[pas]

Is this really true? Does this work in every kind of war or Moon-race? Control is important, but so is individual initiative. The front line needs the latter the HQ needs the former. That's why "aligning goals" is the important thing, not just rules for power's sake. (That's authorianism of course.)

[JadeNB]

To be clear, pas's comment is replying to an earlier version of cousin_it's:

> Correction - that's how organizations work when their goal is making members happy. If the organization has an external goal, like winning a war or putting a man on the Moon, it needs to be more authoritarian.

(EDIT: cousin_it's comment changed again while I was writing this, somewhat closer to the original. Anyway, probably just keep in mind that any now-nonsensical response may be to an earlier version.)

[cousin_it]

Individual initiative is maximized when people have sole responsibility for their tasks, not when every decision needs to be approved by ten committees.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/19/two-stories/

[JadeNB]

> Individual initiative is maximized when people have sole responsibility for their tasks, not when every decision needs to be approved by ten committees.

> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/03/19/two-stories/

But there's a big gap between "Option A has worked better than Option B [Spolsky, anecdote]" and even "Option A is always better than Option B", much less "Option A maximises the desired outcome."

[pas]

But who sets the goal? What's Python's goal? Etc.

Maybe it can be as simple as a benevolent-dictator election. Or it can be as complex as direct democracy (voting on PEPs) - but then who can vote becomes the issue, etc.

[cousin_it]

Why election? If you create an organization to pursue some goal, you're the dictator.

[pas]

And the Python project now sees that it wants to transition away from that model. Guido represented Python, was the ideal dictator, but probably there was no good candidate to replace him, hence the complications.

[oblio]

Every military in the world is hierarchical and the best armies gave people lower in the hierarchy a bit of freedom so that they could improvise. They also educated almost every rank to be able to handle the duties of their immediate superior in case they needed to take that position quickly.

Basically control > individual initiative but control + individual initiative >>> absolute control (see Stalinism).