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Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? When I'm given a task to complete, my first instinct is to fin

Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? When I'm given a task to complete, my first instinct is to find where other developers have done what I'm asked to do and then utilize their wisdom into my own solution which will likely look very similar to theirs. Why do we see such drastically different approaches to solving issues in society and government? Want better education? Step 1: Find a state/city that has great education and study what they did to achieve it Want less crime? Step 1: Mimic a state/city that has successfully reduced crime Seems so simple to me but yet I never hear politicians/people saying things like "Boston has successfully raised their level of education by doing XYZ so we're going to follow those steps here with minor tweaks to best suite our area"

redleggedfrog 3y ago
Crime is a for profit business for the perpetrators, politicians, and law enforcement, and the only victims are, well, the victims. There isn't much profit in peace.
- JetSpiegel 3y ago
  Didn't SF's mayor's brother murder someone?
trentnix 3y ago
> Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? We do. It’s called “product-market fit” in software. It’s called “elections” in democratic government. The government provides the services and competence its leaders, and consequently its electorate, demands. San Francisco’s electorate demanded what it’s getting. As you can see just from these comments, “the facts” are twisted, distorted, and obfuscated to confirm a preferred narrative. But the faith in the narrative, whichever narrative you hold, never wavers.
- zacharytelschow 3y ago
  Elections don't decide which policies will work, only which will be implemented. It's quite simple to see what worked elsewhere and in the past if people would care to look.
  - trentnix 3y ago
    The software market doesn’t always value what works best either.
  - rabuse 3y ago
    We have politics tied to identities now, and how people "feel" about something, rather than looking at direct outcomes. It doesn't work.
    - peanuty1 3y ago
      "Facts don't care about your feelings."
ubermonkey 3y ago
[flagged]
- Gareth321 3y ago
  > The is primarily due to the conservative party's realization half a century ago that they could motivate their base with rage and grievance politics instead of with good policy, and win doing so (google "southern strategy"). I've got no dog in this fight, and this comment is peak American. If you don't see that the other side is doing the EXACT same thing, you're part of the problem.
  - ubermonkey 3y ago
    Please show me an example where in the same period of time the Democratic party has done anything as egregious as the Southern Strategy. I'd also welcome any example of a policy initiative led by the GOP that addresses any of the myriad serious issues in American life, chiefly those addressing poverty, education, and health care.
    - S201 3y ago
      > Please show me an example where in the same period of time the Democratic party has done anything as egregious as the Southern Strategy. Democrats purposefully supporting far-right candidates in the 2022 primaries because they believed they would be easier to win against in the general election doesn't exactly speak towards their supposed self-righteous ideals. I don't know about you, but amplifying the voices a party claims to be so dangerous purely because they believe it to be in their own short term self-interest is pretty damn egregious to me. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats... https://theintercept.com/2022/11/19/keri-lake-democrats-arizona/ https://theintercept.com/2022/11/19/keri-lake-democrats-ariz...
      - ubermonkey 3y ago
        I wouldn't put that anywhere near the activities of the GOP, who have literally spent 5 decades emboldening racism, and who have in the last few cycles flirted with or openly embraced fascism. But yeah, sure, tHe pArTiEs aRe tHe SaMe.
Gareth321 3y ago
Politics has always had an emotional component because many people are led by emotions, but things are pretty bad right now. Question the emotional orthodoxy on either side and prepare for war.
zacharytelschow 3y ago
> Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? Because half the country doesn't like the answers that experience produces. Reducing crime isn't hard: support and hire police, put criminals behind bars, and ticket even small/petty crime (broken windows policing). The formula works but because evenly applying the rules produces disparate outcomes among various groups it's evidently racist and it's preferable to just allow violent criminals to run unchecked on the streets.
- callalex 3y ago
  It’s the “evenly applying the rules” part where everything breaks down in the US.
- lajy 3y ago
  > Reducing crime isn't hard: support and hire police, put criminals behind bars, and ticket even small/petty crime Am I taking crazy pills, or is this just simply not the approach that countries with globally low crime rates take? At the very least, it's insanely reductive. USA already has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. Supporting and hiring more police officers into a broken system won't help anything, especially when the cops are often criminals themselves (let alone the fact that their priorities so frequently seem to be contrary to the community's). On some level, sure, we need a form of policing that the public trusts, and we need to take crime seriously when appropriate. USA is nowhere near the first point, and is fumbling the bag terribly when trying to apply the second point. Strong social support nets and programs, fostering community and civic culture, a focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, working to prevent the conditions that create violent crime in the first place--these are all much more effective steps as opposed to "more cops, more people in jail."
  - pie_flavor 3y ago
    Exhibit A. It works, but it seems like it shouldn't work, so we should reject it and do something that keeps not working. America is a more violent place; it has been for its entire history. Things that work in places with incredible cultural homogeneity don't work here, no matter how many happy images they conjure. What actually works here is policing, and SF is an example of people who believe your post following it off a cliff.
MAGZine 3y ago
Which city should San Francisco look to to solve all of its problems? Fwiw, "governance" does exactly that. Many states literally copy, or copy-then-tweak California law (e.g. motor vehicle efficiency requirements).
- flappyeagle 3y ago
  Singapore
- buzzert 3y ago
  Tokyo, Singapore, heck maybe even Dallas.
  - MAGZine 3y ago
    Tokyo? Really? Because that city has the same cultural values as San Francisco, so whatever works there would surely work in sf.
    - buzzert 3y ago
      It couldn't be more different culturally, but Tokyo is definitely the "gold standard" when it comes to safe cities. I know it can't be copied wholesale, but there are certain aspects I think would be nice, such as having penalties for committing crimes.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
anjc 3y ago
The approach you suggest is very common in the public sector, almost to a rule. Public services are just massive, costly, complicated, and cater to all sorts of vulnerable populations, and the public have pay for it. The time horizon on some complicated projects is so long that knowledge can change in the meantime and make the project/strategies look incoherent. E.g., some countries decommissioned public transport options over decades when cars became more widespread, and are undoing it now because cars became too widespread, and it'll take decades to rectify. Then there are world events that upend everything, such as Ukraine or COVID-19. It's just very complicated, far more complicated than anything in software development in my experience.
FractalHQ 3y ago
I wonder, do livable minimum wages and affordable healthcare / education / housing have any significant effect on crime rates?
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  Yes, they're called "social determinants of health"
collegeburner 3y ago
we were supposed to be set up for this the point of having a bunch of different states and municipalities is you can test something in one place and see if it works. like weed legalization, some states did it and the world didn't end so others try. or constitutional carry, some states did it and the world didn't end so others try. there's some poli sci theory that politics is actually about the majority's schadenfreude at fucking over the minority. which seems increasingly credible. but that means we've been pushing more and more stuff to the feds for years so this is now harder to do. let states and counties do more stuff again. like this should be a party neutral issue, let the dems to more dem stuff and the reps to more rep stuff.

