> It’s time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a > 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code. The author's metaphor here assumes a world wh

> It’s time for a new operating system. Not a 2.0 or a > 3.0, but something built from the ground up. New code. The author's metaphor here assumes a world where a massively complex system, which is basically working but has some problems, can be "fixed" via replacement by a new system designed from scratch. In all of human history, how many times has this ever actually worked? Continuing the comparison to operating systems, the three most popular OSes of today (Windows, Mac OS, Linux[1]) are built on foundations dating back to the dawn of microcomputers. The intervening forty-odd years have seen hundreds of competitors invented and abandoned, while the last scion of CP/M holds its ground and the descendants of UNIX consume the world. Or going back to the world of international politics, what is the half-life of a newly established form of government? All of our philosophy, reason, war, and technological advancement have brought us nothing but small improvements to systems of democracy founded thousands of years ago in Greece and Rome. The NSA scandal and ongoing derailment of the Arab Spring show that we still don't know how to even control our own governments, much less design sweeping improvements to them. [1] I'm counting Android as Linux despite not being GNU/Linux, because it runs the Linux kernel. --- On the topic of charity: One might think of charity as a medication, given to a sick society. It is effective in some cases, ineffective in others, and sometimes outright harmful[2]. Objecting to charity in general is equivalent to advocating against antibiotics. Charity can't solve massive structural problems in a society, but when properly focused it can do things that malfunctioning governments aren't capable of. Just giving twenty dollars to everyone in Pakistan will make their own lives temporarily better, but spending twenty dollars per capita on Polio eradication will improve the lives of their children, and grandchildren, and so on until the end of time. [2] See: the near-annihilation of Africa's textile industry due to donations of second-hand clothing.