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That's exactly what the US system is supposed to to. Continuous, rapid cycling between small improvements and slightly smaller regressions. As the Federal bure
by huffmsa 7y ago
That's exactly what the US system is supposed to to. Continuous, rapid cycling between small improvements and slightly smaller regressions.
As the Federal bureaucracy grows and as elected politicians stay in office longer the regressions become more severe though.
If it gets bad enough you end up with a massive centralized apparatus which inevitably implodes and takes out the nation it governed with it.
As seen in China every 100-200 years throughout it's history, as seen in the USSR, Rome, etc.
Lots of small sadnesses are always better than one or two big ones (which is the central premise of Nassim Taleb's books)
- nickthemagicman 7y agoNassim Taleb believes dictatorships are better than democracies because "Lots of small sadnesses are always better than one or two big ones"?
- huffmsa 7y agoA dictatorship gives one person the ability to cause a singular big sadness. So they're no good. He touts the extreme federalism of Switzerland. Small, local governments which can only affect and are only responsible for their immediate constituent Concentration of power => concentration of fail points => fragile to catastrophic events. Distribution of power => distribution of fail points => majority of system will survive catastrophes. Or, in VC speak: single investment in single start-up => fund will not survive a failure. Many small investments in many start-ups => 75% fail, 10% break even, 10% make 2-3x, 5% return 10x
- nickthemagicman 7y agoVery cool and interesting. I'm sure you could apply to tech as well. I.e. Micro services vs Monolithic services. Thank you for clearing that up.