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As an Estonian this makes my heart warm but we (Estonians) have to keep in mind that a lot of what we've accomplished isn't because we're so truly special (alth

by erkkie 13y ago

As an Estonian this makes my heart warm but we (Estonians) have to keep in mind that a lot of what we've accomplished isn't because we're so truly special (although that makes for great marketing) but because our country size and the need (and timing) for a rebuild enabled us to do so. Lets continue to pursue other great things being small and nimble enables. On another note, the national PKI infrastructure truly is great and enables location independence on a new level. One can (and I have) start companies, handle legal issues or anything else which requires either lawful signatures or end to end crypto (PKI between citizens) while abroad.

kazagistar 13y ago
Its ok to be humble, but I am not sure the argument about size holds merit. Surely, the costs are at most linear per person: the bigger state might have a higher cost, but the cost per person is unlikely to be higher. I would rather expect the opposite: some of the cost would be amortized effectively, and even more so by the fact that a preexisting system means less reinvention is needed. The problems are thus not scale, but things specific to the nation itself. The USA, for example, is unlikely to follow a similar path any time soon due to a distrust of public works and preference for private enterprise, a (currently very well motivated) suspicion on grounds of privacy, endless political impasse, problems with procurement, bureaucratic momentum, and so on.
- glesica 13y ago
  But inefficiencies scale up super-linearly. The USA, for instance, has less cultural cohesion and sense of national identity than Estonia (the Russian minority in Estonia being the exception that perhaps proves the rule). Additionally, larger countries necessarily have more layers of bureaucracy, which make national programs more difficult to implement (the USA still does not have a national identification card, though I think RealID is still going forward, largely because of resistance on the part of states).
  - eru 13y ago
    In theory federalism can make up for some of the inefficiencies of larger organisations. In practice, there's a strong centralizing tendency. (As seen in eg the US and German political systems.)
- hueving 13y ago
  Getting larger groups of people to agree on things is where scaling becomes a problem. Especially if some of the group is ideologically opposed to others in the group.
jmspring 13y ago
What Estonia has done is quite amazing. I remember visiting in the early 2000s, internet in many places and incredibly reasonable. Estonia is small, became independent while I was in college, and entered the EU about ten years ago. I don't know how much of a clean slate the govt had in building things out, but they did something right. Building a website or an app for US healthcare is just lipstick on top of the messy pig known as legacy, non-connected legacy systems. This is complicated and will take a great deal of knowledge to understand and get right. Layering the existing bloated approach to govt contracts just exacerbated the issue. Unfortunately, we don't have as clean of a slate.

by erkkie 13y ago

kazagistar 13y ago

Its ok to be humble, but I am not sure the argument about size holds merit. Surely, the costs are at most linear per person: the bigger state might have a higher cost, but the cost per person is unlikely to be higher. I would rather expect the opposite: some of the cost would be amortized effectively, and even more so by the fact that a preexisting system means less reinvention is needed. The problems are thus not scale, but things specific to the nation itself. The USA, for example, is unlikely to follow a similar path any time soon due to a distrust of public works and preference for private enterprise, a (currently very well motivated) suspicion on grounds of privacy, endless political impasse, problems with procurement, bureaucratic momentum, and so on.

glesica 13y ago
But inefficiencies scale up super-linearly. The USA, for instance, has less cultural cohesion and sense of national identity than Estonia (the Russian minority in Estonia being the exception that perhaps proves the rule). Additionally, larger countries necessarily have more layers of bureaucracy, which make national programs more difficult to implement (the USA still does not have a national identification card, though I think RealID is still going forward, largely because of resistance on the part of states).
- eru 13y ago
  In theory federalism can make up for some of the inefficiencies of larger organisations. In practice, there's a strong centralizing tendency. (As seen in eg the US and German political systems.)
hueving 13y ago
Getting larger groups of people to agree on things is where scaling becomes a problem. Especially if some of the group is ideologically opposed to others in the group.

jmspring 13y ago

What Estonia has done is quite amazing. I remember visiting in the early 2000s, internet in many places and incredibly reasonable. Estonia is small, became independent while I was in college, and entered the EU about ten years ago. I don't know how much of a clean slate the govt had in building things out, but they did something right. Building a website or an app for US healthcare is just lipstick on top of the messy pig known as legacy, non-connected legacy systems. This is complicated and will take a great deal of knowledge to understand and get right. Layering the existing bloated approach to govt contracts just exacerbated the issue. Unfortunately, we don't have as clean of a slate.