Are there too many rules in the world?

I don’t know. It’s a complicated thing. Certainly there are stupid, arbitrary rules but there are also rules that merely appear to be stupid and arbitrary but actually serve a useful; it depends on your vantage point

Forced school attendance and 99% of the income tax code.

No.

I think the vast majority of “rules”, however, are not rules at all. They are really just internal voices that tell us what is appropriate. Our desire to conform is powerful, and can generate all kinds of “rules” that blend in with real rules and law. In that sense, one might feel overwhelmed at the number of rules.

@longgone: “Which rules that affect you would you like to make disappear?”

More often than not, I feel that there are too few rules about what people can do that affect other people. But there are plenty of rules/laws that I would like changed or eliminated, such as drug laws.

Yes, @hominid is right. There are “rules” that a really just social norms and/or conventions rather than having the force of law but they are powerful arbiters of our behavior none the less.

I don’t really think that there are so many rules, but I think that there are some rules that are utterly stupid and unreasonable. Especially rules that are related/derived from cultural hierarchy. I can’t understand why they bother to make them.

As for the bonus question, I’d say I hate quite a few rules since I was a child. For example there is this rule of banning students from eating chewing gums and drinking water in class. Hey! As long as they don’t litter and listen to the lessons, what is so wrong with eating and drinking? I find that eating chewing gums even boost my concentration too. And none of the teachers I met have given a clear reason why we mustn’t do that. Agh!

Depends on your perspective. There is an intrinsic tension between people’s sense of individualism and their need to create rules to govern the interactions within communities. We know that highly organised communities, such as those of bees and ants, are far more effective than disorganised communities, but yet we are not prepared to allow the erosion of our personal liberties to that extent. The number of rules and their severity dictates where the balance between these two points of view.

The extremes to compare here are Somalia and North Korea. In Somalia, the government is so weak that it almost doesn’t matter what the state does or decrees. They can’t enforce their rules, so for much of the country the rules may as well not exist. In North Korea, the rules are overbearing and are ruthlessly enforced. I think the balance lies somewhere around where Sweden is. Privacy and individual freedom are fiercely defended, but yet people pay a relatively heavy burden as part of their social contract for the good of the community.

If you are interested in a detailed analysis of this issue, I recommend Freud’s book Civilisation and its Discontents. I’ve just finished reading it, and it is beautifully succinct in the way it describes this tension.