The very internet we used got its start as a government project[1] after all. I submit that both can hold true across time and people: government does good, an

The very internet we used got its start as a government project[1] after all. I submit that both can hold true across time and people: government does good, and government does bad. The reason, I submit with copious handwaving, is that people don't scale. The Agile ninja team kills it because it's a small group of ninjas. Throw some zeros behind the team size, make those ninjas into division leads, and watch it crumble. Many will contend that the number of communication edges in the graph of team members is the issue. That may be a significant contributor, but consider: people function at scale in military situations, with curtailed individuality and authoritarian control structures. Indeed, a subset of the population thrives like that. But it doesn't generalize. Back on topic: the militarized external threat has historically driven much innovation. Was not the internet itself born in the Cold War? Absent that external pressure, the government has drifted into subsidizing much questionable stuff. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET