[ufmace]

Kind of ironically, pulling out 3 anecdotal examples of well-known system failures doesn't make a very high-quality argument that most things being done sloppily most of the time doesn't usually work out fine. The real argument is, that while those 3 things were happening - and the War on Drugs goes back ~100 years - roughly 3 billion other things were also sloppily done, and most of them worked out well enough.

If it didn't work, we would all be starving and dodging lions in a jungle somewhere, instead of writing posts on an internet forum about how a few well-known things were sloppily done, yet didn't really cause that much damage in the great scheme of things.

[lotsofpulp]

tpxl and you are using different definitions of "work out fine".

Incarceration and systemic discrimination against an entire class of people does not count as "well enough", in my opinion.

And it's specious reasoning to conclude that if a society made up of untrustworthy actors committing fraud isn't starving and dodging lions, then it's worked out fined. One can go live in a country with low societal trust to see what that's like (Brazil, India, Pakistan, Somalia, etc).

I posit that it's the proportion of trustworthy actors in the system, along with a healthy dose of conveniently timed technological advances as well as luck providing resources at the right time that leads to a prosperous society. There are countless examples in history of a society doing well enough, and every time there is a tipping point where sufficient trust is lost and it starts degrading, or in some cases, collapses.

[ufmace]

> tpxl and you are using different definitions of "work out fine".

I suppose we are. I'd argue that mine corresponds to reality in every modern nation that currently exists on the planet. I think they're all doing pretty well indeed overall, compared to the historical record and the current conditions of some of the countries and places that aren't doing so well. Comparing current reality to an imaginary utopia is a whole different ballgame.

There's nothing wrong with recognizing the problems, mistakes, and injustices that we do have now and working to fix them. We just need to keep a little perspective - despite the problems, things are still going pretty well one the whole. Plans that talk of tearing the whole system down to fix a few small problems aren't a good idea, and have historically mostly led to things getting much, much worse.

[geggam]

Power corrupts. Corruption erodes trust.

How do you put people in power without corruption ?

You give them a tight set of rules to follow and limit their power.... with something like a constitution.

You see how it took a mere 200 years for that to get corrupted ?

[lotsofpulp]

Change is inevitable. I merely hope to slow the change caused by corruption by doing what I can to prevent it.

The only way to stop or slow corruption is by shining light on it. I support all efforts to increase transparency. Put all those spreadsheets online so people can audit each other. Perhaps it is inevitable still, but it’s the best chance we have.