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I think where people get frustrated about government is that they expect it to respond to changes in society and technology. They see inertia and think ineffici

I think where people get frustrated about government is that they expect it to respond to changes in society and technology. They see inertia and think inefficiency. I think that’s missing the point entirely. What governments offer is stability. “Inertia” is a feature. If governments swung around rapidly the way tech trends change then it would cause tremendous damage to people’s lives and to the economy as a whole.

seph-reed 7y ago
Well, it's not a zero sum thing. Backwards compatibility can mean stability without inertia. We can get pretty much all the best features from start-ups, gov, capitalism, and socialism at the same time. Too often we focus on the outsides of a venn diagram, and fail to invest proper effort where the overlap is. IMO, the part in the middle done well is more than enough for a good world, and the bits on the outside are just flavors.
wvenable 7y ago
Governments, especially in some areas, are also often starved. They're trying to do work without the sufficient resources to do their work effectively. Companies in that state usually end up in a death spiral and fail. Often this ineffectiveness is misconstrued as incompetence and used as evidence to further decrease the resources available.
- tabtab 7y ago
  Indeed! Voters want great gov't services but also hate paying taxes. These are often contradictory. Sometimes you get what you pay for and can't vote for a magic lunch. People complain about how slow the DMV is, but if you ask them if they want their car registration fees increased to reduce waits, most will say "no".
  - mcrad 7y ago
    Hate is a strong word - perhaps these voters you speak of simply don't feel there is a very strong correlation between amount of taxes/fees paid, and services rendered.
    - stretchwithme 7y ago
      And many who talk about how we should gladly pay our taxes get or figure they would get more than they pay in if everybody would happily pay as much as they possibly could. Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that.
      - tabtab 7y ago
        Re: Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that. Government, taxes, and private industry are all tools of civilization. Tools are imperfect and the human managers & users are imperfect. One has to monitor all of them to keep them in decent working order. They won't just automatically run in an optimum mode if citizens don't keep a critical eye on them all.
      - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
        Governments don't "borrow and spend". Money is a political abstraction, not a tangible one. It is physically impossible for a government to run out of fiat money. The only things a government can run out of are faith in the future and internal and external trust. When either or both of those disappear, human animals panic and the economy stops working. Private enclosure of capital - which is equivalent to private enclosure of political and economic power - is far more likely to create that sort of breakdown than high taxes and generous public spending. (Effective - non-corrupt - public spending being equivalent to policy decisions that broaden and diffuse political power rather than concentrating it.) Effective generous public spending is actually a political negative feedback mechanism that damps wild oscillations in confidence, seeds future investment, and enhances political stability.
        tabtab 7y ago
        In practice the gov't has to pretend like the money is real in order to prevent chaos. In fact both gov't and citizens have to pretend "properly" for it to work. It's a mutual agreement about how to represent the value of commerce. Laws are the same way: members of civilization have to mutually agree on how to create and follow the laws for them to "work". Civilization is the Mother of All Handshakes. If a large enough percentage of the population disagrees with the "agreements", anarchy happens. Modern technology and civilization are both inherently driven by standards: both written and de-facto.
  - i_am_proteus 7y ago
    Washington State has privatized the DMV for most non-ID-card-related transactions (titling, etc.). It's cheaper and faster than every fully-state-run DMV I've experienced.
    - tabtab 7y ago
      Privatization is often a varied bag. Sometimes the contractor does a good job and sometimes a lousy job. Letting it be a directly gov't run process tends to get a consistent "C" grade, while privatization may get you an "A" sometimes and an "F" others. In other words, the variation is larger. This has also been true of schools and power utilities. This tends to happen because the owners are usually a relatively small group of people or an individual, and their individual personalities and changing goals will shape the quality of job they do. They may decide on a whim, "I'll milk out my fortune now and dump the problem on the public."
      - atq2119 7y ago
        I wish more people understood this. Where privatisation does fix things, it's usually simply because the process of privatisation gives somebody the political capital to implement massive organizational change, and that somebody happened to be the right person for it. Conversely, when privatised infrastructure is a mess, it can be beneficial to have it taken over by the state. Again, the mere fact of doing so will give somebody the political capital to implement massive changes, which can fix things if that somebody happens to be the right person (or group of persons) for the job. As a corollary, it would be possible to fix many "broken" state-run offices by enabling the right person(s) to implement massive changes. That's probably even preferable to privatisation in many cases: you still have the same risk that you didn't choose the right person for the job, but you eliminate the risk of them just cashing out.
    - guelo 7y ago
      Washington State also has the most expensive DMV fees in the nation. It's not a coincidence.
      - 7y ago
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    >People complain about how slow the DMV is, but if you ask them if they want their car registration fees increased to reduce waits, most will say "no". Despite one of the highest fees in the country, my DMV took 4 months to transfer a vehicle registration. At one point I spoke to an employee who told me they needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche to print the next form needed to continue processing.
    - tabtab 7y ago
      Re: [Gov't worker] needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche At least hackers cannot delete it :-)
  - JDiculous 7y ago
    That's because our government (referring to the USA) is extraordinarily inefficient with taxpayer money. My tax rate in NYC was something like 36% (not counting student loan payments and healthcare premiums), but where was this money going? We're paying practically the same tax rate as countries with universal healthcare, free/affordable universities, and strong safety nets, but we have none of the above. In my 5 years in NYC I saw the subway get progressively worse every year, while the homeless population exploded. I felt like that money might as well be getting flushed down the toilet. If I could more tangibly see where that money is going, then I'd probably feel differently. I think taxpayers should have some agency in choosing where their taxpayer money goes. Andrew Yang proposed something like this, and I love the idea: > "Each American should be able to direct 1% of their taxes to a specific project. During Revenue Day, these projects will be highlighted, showing what, exactly, America’s money was able to accomplish during the previous year. Initial profiles of the next year’s projects will also be announced so people can get excited for them." [1] I wouldn't mind paying taxes in the U.S. if I felt like they were being productively used. It's hard to feel that way. [1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/making-taxes-fun/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/making-taxes-fun/
    - baggy_trough 7y ago
      It would be far better for the average citizen if the tax receipts were burnt in a giant dumpster rather than further the malignant tumor of a state that we are afflicted with.
      - DrScientist 7y ago
        Perhaps - but are the reasons for the US government dysfunction - because: 1. it has too much government 'civil service' ? 2. or too much private and corporate emasculation of effective government? ie the very sentiments you echo are directly supporting the agenda of 2 and not 1.
        baggy_trough 7y ago
        I view it as the inevitable growth of a self perpetuating bureaucracy over decades in the absence of any significant constraining force.
Invictus0 7y ago
Why can't both be true? Stability in some things, rapid response to change in others?
- chongli 7y ago
  They are in some ways. Governments can respond very quickly to natural disasters or wars, for example. Sometimes they don’t, of course, and they’re roundly criticized for it. And sometimes governments respond rapidly in very negative ways, such as when the Nazis passed the Reichstag fire decree [1]. This was the first major step to elevate Hitler to dictatorship. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree
gry 7y ago
This is captured in the Layers of Time diagram[1]. The tension fashion to nature is at diametric odds with time and responsibility; governance is squarely inbetwixt. https://media.longnow.org/files/2/LayersOfTime-simplNEW.jpg https://media.longnow.org/files/2/LayersOfTime-simplNEW.jpg [1] http://longnow.org/about/ http://longnow.org/about/
- inciampati 7y ago
  At many scales, nature outpaces any human activity. Even fashion isn't as rapid as a plague of locusts. I think this figure inappropriately separates humans from nature.
kiliantics 7y ago
Inertia is far from a feature when it comes to our biggest problems today, particularly climate change. This is going to cause a lot of damage, it already has.

