"Reform" is a big, fuzzy word. A lot more brittleness and complexity has been added under that rubric. Systems of governance eventually get "over learned", that is, people adapt to the system and use it in more ways than it was intended. The ability of hundreds of millions of people to adapt is much greater than any amount of complexity that we can create. Yet we persist in the idea that by continuing to "tweak" the system, somehow magic will come from it. To me this is where humility comes in. We can never create a perfect government. The best we can do is have one that balances stability and refactoring.

Election cycles and constitutional amendment processes were supposed to do this. What we've found, though, is that legal precedent, statutory code, and an expansion of pure democracy and the role of career politicians, given enough time, puts us exactly where we didn't want to go.

Interesting side note: overly complex and brittle systems that people execute actually give dictatorial powers to those responsible for executing them. That is, in a computer system, the complexity creates program crashes and dysfunction, because the computer has to treat each instruction cycle and piece of data the same. In a system executed by people, a subtle social goal takes over: things still appear to happen. The system still superficially looks like it is working somewhat -- those in authority just selectively apply and bend the rules depending on whatever their whims are. If you've ever worked in a large organization with too much process, you've easily observed this: most struggle under burdensome rules, never being able to get anything done. A few, however, work completely outside the system, given special permission. These folks are usually kept off the radar so as not to upset the troops. Complex people systems don't ever stop working, they just make things miserable on most everybody and give a few permission to do whatever they want.

You'd think that modern tyrannies would look like old Libya: one guy in a funny hat ruling totally. But that's not the way it works any more. It's not one guy, it's a distributed oligarchy, and it's not out in the open, it's obfuscated.

in the best case they will be heavily audited and will not be allowed to make important decisions.

in the worst case biases will be programmed into the systems decision making algorithms, amplifying the power of those controlling the systems

one of the best systems we've come up with for government relies on biased actors fighting each other and compromising to reach fair agreements. giving too much power to one of these branches of government is not a good thing, no matter how much inherent human bias it eliminates from the system

> Think about how many great things have sprung out of places like Reddit.

To think about what is lacking in the fantasy lets start with what happens when there is no overwhelming support for anything. How does a whiz-bang networking technology solve fundamental human disagreements?

It's also worth asking if speed of execution is really the defining characteristic of a good government. Plenty of horrible governments have been able to get horrible things done quickly and efficiently.

In Britain the cs are basically providing long-term continuity regardless of how chaotic and volatile party politics becomes. What we see is that most of the machinery of state keeps working, despite the circus in the Commons. Despite Covid. Despite Brexit. So, without subscribing to an anarchic take, we somehow concede that somebody, somewhere, must be doing some work :)

Most people's contact is through online, if you can fire up even the most basic browser almost every interaction is clear, fast and smooth.

When you start dealing at a higher level (business and contracting) then you see behind the Wizard of Oz's curtain a bit. Things go more smoothly if you have the right documents and history. Isn't that the same in every country though?

So, it serves regular citizens very well, but less considerately as your needs are more complex. Effective maybe, but I didn't say "fair" :) Certainly there must be many people find it harder, and I'm probably showing my privilege.

I appreciate your point about political change but that's not something I view as being 'outside of government'. The political leadership and the bureaucracy are 'government' - if they are failing even primarily due to arbitrary change in direction ... then we can at least narrow the scope of where we point our fingers, but it doesn't mean that 'building a subway should be impossible' in 2020.

The US engaged and defeated the Nazis, and the Japanese, and built the first Nuclear Weapon, along with designing several new weapons and building them at large ... in the term of a single presidential cycle.

Without being overly cynical, I do believe that incentives matter, and if the bureaucracy doesn't have to produce much of real value then it just won't.

More that you have to have realistic expectations when you structure an org, that people doing the work are going to pad and sandbag in successive tiers up, and people in charge of outcomes are going to push for bigger and more down.

Is there an example -- in the entire history of the planet -- of a government which had no need for secrecy? Sounds cool if it would work.

There are no benefits or advantages I can think of that come from sloppiness and deconstruction. In politics/government there are not only immediate but ever growing benefits from corruption and reconstruction of the processes and structures that come to the people at the top and the apparatchiks/aristocracy/bureaucracy they bring along as bolster and shielding.

People call it different things, but what is clearly emerging in all western societies simultaneously is not at all what the ruling class claims, but rather the authoritarian default that the American Revolution in particular has been a thorn in the eye of for a few centuries now. It is why these duplicitous forces have been attacking and undermining the Constitution of the USA for so long, because it is the only document/philosophy in history that has determined the limits the people place on government rather than government determining the limits on the people.

In many ways, the US Constitution was the only real revolution in human history, one that turns the power dynamic on its head. That is being destroyed right now and I guarantee when (if?) that dam breaks, it will be far worse for the rest of humanity than America. The world takes for granted that everything we enjoy is a function of the US Constitution that is being destroyed right now.

It may all end super well for the elevated privileged classes in this community in particular, but at best it will end horribly for most everyone else. Another possibility is that it all goes sideways as things are wont to and many here end up a head shorter.

I think it's possible that a DAO could be part of a system that does provide such an advantage -- it may even be the case that it alone confers one! But I don't know what it is and want to see one articulated.

This topic is of current interest to me, as I've been reading summaries of the history of political and philosophical trends lately[1]. The interplay of different power groups with economic, technological, and other factors to form novel systems for controlling their environment is very complex, and fun to speculate about, especially the internet's role in possibly allowing new power structures to exist that may lead to new systems.

1. In particular, Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy, which has been a surprising lot of fun.

Otherwise, it'll just turn into DnD 3.5e where every action has a rule in a book somewhere, it'll be blasphemy if you handwave it before looking it up, and yet somehow that one guy always has their character just so to skirt that same rule.

Much ink has been spilled on the topic of governing well. It could fairly be called the entire output of now risen and fallen civilizations. Institutions such as laws, rights, courts, judges, and citizenship are many millenia old, and people have always been willing to pay to get them. Yes, these digital empires are a new beast, but surely there are better options than running around, reacting to emergencies, helping out people with inner circle access, laying down really ineffective law for everyone else, like some sort of overworked bronze age monarch?