Obviously emergency vehicles are going to do what they need to do, but even if they are allowed to break the rule they are still breaking the rule.
I also think a park sign that says no vehicles also applies to bicycles and skateboards.
This is exactly right, I think, and in fact those who are focusing on the "intent" of the rule or on whether a violation of the rule is justified seem to have missed the clear wording of the instructions:
> Again, please answer the question of whether the rule is violated (not whether the violation should be allowed).
So the only questions that ever enter into it are (a) is this object a vehicle?, and (b) is the object in the park?
> a park sign that says no vehicles also applies to bicycles and skateboards.
Interesting, my dividing line was that a bike is a vehicle but a wagon, rowboat, or skateboard are not. The majority seems to think both a bicycle and a memorial tank (??!) are not vehicles under the rule.
However, the tank was not functional. Since it cannot convey it is therefore not a conveyance and therefore not a vehicle. It’s only shaped like a familiar one.
I matched the majority only 11% of the time.
The scenario said tank. A tank is a vehicle. No vehicles in the park.
Edit: I matched 11% as well!
In my view no matter what the tank originally was, it ceases to be a vehicle when it can no longer act as a conveyance. A tank (and any vehicle) is not just a form, but a function. Is a car with no motor, no tires, no transmission a vehicle? I do not believe so, because it cannot and lacks the possibility of moving without a substantial transformation.
As I said, if the thing can (i.e., without significant, non-trivial alterations to its current form) act as conveyance then it is a vehicle. It need not be in the act of conveyance, nor must it have an independent means of propulsion.
Edit: my simple rule breaks down when thinking about a flat piece of wood attached to rope. My mind says that's only a vehicle if someone chooses to use it as such for pulling objects or people. I'll leave the search for a universal maxim to others, it seems.
If transporting oneself counts, are all the people in the park vehicles? And all other animals, down to the microorganisms, that are capable of self-transport?
Or I suppose even in the case of transporting other things, people would count as vehicles if they are carrying anything or wearing clothes?
If it's typically not human powered, a human typically rides it, it's typically heavy, and typically accelerates enough to seriously injure another person with minimal damage to yourself it's a vehicle. That's why skateboards and horses aren't vehicles but the bike and toy car was. Even the bike is dicey but it's fairly unanimous throughout the world that a bike is a vehicle.
Vehicle (noun)
1. a means of carrying or transporting something
...such as
... a: motor vehicle
... b: a piece of mechanized equipment
2 : an agent of transmission : carrier
3: a medium through which something is expressed, achieved, or displayed
----------------
You're thinking of specifically a __motorized__ vehicle. Which is a different thing than "vehicle". I think you'll agree that a bicycle and skateboard carry people and transport them. This is the same reason a wagon violates the rule. Almost everything on there was a vehicle. I think the only ambiguous ones are paper airplane, matchbox car, toy boat, and kite and I said those weren't because they can't transport things and are not motorized. But hey, technically they can be a medium through which someone expresses their joy.
No painting or dancing in the park.
The entire world agrees bicycles are vehicles and it's encoded in the law almost everywhere. This is no true Scotsman, sure, but IMO if you're trying to argue a bicycle is NOT a vehicle you're only doing it to argue and flex your vast knowledge of the English dictionary to randoms on the internet. It's a completely unreasonable position to hold.
Many roads nowadays have a "one way only - bicycles excepted" to indicate the road is a one way road but bicycles are an exception to the rule and there's a contraflow bike lane. Most parks that have a no vehicles allowed sign is likely to have a bicycle excepted sign underneath.
Bicycles are vehicles and there is no ackshully that will change that. If you're trying to win an argument with the technicality that everyone would ignore a "no vehicles" sign on a bike that isn't an argument that disproves a bike is a vehicle. All it shows is that a bike is a special vehicle with special rules and exemptions to "no vehicle" signs.
There is no pedantry in calling a bicycle a vehicle. It's obviously a vehicle - it's entire purpose is to be a lightly-mechanized means of transit! Now if we see a sign in a park that says "no vehicles" many people - using our cultural knowledge and context - will interpret the intent of the sign as a reference to "[motorized] vehicles".
Those people are wrong. It's as simple as that. In the eyes of the law bikes are vehicles nearly everywhere. It's settled and not up for debate or discussion.
I believe the entire point of the exercise is to demonstrate people will argue that the sky isn't blue.
I think the point of the game is to demonstrate there are some people who will argue the sky isn't blue. That is one thing we should all be able to agree on but if you were to pose that question to the internet you'd definitely get "I'm colorblind and what you call blue I call green ergo the sky is not blue".
Those people aren't worth your time and will disagree just for the sake of disagreeing and getting a rise out of people. I'll admit I'm guilty of doing the same in some circumstances.
Really what surprises me is how few people seem to understand that language is incredibly fuzzy. That there's an imperfect encoder (language) and decoder (listening/reading) system. That people are working off of different priors that bias these systems. That we aren't perfectly aligning the intent of our messages with the reception of them. That this system becomes even more fuzzy as the audience increases (increased variance in priors). It is a bit more surprising to me that in a community full of nerds where we communicate online, where we're exposed to many priors, that this is still a relatively unknown phenomena despite it being fairly easy to conclude simply through experience (besides also being fairly well discussed). I for one think the fuzziness of language is incredibly cool.
> 3. a medium through which something is expressed, achieved, or displayed
"Carrier" is also a very broad term, no human carrying anything is allowed in the park then.
We can think of communication as having 3 main components. 1) the intended concept being intended to convey. This is in the person's head. 2) The fuzzy compression mode (language) that is used to convey said thought. Be that words, writing, or interpretive dance. 3) The fuzzy decoder that turns the language into a thought in another being's head. This is filled with priors and assumptions that fill in many of the gaps.
The thing about this is that we usually learn to speak in pretty localized groups, meaning that our priors align and we have a lot of good faith (attempting to interpret intent rather than interpreting the words). But with a larger audience we have higher variance that makes what is obvious a priori a disastrous outcome. "Everybody knows" is not something everyone knows. https://xkcd.com/1053/
But in many many jurisdiction bicycles is explicitly a vehicle. One that people over certain age cannot drive on sidewalks and must use road. Or designated ways. Ofc, it is also banned in some places.
Also it sometimes acts unlike pedestrian like having to yield to cars when crossing safety crossings.
The first excludes pedal cycles.