"History has shown us time and time again that the best governance system is a bunch of elder statesmen who are terrified of being judged harshly by their peers

"History has shown us time and time again that the best governance system is a bunch of elder statesmen who are terrified of being judged harshly by their peers long after they are gone." Those elders have a hard time steering the ship in the storm of technological change. Faced with that, at best, they will most likely try avoid implementing anything radical (due to their bias for what's familiar to them) and will instead attempt to integrate the new with minimal change to existing system (which makes sense as a strategy, if that happens to work). At worst, they will ignore or actively resist change, betting on the likelihood that it's about some overhype at play and things needs to settle a bit before being taken seriously. As sound as this may be as a governing strategy (in general, not only for handling things in academia), it comes however with the inherent risk of inflicting debilitating effect to governed realm's progress. To avoid this, the governance has to include visionaries, and a governing body including only (although assumed visionary, yet just) elders, with a blindspot in judging much of what's new and unfamiliar, will not do.