Why Governments Fail • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Governments Fail

#11

Post by jonathannat » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #4

There's a lot in here. I was going to make some quotes and comment about some of this, but it's a pretty diverse set of topics. The main thing is that I didn't see a solid definition on how a failing government is defined or a concrete connection between that and the topics covered. It seems to be Q&A about a bunch of loosely affiliated topics.

The discussion is a bit all over the place. The main points are that EU failed vaccination, and US failed covid testing (Statista disagrees https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104645/covid19-testing-...) , as well as having a decline of innovation and movement (disagrees here, people moved everywhere during covid, and US came up with tons of effective vaccines)

It's pretty hilarious both ignored discussing the current failing government: China.

- Came up with a 50% effective vaccine sinovac, and forces its citizens to take it

- Wolf warrior politics has infuriated almost every democratic countries on Earth, and alienated China. When Merkel steps down in Sept, the Green party candidate is most likely to succeed. And the newcomer will act tough against China and Russia

- Ballooning debt (they don't own global currency, unlike US), declining marriage/birth rate, middle income trap, unrest in many provinces

- The CCP is so insecure that they banned broadcast of oscars because of Chloe Zhao, because she mentioned CCP as failing one time in 2013

Re: Why Governments Fail

#12

Post by tut-urut-utut » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Is it a problem when a government fails? Is it an ultimate goal to have "good" government that doesn't fail? What if "failed" government is sometimes a feature and not a bug?

We have some examples of "failed states" where the average people still live better than in many of the states with "good and responsible" government.

Some examples from Europe, which may have been controversial:

- Italy & Greece - big country debt, corrupt government, but average people still own more property ("richer") than people in north European countries like Germany with "better" and "more competent" governments.

- Russia, Belorusia, Serbia - corrupt government that tends to suppress human rights of its citizens, but still during the covid pandemic the restrictions of basic human freedoms were much less than in countries where human rights are most important, without significant impact on the corona casualties.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#13

Post by ceejayoz » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #12

Is it a problem when a government fails? Is it an ultimate goal to have "good" government that doesn't fail? What if "failed" government is sometimes a feature and not a bug? We have some examples of "failed states" where the average people still live better than in many of the states with "good and responsible" government. Some examples from Europe, which may have been controversial: - Italy & Greece - big country d…

https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4975

> Covid-19: Russia admits to understating deaths by more than two thirds

> Russia’s true death toll from the novel coronavirus pandemic is not about 57 000, as official figures claim, but more than 180 000, the country’s deputy prime minister, Tatiana Golikova, conceded at a press conference.

> The figures mean Russia ranks third in the world in terms of deaths from covid-19, behind only the US and Brazil. It would also give Russia the fourth highest per capita death rate, about 1273 deaths per million population, behind only San Marino, Belgium, and Slovenia.

Maybe good government matters more than you thought.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#14

Post by varispeed » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

The problem is that nobody cares about corruption, or the so-called "lobbying". Big companies get their way at the expense of regular citizens meanwhile police and other agencies are busy enforcing big pharma monopoly on drugs. Most governments run until they are exposed and people are mad enough to march on the streets, or they simply run out of "their" monopoly money. To improve that we need a ruthless agency that will remove corruption from politics once and for all.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#15

Post by TrispusAttucks » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

oddmiral wrote: post #3

Every organisation has 3 major stages: newborn, mature, and old. When competition is present, old organizations are eaten by newborn organizations. Government is monopoly, so no competition, thus old organization must die first.

I have to agree.

Governments seem like legacy code bases. Technically the laws are a form of code. People and institutions are the hardware the code runs on.

Changing requirements of the environment the machine runs in (reality) mean we must refactor and maintain the code.

If the environment changes too quickly and the code is too fragile to change at the required rate then some part of the system will crash. Enough crashes and the whole thing collapses.

Then we have to rewrite the thing from scratch with the lessons we learned from the previous version. Unfortunately some governments make use of dark patterns that are bad for users but good for a few.

I'm done ranting...

Re: Why Governments Fail

#16

Post by captaincurrie » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

Why Governments Fail: The CIA overthrows them or the US destroys them.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#17

Post by ryandrake » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:46 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #10

slibhb wrote: post #7

Did the government fail? I don't know. We got a vaccine remarkably quickly and the governments (federal and state) distributed it efficiently. I don't blame the government for not taking the virus seriously to start with. SARS and MERS didn't pan out and people, on the left and right (including me), figured COVID would be the same. Some people predicted COVID would be bad but it wasn't crazy to think COVID wouldn't t…

> Do we really want to build our society to survive viruses with the fewest causalities or are there perhaps higher ideals (freedom, self determiniation) that we should aspire to? I don't see why these have to be mutually exclusive goals. Arguably, there are better ways to get an entire society to cooperate toward a goal without resorting to authoritarianism. This sort of societal engineering is demonstrated in relig…

I don't understand the whole "freedom" argument against basic public health and safety guidance. Almost everyone wears their seatbelt in a car and doesn't complain about how their freedoms are being taken away in the name of safety. So why is this not the same with masks and distancing? Why is it that people think refusing to wear a mask transforms them into Braveheart, fighting for freedom against oppression? Sensible precautions against an airborne deadly pandemic are not attacks on self determination.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#18

Post by kspacewalk2 » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

petermcneeley wrote: post #2

I appreciate the honesty when it comes to the naming of this group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persuasion

Here's the rationale[0] for the naming of the group:

>“Persuasion” stands for:

>1) A commitment to a free society in which everyone gets to pursue a dignified life.

>2) A belief in the social practice of persuasion, which necessitates free speech.

>3) A determination to persuade, not to mock or troll, those who disagree with us.

In my view, they are succeeding admirably in meeting these 3 goals.

[0] https://twitter.com/Yascha_Mounk/status/1278707858188664832

Re: Why Governments Fail

#19

Post by nslice » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:51 PM UTC

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #15

oddmiral wrote: post #3

Every organisation has 3 major stages: newborn, mature, and old. When competition is present, old organizations are eaten by newborn organizations. Government is monopoly, so no competition, thus old organization must die first.

I have to agree. Governments seem like legacy code bases. Technically the laws are a form of code. People and institutions are the hardware the code runs on. Changing requirements of the environment the machine runs in (reality) mean we must refactor and maintain the code. If the environment changes too quickly and the code is too fragile to change at the required rate then some part of the system will crash. Enough…

Yes I agree. It's difficult to switch to a new code base (government) because the legacy system (current government) also has authority (most citizens recognize government with the most enforcement), incentive (lawmakers want to keep their power), and power (military) to keep itself there indefinitely.

Re: Why Governments Fail

#20

Post by naravara » Mon, Apr 26, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #14

The problem is that nobody cares about corruption, or the so-called "lobbying". Big companies get their way at the expense of regular citizens meanwhile police and other agencies are busy enforcing big pharma monopoly on drugs. Most governments run until they are exposed and people are mad enough to march on the streets, or they simply run out of "their" monopoly money. To improve that we need a ruthless agency that…

This misses the actual mechanism by which political corruption works. Lobbying is merely any person going in to press their interests with their representatives. Where large, monied interests rig the game is because they run election campaigns and implant narratives in the media.

In other words, the mechanism by which lobbyists get their way is by weaponizing regular citizens into voting in their interests. It's marketing and mass manipulation rather than the "quid pro quo" corruption people imagine it is.