seph-reed 7y ago

Well, it's not a zero sum thing. Backwards compatibility can mean stability without inertia. We can get pretty much all the best features from start-ups, gov, capitalism, and socialism at the same time. Too often we focus on the outsides of a venn diagram, and fail to invest proper effort where the overlap is. IMO, the part in the middle done well is more than enough for a good world, and the bits on the outside are just flavors.

wvenable 7y ago

Governments, especially in some areas, are also often starved. They're trying to do work without the sufficient resources to do their work effectively. Companies in that state usually end up in a death spiral and fail. Often this ineffectiveness is misconstrued as incompetence and used as evidence to further decrease the resources available.

tabtab 7y ago
Indeed! Voters want great gov't services but also hate paying taxes. These are often contradictory. Sometimes you get what you pay for and can't vote for a magic lunch. People complain about how slow the DMV is, but if you ask them if they want their car registration fees increased to reduce waits, most will say "no".
- mcrad 7y ago
  Hate is a strong word - perhaps these voters you speak of simply don't feel there is a very strong correlation between amount of taxes/fees paid, and services rendered.
  - stretchwithme 7y ago
    And many who talk about how we should gladly pay our taxes get or figure they would get more than they pay in if everybody would happily pay as much as they possibly could. Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that.
    - tabtab 7y ago
      Re: Not that the amount of taxes paid ever stopped a government from trying borrow and spend way more than that. Government, taxes, and private industry are all tools of civilization. Tools are imperfect and the human managers & users are imperfect. One has to monitor all of them to keep them in decent working order. They won't just automatically run in an optimum mode if citizens don't keep a critical eye on them all.
    - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
      Governments don't "borrow and spend". Money is a political abstraction, not a tangible one. It is physically impossible for a government to run out of fiat money. The only things a government can run out of are faith in the future and internal and external trust. When either or both of those disappear, human animals panic and the economy stops working. Private enclosure of capital - which is equivalent to private enclosure of political and economic power - is far more likely to create that sort of breakdown than high taxes and generous public spending. (Effective - non-corrupt - public spending being equivalent to policy decisions that broaden and diffuse political power rather than concentrating it.) Effective generous public spending is actually a political negative feedback mechanism that damps wild oscillations in confidence, seeds future investment, and enhances political stability.
      - tabtab 7y ago
        In practice the gov't has to pretend like the money is real in order to prevent chaos. In fact both gov't and citizens have to pretend "properly" for it to work. It's a mutual agreement about how to represent the value of commerce. Laws are the same way: members of civilization have to mutually agree on how to create and follow the laws for them to "work". Civilization is the Mother of All Handshakes. If a large enough percentage of the population disagrees with the "agreements", anarchy happens. Modern technology and civilization are both inherently driven by standards: both written and de-facto.
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  Washington State has privatized the DMV for most non-ID-card-related transactions (titling, etc.). It's cheaper and faster than every fully-state-run DMV I've experienced.
  - tabtab 7y ago
    Privatization is often a varied bag. Sometimes the contractor does a good job and sometimes a lousy job. Letting it be a directly gov't run process tends to get a consistent "C" grade, while privatization may get you an "A" sometimes and an "F" others. In other words, the variation is larger. This has also been true of schools and power utilities. This tends to happen because the owners are usually a relatively small group of people or an individual, and their individual personalities and changing goals will shape the quality of job they do. They may decide on a whim, "I'll milk out my fortune now and dump the problem on the public."
    - atq2119 7y ago
      I wish more people understood this. Where privatisation does fix things, it's usually simply because the process of privatisation gives somebody the political capital to implement massive organizational change, and that somebody happened to be the right person for it. Conversely, when privatised infrastructure is a mess, it can be beneficial to have it taken over by the state. Again, the mere fact of doing so will give somebody the political capital to implement massive changes, which can fix things if that somebody happens to be the right person (or group of persons) for the job. As a corollary, it would be possible to fix many "broken" state-run offices by enabling the right person(s) to implement massive changes. That's probably even preferable to privatisation in many cases: you still have the same risk that you didn't choose the right person for the job, but you eliminate the risk of them just cashing out.
  - guelo 7y ago
    Washington State also has the most expensive DMV fees in the nation. It's not a coincidence.
    - 7y ago
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  >People complain about how slow the DMV is, but if you ask them if they want their car registration fees increased to reduce waits, most will say "no". Despite one of the highest fees in the country, my DMV took 4 months to transfer a vehicle registration. At one point I spoke to an employee who told me they needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche to print the next form needed to continue processing.
  - tabtab 7y ago
    Re: [Gov't worker] needed to go find the the appropriate microfiche At least hackers cannot delete it :-)
- JDiculous 7y ago
  That's because our government (referring to the USA) is extraordinarily inefficient with taxpayer money. My tax rate in NYC was something like 36% (not counting student loan payments and healthcare premiums), but where was this money going? We're paying practically the same tax rate as countries with universal healthcare, free/affordable universities, and strong safety nets, but we have none of the above. In my 5 years in NYC I saw the subway get progressively worse every year, while the homeless population exploded. I felt like that money might as well be getting flushed down the toilet. If I could more tangibly see where that money is going, then I'd probably feel differently. I think taxpayers should have some agency in choosing where their taxpayer money goes. Andrew Yang proposed something like this, and I love the idea: > "Each American should be able to direct 1% of their taxes to a specific project. During Revenue Day, these projects will be highlighted, showing what, exactly, America’s money was able to accomplish during the previous year. Initial profiles of the next year’s projects will also be announced so people can get excited for them." [1] I wouldn't mind paying taxes in the U.S. if I felt like they were being productively used. It's hard to feel that way. [1] https://www.yang2020.com/policies/making-taxes-fun/ https://www.yang2020.com/policies/making-taxes-fun/
  - baggy_trough 7y ago
    It would be far better for the average citizen if the tax receipts were burnt in a giant dumpster rather than further the malignant tumor of a state that we are afflicted with.
    - DrScientist 7y ago
      Perhaps - but are the reasons for the US government dysfunction - because: 1. it has too much government 'civil service' ? 2. or too much private and corporate emasculation of effective government? ie the very sentiments you echo are directly supporting the agenda of 2 and not 1.
      - baggy_trough 7y ago
        I view it as the inevitable growth of a self perpetuating bureaucracy over decades in the absence of any significant constraining force.

Invictus0 7y ago

Why can't both be true? Stability in some things, rapid response to change in others?

chongli 7y ago
They are in some ways. Governments can respond very quickly to natural disasters or wars, for example. Sometimes they don’t, of course, and they’re roundly criticized for it. And sometimes governments respond rapidly in very negative ways, such as when the Nazis passed the Reichstag fire decree [1]. This was the first major step to elevate Hitler to dictatorship. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_Fire_Decree

gry 7y ago

This is captured in the Layers of Time diagram[1]. The tension fashion to nature is at diametric odds with time and responsibility; governance is squarely inbetwixt. https://media.longnow.org/files/2/LayersOfTime-simplNEW.jpg https://media.longnow.org/files/2/LayersOfTime-simplNEW.jpg [1] http://longnow.org/about/ http://longnow.org/about/

inciampati 7y ago
At many scales, nature outpaces any human activity. Even fashion isn't as rapid as a plague of locusts. I think this figure inappropriately separates humans from nature.

kiliantics 7y ago

Inertia is far from a feature when it comes to our biggest problems today, particularly climate change. This is going to cause a lot of damage, it already has.