redleggedfrog 3y ago

Crime is a for profit business for the perpetrators, politicians, and law enforcement, and the only victims are, well, the victims. There isn't much profit in peace.

JetSpiegel 3y ago
Didn't SF's mayor's brother murder someone?

trentnix 3y ago

> Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? We do. It’s called “product-market fit” in software. It’s called “elections” in democratic government. The government provides the services and competence its leaders, and consequently its electorate, demands. San Francisco’s electorate demanded what it’s getting. As you can see just from these comments, “the facts” are twisted, distorted, and obfuscated to confirm a preferred narrative. But the faith in the narrative, whichever narrative you hold, never wavers.

zacharytelschow 3y ago
Elections don't decide which policies will work, only which will be implemented. It's quite simple to see what worked elsewhere and in the past if people would care to look.
- trentnix 3y ago
  The software market doesn’t always value what works best either.
- rabuse 3y ago
  We have politics tied to identities now, and how people "feel" about something, rather than looking at direct outcomes. It doesn't work.
  - peanuty1 3y ago
    "Facts don't care about your feelings."

ubermonkey 3y ago

[flagged]

Gareth321 3y ago
> The is primarily due to the conservative party's realization half a century ago that they could motivate their base with rage and grievance politics instead of with good policy, and win doing so (google "southern strategy"). I've got no dog in this fight, and this comment is peak American. If you don't see that the other side is doing the EXACT same thing, you're part of the problem.
- ubermonkey 3y ago
  Please show me an example where in the same period of time the Democratic party has done anything as egregious as the Southern Strategy. I'd also welcome any example of a policy initiative led by the GOP that addresses any of the myriad serious issues in American life, chiefly those addressing poverty, education, and health care.
  - S201 3y ago
    > Please show me an example where in the same period of time the Democratic party has done anything as egregious as the Southern Strategy. Democrats purposefully supporting far-right candidates in the 2022 primaries because they believed they would be easier to win against in the general election doesn't exactly speak towards their supposed self-righteous ideals. I don't know about you, but amplifying the voices a party claims to be so dangerous purely because they believe it to be in their own short term self-interest is pretty damn egregious to me. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats-interfere-republican-primaries/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/09/12/democrats... https://theintercept.com/2022/11/19/keri-lake-democrats-arizona/ https://theintercept.com/2022/11/19/keri-lake-democrats-ariz...
    - ubermonkey 3y ago
      I wouldn't put that anywhere near the activities of the GOP, who have literally spent 5 decades emboldening racism, and who have in the last few cycles flirted with or openly embraced fascism. But yeah, sure, tHe pArTiEs aRe tHe SaMe.

