[carbocation]

> “Wait, wait, wait, but why are we doing it this way?” Barroso said on the podcast. “And it just turns out that the people who had been living in that area hadn't really thought about questioning that. And sometimes it's something that was based on a good reason three years ago, and that reason had a sell-by date, and it's time to do something else.”

This is a very humane way of thinking about the mindset of people who implemented solutions that don't quite work for your needs.

[msla]

It's the other side of Chesterton's Fence: When you do understand why the fence was put there, you can remove it.

Too often people turn Chesterton's Fence into Frost's Fence: "Good fences make good neighbors" and refuse to think beyond that.