undefined | Better HN

0 pointsJohnBooty3y ago0 comments

    Anyway, O&M is the problem for the guy trying to get 
    the next decade's budget approved

This is why democracy, while far better than the alternatives, still absolutely sucks.

It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted. There is massive disincentive to produce systems and infrastructure that will actually work some distance into the future. The only incentive for politicians is either (a) merely look like they're doing something (b) produce the fastest, cheapest possible thing that they can take credit for when they're up for re-election.

Democracy would only really thrive if the public valued the future, and had some reliable way of judging how our politicians' solutions actually benefit the future. (ex: I value the future, but if we build a bridge today I have no way of judging if it's built to last for 5 years or 500 years)

0 comments

jopsen3y ago

> ...democracy... It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted.

It's not explicitly designed for that. It's designed to avoid concentration and abuse of power, peaceful transition of power, and to create some level of fairness.

Democracy wasn't designed to produce the best society or the most wealthy society.

Democracy was designed to avoid dictators/kings and other really bad things :)

That said, we often seem to think that we can optimize for something beyond the short term. It's a seductive thought. But experience with communism/central-planning, suggests that maybe it's best to optimize for the short term. At least that works, and produces results in the meantime.

It's the same with waterfall software development vs agile software development. Optimizing for the short term and iterating is usually better than to try and plan the future top-down.

JohnBootyOP3y ago

   It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted.

I'm not sure what else we'd call a system where elected officials have zero incentive to do anything other than look good for their re-election campaign in a few years.

Clearly, many politicians have gone above and beyond that and accomplished useful things. But there is zero incentive baked into the system for them to do so.

   Democracy was designed to avoid dictators/kings and other really bad things :)

It's good at that when implemented well, though most aren't.

Generally it seems you wind up with oligarchs/corporations effectively owning politicians unless there is an extreme level of vigilance, etc.

   But experience with communism/central-planning, suggests 
   that maybe it's best to optimize for the short term. At 
   least that works, and produces results in the meantime.

This is a false dichotomy. Clearly there are things that benefit from a short-term, MVP-style, iterative approach.

There are also clearly things that benefit from a longer view: climate change, infrastructure, etc.

jopsen3y ago

> I'm not sure what else we'd call a system where elected officials have zero incentive to do anything other than look good for their re-election campaign in a few years.

We call it a side effect. Democracy certainly wasn't designed with short sightedness in mind. That's a side effect of the far more important design goals around preventing abuse of power.

Democracy may be short-sighted, but not by design, rather as a side effect of the design.

Assuming we buy the idea that democracy is indeed short sighted.

Every considered that as long as democracy avoids establishment of dictators/kings, repression and the unavoidable civil wars that follow, then given time free market forces will produce good results.

One could reasonable argue democracy is just very very long sighted.

> Generally it seems you wind up with oligarchs/corporations effectively owning politicians

This isn't new, and yet we have built infrastructure before. Fought world wars. Irradiated deceases. Walked on the moon.

On the scales of history large corporations tend to slide into irrelevance over time.

The tech giants of today, will be rubber barons of tomorrow. Sure we might seem them around in the future. But a hundred years from now they might not seem so big.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsJohnBooty3y ago0 comments

    Anyway, O&M is the problem for the guy trying to get 
    the next decade's budget approved

This is why democracy, while far better than the alternatives, still absolutely sucks.

0 comments

jopsen3y ago

> ...democracy... It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted.

It's not explicitly designed for that. It's designed to avoid concentration and abuse of power, peaceful transition of power, and to create some level of fairness.

Democracy wasn't designed to produce the best society or the most wealthy society.

Democracy was designed to avoid dictators/kings and other really bad things :)

It's the same with waterfall software development vs agile software development. Optimizing for the short term and iterating is usually better than to try and plan the future top-down.

JohnBootyOP3y ago

   It's a system explicitly designed to be short-sighted.

I'm not sure what else we'd call a system where elected officials have zero incentive to do anything other than look good for their re-election campaign in a few years.

Clearly, many politicians have gone above and beyond that and accomplished useful things. But there is zero incentive baked into the system for them to do so.

   Democracy was designed to avoid dictators/kings and other really bad things :)

It's good at that when implemented well, though most aren't.

Generally it seems you wind up with oligarchs/corporations effectively owning politicians unless there is an extreme level of vigilance, etc.

   But experience with communism/central-planning, suggests 
   that maybe it's best to optimize for the short term. At 
   least that works, and produces results in the meantime.