Ramblings

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lacking significance, meaning, or point; silly

Every restriction and rule we put in place must be justified. Classically good reasons for rules and restrictions are safetey and making sure that individuals don't infringe on each other. As is my personality, I tend to generally resist rules imposed on me if they get in my way. The first step in that procedure is evaluating the validity of a rule. If I find a rule to be inane, it should be expected that I may not follow it (depending of course on the amount of resistance to expect from the local rule/law enforcement).

I may judge a rule to be inane if it has no or frivolous justification
The most classical example that I've been in on countless occasions involves some kind of prescribed methodology for solving a particular task. In school or at work, teachers or employers might insist on certain things being done a certain way. Many times in the past I have found better ways for solving the task at hand, so instinctually that is what I want to do instead, creating a conflict between my method and the method I am supposed to use.

The way ISTP me handles this is by evaluating the justification for why I am meant to do it another way.

• In school, the argument was often that I am supposed to learn something from the basics, and then upwards. That I accept as an acceptable justification (I can understand why learning the fundamentals is important), but I follow this up by asking myself “do I have strong grip on the fundamentals?”. In cases where I thought that I did (and I typically did), that brought me around to say “yes but I already know the basics”, to which I was then told that I should do it that way anyway. That then is typically the point where I declared the rule inane and did it my way anyway.
• Outside of school, or later in life, the justification for most inane rules was typically some kind of authority. “Because I said so” and it's many variations. Trying this on me has a 100% failure rate unless you have the ability to cause me substantial headache. Typically this involves some kind of authority having an idea of how things should run and not having the flexibility to allow for variation. The problem here is that I evaluate authority in the same way. You have to justify your authority to me, and I calculate it accordingly. In most cases, an authority is in place to ensure the smooth operation of a thing, but if something I want to do differently does not jeopardize the smooth operation of the thing, then the limit of their authority is in front of the thing I want to do differently. People like this then typically attempt to reach beyond their authority, which they cannot justify before me. In that case, I evaluate the rule inane and do not follow it (again, unless you can cause me greater pain than what I gain from breaking the rule).
• Many genuinely safety critical rules masquerade as inane. As someone who independently evaluates nearly every rule, restriction and law I have run into hundreds of rules that seemed inane, were poorly explained to me by someone who didn't actually know, and ultimately turned out to be safety critical rules. Trust me, with every rule I evaluate, the first thing I think about is whether the rule might be safety related. Often it is.