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Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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I don't think that you can be as misleading as you want as long as you are literally true. I think that there is nothing in what I've said that is "misreporting" the result. I very clearly stated:

parents apparently valued not being rude (in the prior regime) more than paying the fee (in the current regime) more than picking up their kids on time

Which is 100% consistent with the comment above. The value they got from paying the fee and picking their kids up late was more than the value they got from picking their kids up on time. If you jack the fee up (as the commenter suggested), this would change at some point (different points for different consumers). There is nothing misreported here. What do you think is misreported?

It leaves out the information that the fee is so small that it could be taken to mean that to mean that it's unimportant to the center.

"Whether the amount they pay is more than the value they get" is not the only basis on which humans in the real world make such decisions. The information that implies that there are other plausible bases for that decision has been omitted.

I wrote:

After the fee, a person could reasonably believe, 'Well, they set the fee at a rate that appropriately compensates them for the trouble, so as long as it's worth it to me to pay the fee, everyone wins.'

What do you think is "misreported"?

Real human beings don't make decisions that way. They would assume that it's only even possible to appropriately compensate them for the trouble if the fee is very small, and that a larger fee is meant as punishment, which is not the same thing as compensation. It misreports this by omitting the information that the fee is small.

The incident is commonly reported to mean "people will treat any fee as compensation" when the facts don't support this, and instead support "people will treat a small fee as compensation".

The incident is commonly reported to mean "people will treat any

Whence "any"? You just made that shit up all on your own.