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You know what makes a distributed system work? Failure. Now and again, nature arranges for a catastrophe. An asteroid, too much oxygen, lignin building up, nat
by lordnacho 5y ago
You know what makes a distributed system work? Failure.
Now and again, nature arranges for a catastrophe. An asteroid, too much oxygen, lignin building up, nature has cleaned up after and built on top of the rubble.
Over the last 20-odd years, we didn't let a real economic catastrophe happen. There are millions of people working the wrong job. Loads of people have a made a ton of money providing nothing useful at all. Without a periodic shakeup, the bullshit merchants take over the economy. People who talk a good game but are never held to account. Who is swimming naked? There is too much money to know.
Part of the reason is centralization. Unfortunately, we don't really have 200-odd governments. A lot of them think the same way about the issues that matter, and a very small group influence all the others.
- ausbah 5y agowhat about the costs to global economic catastrophes outside of money? the livelihoods of millions are ruined, families slip into needless poverty, and people die. if those are the costs, I don't think just letting things "work themselves out" is worth it
- lordnacho 5y agoCatastrophes are smaller if you let them happen now and again. And localized. And you will have planned for them, because the population isn't conditioned to think the government will bail them out.
- zaphar 5y agoIt takes roughly about one generation for a population to get conditioned to think the government will bail them out. One great depression and the majority of that generation will make it their goal to get a government in place that will "bail" them out. It's humans being humans. There is no technology or legal or society you can build that won't degenerate in that way or get wholesale replaced because they are all built and used by humans.