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I have to agree. Governments seem like legacy code bases. Technically the laws are a form of code. People and institutions are the hardware the code runs on.

I have to agree. Governments seem like legacy code bases. Technically the laws are a form of code. People and institutions are the hardware the code runs on. Changing requirements of the environment the machine runs in (reality) mean we must refactor and maintain the code. If the environment changes too quickly and the code is too fragile to change at the required rate then some part of the system will crash. Enough crashes and the whole thing collapses. Then we have to rewrite the thing from scratch with the lessons we learned from the previous version. Unfortunately some governments make use of dark patterns that are bad for users but good for a few. I'm done ranting...

nslice 6y ago
Yes I agree. It's difficult to switch to a new code base (government) because the legacy system (current government) also has authority (most citizens recognize government with the most enforcement), incentive (lawmakers want to keep their power), and power (military) to keep itself there indefinitely.
kspacewalk2 6y ago
This doesn't seem in agreement with the parent comment, and is a much better analogy than a mere 'government as something that will eventually die'. Sure, governments are organizations that will eventually 'die' in some form, but how is that a useful observation? The British government has a lot of 'legacy code' going back to the deep middle ages, and yet (in its current 'state of the codebase', which can improve or worsen over time) it is much further away from 'death' than many newcomers in the third world who had no codebase to speak of 60 years ago. Theirs are badly maintained forks and occasionally the whole thing blows up and needs to be monkey-patched to keep creaking on in some fashion. Age is thus no impediment at all to having a well-functioning, efficient government, and 'startups' are often in the most disadvantageous position of all. So even the software analogy fails us at some point, and cannot be taken any further.
johnchristopher 6y ago
When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.

nslice 6y ago

Yes I agree. It's difficult to switch to a new code base (government) because the legacy system (current government) also has authority (most citizens recognize government with the most enforcement), incentive (lawmakers want to keep their power), and power (military) to keep itself there indefinitely.

kspacewalk2 6y ago

This doesn't seem in agreement with the parent comment, and is a much better analogy than a mere 'government as something that will eventually die'. Sure, governments are organizations that will eventually 'die' in some form, but how is that a useful observation? The British government has a lot of 'legacy code' going back to the deep middle ages, and yet (in its current 'state of the codebase', which can improve or worsen over time) it is much further away from 'death' than many newcomers in the third world who had no codebase to speak of 60 years ago. Theirs are badly maintained forks and occasionally the whole thing blows up and needs to be monkey-patched to keep creaking on in some fashion. Age is thus no impediment at all to having a well-functioning, efficient government, and 'startups' are often in the most disadvantageous position of all. So even the software analogy fails us at some point, and cannot be taken any further.

johnchristopher 6y ago

When all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail.