
On Systemic Debt - dredmorbius
https://thedailywtf.com/articles/on-systemic-debt
======
agar
One of the comments effectively frames the motivations for the US's current
institutional disparities:

* The preference of well-off whites to pull the ladder up behind them;

* The preference of police unions to protect their members at all costs;

* The preference of the average non-black voter to not have to think about this crap.

I like that this is a pragmatic perspective that doesn't assume malicious
intent behind most institutional racism (and tech debt, to continue the
article's metaphor). People naturally act in their self-interest; it's not "I
hate you" it's just "I'm not going to think about consequences when I optimize
this solution for myself." While there are certainly many bad actors both in
the creation and maintenance of our broken systems, IMO the vast majority of
people are risk averse, passive participants in the status quo - i.e., falling
into the third bucket. Even the more active participants in the first two
buckets can justify their actions from inside their bubble; the horrible
negative consequences are most visible only when placed in contrast to
situations they often don't see.

Fortunately, people are recognizing the consequences of their actions - though
not universally, and of course far too late to stop the death and
marginalization of large numbers.

I hope it's a sign we're on the path to reduce or eliminate society's tech
debt before the system crashes. Like all complex projects though, it needs
sustained strong leadership.

~~~
pdonis
I think the problem is better described not as "institutional racism" but as
"institutional corruption", which is (a) broader, and (b) suggestive of
different potential fixes.

From what I can see, the proposed solution to "institutional racism" is to
browbeat everybody into thinking nicer thoughts. But we've been trying that
for decades now and it hasn't worked.

Whereas, the solution for institutional corruption is to change the structure
of the institutions, so that the people in them have different, better
incentives. In many cases, I think that means reducing the power of the
institutions over people's lives, and putting more power and choice back into
the hands of each individual.

~~~
Benjammer
>From what I can see, the proposed solution to "institutional racism" is to
browbeat everybody into thinking nicer thoughts.

This is a straw man, everything about the current push ("from what I can see")
is towards exactly the types of anti corruption efforts you described.

~~~
pdonis
_> everything about the current push ("from what I can see") is towards
exactly the types of anti corruption efforts you described_

Not "everything" is. Yes, "anti-corruption efforts" are being pushed. But you
have shifted your ground. Now you're talking about "anti corruption efforts".
Before you were talking about "institutional racism". The latter is, as I
said, narrower; it amounts to saying, first, that the institutional corruption
has racism as its sole or primary root cause (which I think is false--I think
racism is a symptom of corruption, but not the only one, and certainly not its
cause), and second, that the only reason to _fix_ institutional corruption is
to fix racism (which is also false). And that is exactly the kind of rhetoric
I see all over the place.

The reason to fix institutional corruption is that it's corruption. Citizens
of every demographic are affected by institutional corruption and want to fix
it. I think it's much better to unite around that common goal than to talk
about "racism", which is only going to divide people who should be united
against corruption.

~~~
Benjammer
Man, you're really picking at straws here. If you want to nit pick about "the
most effective" actions, then what about the dampening effect on the overall
momentum that people like you have, however minor, when you decide that
certain specific wording absolutely needs to be tweaked before you will
support the cause?

~~~
pdonis
Words matter because they describe what, specifically, "the cause" is that I'm
supposed to be supporting. What's the next demand going to be after corruption
in the police is fixed?

------
petrocrat
The analogy to the US public debt is a bad one, since the US public debt is
simply the private sector savings. It should be called the National Savings
Account or something to that effect.

It's only debt in the sense that it eventually refluxes back to the issuer
(the US Gov) after a substantial dwell time in the private sector, which is
where it serves its actual purpose: to be the unit of account and denomination
which private commercial transactions are settled in.

The US Gov is never at risk of being insolvent or defaulting on the thing that
it alone can issue. Read more about MMT economics if you're curious.

~~~
opo
>...Read more about MMT economics if you're curious.

MMT (“Modern Monetary Theory”) is rejected by most mainstream economists. The
major proponents are politicians.

[http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/modern-monetary-
theory/](http://www.igmchicago.org/surveys/modern-monetary-theory/)

~~~
dragonwriter
> MMT (“Modern Monetary Theory”) is rejected by most mainstream economists.

Modern Monetary Theory isn't a descriptive theory operating in the space of
econonics (it's descriptive aspects are purely noncontroversial conventional
economic theory), but normative/analytical theory of government policymaking
in the area of finance (and, perhaps more critically, of _describing_
government finance policy) that suggest abandoning norms and descriptions
based on the fiction of the fisc (from whence “fiscal” policy gets its name),
as there is no finite purse of externally created money that a government
operating in it's own fiat currency must fill by taxes and borrowing in order
to have money to spend. Government introduces money when it spends and
destroys it when it collects, and the key things that ought to be of concern
is the _monetary_ effects of that creation and destruction and the
distributional effects of how it is spent and from whom it is collected.

Conventional economics disagrees not at all with the descriptive pieces of
this, though, yes, many economists oppose the normative aspects and prefer
that governments honor the fiction of the fisc as if it were a real thing,
while recognizing that it is, in fact, not. It's also true that many
economists prefer a closer balance of the two sides of the revenue and
spending sides of the imaginary fisc (presumably, their preference for
maintaining the illusion is because they think that this contributes to their
preferred policy outcome) then many MMT advocates do, though that divergence
of opinion is technically outside of the domain of either descriptive
economics or MMT, which doesn't prescribe any particular preference as regards
the imaginary balance of the imaginary fisc.

------
atlgator
I've heard/read the word systemic more in the last month than my whole life
leading up to it.

~~~
karatestomp
Humanities programs issue a license for unlimited and liberal use of the term
when you're admitted. Along with some others like "hegemon". Sprinkling those
sorts of words in sentences when appropriate (and, if inept, when not) is part
of code-switching to "humanitese".

~~~
agar
Hmm, this kind of snarky response doesn't really add to the discussion. Why
slam humanities programs now, when it's those very skills that will be needed
to address many of the societal issues we face today?

Do you disagree that social workers, therapists, child care advocates,
educators, economists, and yes - even historians, writers, and artists - will
be arguably more important than scientists, engineers, and mathematicians when
it comes to issues like stemming racism?

Maybe you don't like the word "systemic." How would you describe fundamental
issues that cross economic, social, political, and legal lines?

~~~
izzydata
I kind of like the word pervasive or entrenched. Personally I don't feel like
the term systemic makes a lot of sense in the context it gets used. It doesn't
sound as serious though which I imagine is part of the point.

~~~
karatestomp
Neither's a perfect synonym for "systemic", but "systemic" _is_ sometimes
thoughtlessly or reflexively applied when it's not quite correct. Though
that's true of most words, really. When life hands you "systemic",
everything's a nail.

------
rb808
> Much harder, and much longer: you couldn't release to production until
> someone with authority signed off on it, and that might take days.

Wow lucky guy, its only a few days for you.

~~~
arethuza
A long time ago, I once had a deployment rejected by a change management team
because I used the wrong form - the right form was identical to the form I had
used apart from the title. They insisted I resubmit the whole thing and wait
until the next time they reviewed changes.....

I think I almost cried - after that I simply ignored them and deployed stuff
when I wanted... :-)

~~~
politician
Arguably, this is the intended outcome. The form exists so that the change
management team can supply evidence of process compliance to its auditors, but
when the scope of the change management processes is driven arbitrarily it can
be ridiculously hard to quantify risk of change which slows decision making.

However, if a rogue engineer might decide to flout the policy and deploy stuff
whenever they wanted, then the business stands to profit from the gains more
quickly and with less hassle. If the risk doesn't pay off, the responsible
engineer can be fired for cause, itself demonstrating that the business is in
control.

You may not want to take on uncompensated personal risk by operating outside
these lazily-defined change management policies.

~~~
arethuza
It was about 10 years ago and a former employer that I left 5 years ago.

------
neocodesoftware
"systems accrue debt" statement is thrown out but not supported

but two earlier statements could be used

1\. management put up roadblocks for authorization to improve quality -
keeping bad code longer

2\. management rushed through bad code, more tech debt to fix later

i think this relates to joseph tainter's collapse complex civilizations
declining marginal returns

re: 80 hours to add a text

there are declining marginals returns - yes because of complexity - but
specifically because of total tech debt and increase of tech debt from at
least the two points remy made

~~~
dredmorbius
The key offering here is a tangible metric for real costs: dedicated FTE
positions.

The questions of what debt is, what systems are, and what systemic debt are,
deserve deeper inquiry, I'll allow. The notion of techical debt's been floated
going back at least to Ward Cunningham
([http://wiki.c2.com/?TechnicalDebt](http://wiki.c2.com/?TechnicalDebt)), and
strikes me as highly useful.

Obvious cognates to both financial and evolutionary systems. As well as, as
you note, Tainter's work on complexity.

Another point I've seen increasingly made of late, particularly post-Covid19,
is of the conflict between efficiency and resilience.

Other references:

Martin Fowler, TechnicalDebt
[https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html](https://www.martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html)

Wikipedia:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt)

The Technical Debt Community:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180718121933/http://www.ontech...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180718121933/http://www.ontechnicaldebt.com/)
(archive).

Numerous HN discussions:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=technical%20debt%20&sort=byPopularity&type=story)

Reddit search:
[https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q="technical+deb...](https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/search?q="technical+debt")

~~~
andrewflnr
> the conflict between efficiency and resilience.

I've been thinking about this a lot. It shows up in everything from mechanical
devices to the global economy.

~~~
Jtsummers
I keep going back to this quote from _The Psychology of Computer Programming_
by Gerald Weinberg:

> _Fisher 's Fundamental Theorem states—in terms appropriate to the present
> context—that the better adapted a system is to a particular environment, the
> less adaptable it is to new environments._

It's a systems thing. You build a system that is resilient to changes in the
environment, it is less efficient _if_ the environment doesn't change versus a
system that is optimized for that specific environment. But the counterpoint
is that the optimized system can't handle changes in the environment.

~~~
andrewflnr
Nice. I've always thought of it as shaving away error margins, but I think
your quote is much more general and easy to understand.

~~~
Jtsummers
Well, shaving away the error margins is one way you gain efficiency. But in
doing so the assumption is made that the environment is static (or
sufficiently static relative to that margin). How does the fastest ground
vehicle hit that mark? By being the lightest, most streamlined it can be with
the most powerful motor it can contain, running on one of the flattest longest
spaces it can find. Put it on a NASCAR track and the operator would be dead.

An important note is that assumptions are often not made explicitly. People
don't sit down and say, "I think this vehicle will never be used on an oval
race track, therefore 'steering' will be minimal, and the throttle will be
full-open or full-closed". They just know they're making the fastest ground
vehicle, and so those decisions are consequences of that specific objective.
They happen to have an implied assumption that the vehicle will never need to
operate at lower speeds or make turns.

This leads to an interesting tangent, System-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA)
by Nancy Leveson has an objective of improving system safety. But one of the
ways it does this is to raise those assumptions to the level of conscious
awareness by creating an explicit system model. It's not the only process that
does this, but it's making headway in the systems safety community these days.

------
carapace
I spent two years at a large corp working on a classic "lava flow" pattern
project.

The company needed a way to manage large spreadsheets. They have their own
spreadsheet product but it can't handle the size of the data so this one
department uses Excel instead of their own thing.

This one cowboy coder whipped up a web app on the cloud to start to replace
the existing pile off spreadsheets and people with a custom solution and fewer
people. It's centered around the concept of Table View which is exactly what
it sounds like.

Five years later, it's not finished, full of bugs, and _also_ can't handle the
large datasets. But they keep throwing devs and money at it. They're probably
still working on it.

(It was full of wild weird stuff. For instance, there was a "unittest" that
generated other unittests, at runtime, in memory.)

------
NanoWar
I think not acting against climate charge might be the biggest debt we all pay
later

------
beager
One aspect of systemic debt that tracks well with technical debt (and most
forms of "debt") is that paying down that debt requires you to confront the
risk-averse and fearful tendencies of your organization/nation.

The more fearful and risk-averse approach will lock things into a local
optimization with tremendous support costs and will accrue debt very fast. The
bold approach will break out of the local maximum, but probably upset the
apple cart.

~~~
agar
Based on the current gray color, this response has seen quite a few down
votes. I wonder why?

It essentially restates the premise of the article, and is reasonably accurate
from my experience. ("upset the apple cart" may understate the risks of a
"ground up" rewrite, but there are plenty of "bold approaches" that are less
dramatic).

It would be nice if down voters replied, it could be an interesting
discussion.

------
deckard1
> they loved it when I could give them a button to self-service some feature
> which needed to use manual intervention, so long as the interface was just
> cumbersome enough that only they could use it. They hated it when a workflow
> got so streamlined that any user could do it.

Capitalism is the history of actors playing the role of problem solvers while
acting as gatekeepers. IBM, Oracle, Salesforce, to name just a tiny obvious
few.

Once you realize that problems are created that _aren 't meant to be solved_
you start to understand why the world is the way it is.

Software development has always been trivial. Coming up with a coherent set of
business rules from a group of people with diverse political agendas? Therein
lies your hell.

------
csours
Systemic Debt requires political change, and political change requires
education. If you feel able, you should try to educate your neighbors. If you
feel like things are just fine, maybe listen to your neighbors.

------
solotronics
The US was set up initially to have a solution for this exact problem! The
idea was every state could pick it's own laws and the federal (not capitalized
yet) government could NOT override any state or local. The Federalists threw
all this out and instilled the foundation for the hyper powerful Fed we have
today. This Federalist system led to the rise of things like a national bank
and a standing army. I have no idea how history would have played out if the
feds didn't win so it's hard to say which system would have been better.

~~~
war1025
Arguably the European Union is very similar to what was originally envisions
for the United States.

I'm interested to see how EU internal relations change over time.

