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It's interesting to hear you say that. When I was growing up in the 1980s, everything was top-down (NASA, IBM, even pop culture). '95-99 was when the internet p
by zackmorris 6y ago
It's interesting to hear you say that. When I was growing up in the 1980s, everything was top-down (NASA, IBM, even pop culture). '95-99 was when the internet popularized the idea of barely controlled anarchy leading to success that we take for granted today.
On a tangent, I personally feel that bottom-up design has been an almost complete failure. The US has lost its ability to articulate what it needs to do, and then execute that plan. So for example, nearly all federal services that we used to depend on are failing. The Post Office is being crippled because it's seen as a price ceiling against UPS and FedEx, not to mention that elections can't be rigged when votes are centrally counted. The IRS has been defunded by the far right and liberals who have sold out to Wall Street, because they don't want rich people or corporations to be audited, because that might reveal widespread fraud. NASA hasn't been properly funded since Challenger, and technically lost its funding when the public lost interest in moon missions. We can argue various fake news interpretations of these trends, but the truth of them is self-evident from an academic standpoint.
What's my point? That maybe we could use a little more top-down planning. I'd rather see the spirit of socialism succeed (the elimination of wealth inequality), rather than what we have now, which is survival of the fittest on steroids. A top-down internet might have had some basic security measures in place, such as HTTPS everywhere. Also some bells and whistles like the free hosting that university students enjoy.
This may all seem quaint, but the loss of confidence in central government planning in the US is another way of saying that our republic is in decline. It's the central conflict in the Republican Party, half of whose members are old enough to remember when American ingenuity was once second to none. Now we can't even temporarily nationalize, say, N95 mask manufacturing. Sad.
- winstonewert 6y ago> not to mention that elections can't be rigged when votes are centrally counted What?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- zackmorris 6y agoI should have said "as easily"
- winstonewert 6y agoI'm not sure how it is easier either. I would expect it to be easier to corrupt one single centralized count then many decentralized counts. In fact, the votes that I've seen brought under suspicion are precisely those were ballots were collected in a central location before being counted.
- CryptoPunk 6y ago>>On a tangent, I personally feel that bottom-up design has been an almost complete failure I don't see the evidence supporting that assertion. The US has by and large moved to a top-down design since the 1950s: Creation of Medicare Creation of OSHA Creation of EPA Occupational licensing rising from 5% of jobs, in 1950, to 29% today. The Code of Federal Regulations massively expanding since the 1950s: https://www.mercatus.org/video/visualizing-growth-federal-regulation-1950 https://www.mercatus.org/video/visualizing-growth-federal-re... Govermment spending as a percentage of GDP increasing substantially since the 1950s. The financial surveillance state growing rapidly in scope, with OFAC, FinCEN - only created in 1990 - and other financial crime/surveillance agencies becoming far more substantial in their impact on banking and finance. Healthcare regulations have become significantly more burdensome since the 1950s: https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-management/expert-forum-rise-and-rise-healthcare-administrator https://www.athenahealth.com/knowledge-hub/practice-manageme... Public sector unions have also become much more powerful since the 1950s, with deleterious effects. In teaching: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/111/3/671/1839935 https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/111/3/671/1839935 In policing: https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_7718.html https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_7718.html The bright spots in the economy, in terms of providing more value for less cost to the consumer, are all bottom up, whether it's the internet and digital industries, consumer electronics, or the food industry. These are heavily dominated by the private sector and relatively unhampered by government regulation, and consequently, very competitive.
- refurb 6y agoMost of those things you mention - Post Office, elections, IRS, NASA are all examples of top down planning.
- Angostura 6y agoI think from your timings that you are conflating the Web and the Internet.