Gareth321 3y ago

Politics has always had an emotional component because many people are led by emotions, but things are pretty bad right now. Question the emotional orthodoxy on either side and prepare for war.

zacharytelschow 3y ago

> Could someone please enlighten me on why we don't treat governing like we do software solutions? Because half the country doesn't like the answers that experience produces. Reducing crime isn't hard: support and hire police, put criminals behind bars, and ticket even small/petty crime (broken windows policing). The formula works but because evenly applying the rules produces disparate outcomes among various groups it's evidently racist and it's preferable to just allow violent criminals to run unchecked on the streets.

callalex 3y ago
It’s the “evenly applying the rules” part where everything breaks down in the US.
lajy 3y ago
> Reducing crime isn't hard: support and hire police, put criminals behind bars, and ticket even small/petty crime Am I taking crazy pills, or is this just simply not the approach that countries with globally low crime rates take? At the very least, it's insanely reductive. USA already has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world. Supporting and hiring more police officers into a broken system won't help anything, especially when the cops are often criminals themselves (let alone the fact that their priorities so frequently seem to be contrary to the community's). On some level, sure, we need a form of policing that the public trusts, and we need to take crime seriously when appropriate. USA is nowhere near the first point, and is fumbling the bag terribly when trying to apply the second point. Strong social support nets and programs, fostering community and civic culture, a focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment, working to prevent the conditions that create violent crime in the first place--these are all much more effective steps as opposed to "more cops, more people in jail."
- pie_flavor 3y ago
  Exhibit A. It works, but it seems like it shouldn't work, so we should reject it and do something that keeps not working. America is a more violent place; it has been for its entire history. Things that work in places with incredible cultural homogeneity don't work here, no matter how many happy images they conjure. What actually works here is policing, and SF is an example of people who believe your post following it off a cliff.

MAGZine 3y ago

Which city should San Francisco look to to solve all of its problems? Fwiw, "governance" does exactly that. Many states literally copy, or copy-then-tweak California law (e.g. motor vehicle efficiency requirements).

flappyeagle 3y ago
Singapore
buzzert 3y ago
Tokyo, Singapore, heck maybe even Dallas.
- MAGZine 3y ago
  Tokyo? Really? Because that city has the same cultural values as San Francisco, so whatever works there would surely work in sf.
  - buzzert 3y ago
    It couldn't be more different culturally, but Tokyo is definitely the "gold standard" when it comes to safe cities. I know it can't be copied wholesale, but there are certain aspects I think would be nice, such as having penalties for committing crimes.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

anjc 3y ago

The approach you suggest is very common in the public sector, almost to a rule. Public services are just massive, costly, complicated, and cater to all sorts of vulnerable populations, and the public have pay for it. The time horizon on some complicated projects is so long that knowledge can change in the meantime and make the project/strategies look incoherent. E.g., some countries decommissioned public transport options over decades when cars became more widespread, and are undoing it now because cars became too widespread, and it'll take decades to rectify. Then there are world events that upend everything, such as Ukraine or COVID-19. It's just very complicated, far more complicated than anything in software development in my experience.

FractalHQ 3y ago

I wonder, do livable minimum wages and affordable healthcare / education / housing have any significant effect on crime rates?

iancmceachern 3y ago
Yes, they're called "social determinants of health"

collegeburner 3y ago

we were supposed to be set up for this the point of having a bunch of different states and municipalities is you can test something in one place and see if it works. like weed legalization, some states did it and the world didn't end so others try. or constitutional carry, some states did it and the world didn't end so others try. there's some poli sci theory that politics is actually about the majority's schadenfreude at fucking over the minority. which seems increasingly credible. but that means we've been pushing more and more stuff to the feds for years so this is now harder to do. let states and counties do more stuff again. like this should be a party neutral issue, let the dems to more dem stuff and the reps to more rep stuff.