

Founding Fathers Version 2.0 - autarch
http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/founding_fathers_version_20

======
Perceval
Here's the problem with Scott Adams' article: it doesn't lay out exactly what
the problem is. He says that "the system," by which he means the Constitution,
no longer functions because it was designed too long ago.

His proposed course of action is to redesign "the system."

This presumes that "the system" as it currently exists reflects the original
design. Which it manifestly does not. Not only was the Constitution amended 27
times, vast parts of the federal government are not even close to
constitutional in a way that the Founders would have recognized.

And if the system no longer works as designed, that doesn't actually pinpoint
what the problem is. What is causing it not to work? If a system no longer
produces the desired outputs, is it because the system is broken or because
you're feeding it garbage inputs? As George Carlin said about American
politics, "garbage in, garbage out"
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk&NR=1](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIraCchPDhk&NR=1)

So, Adams is calling for people to design a new system that will accept
garbage inputs and produce desirable outputs. Moreover, he ignores that the
current system-as-is-operated is not a reflection of the system-as-designed.
Asking for a redesign of the original spec and blaming the original spec, when
current practice flouts with contempt the original spec, simply misses the
point and will produce an embarrassing misdiagnosis from which an
embarrassingly incorrect solution will be derived.

~~~
eru
By the way, you should not only look at how the current system is broken, but
also at how it does work. The US is not North Korea.

------
skyfaller
To have new founding fathers, you need to found a new country. Although I
admire the Free State Project (<http://freestateproject.org/>), and I find the
concept of charter cities fascinating (see
[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-
poli...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-politically-
incorrect-guide-to-ending-poverty/8134/) or Scott Adam's previous post
<http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/startup_country/>) I think it will be extremely
difficult to do any serious experimentation with new forms of government on
any land already claimed by an existing government. I do not think that
existing governments will permit any truly radical experiments on their
territory, they would be too afraid of spawning something that would change
the status quo and push them out of power.

I think that our best hope for innovation in government is to open a new
frontier, perhaps in the ocean with projects like seasteading
(<http://seasteading.org/>) or in outer space. We need people to found new
nations in places that are free from any existing form of government (and
don't have existing residents).

I think it is much more likely that we will be able to enact real change in
America when there is a better example that is actually functioning in the
real world. If we didn't have the example of the United States, would
democracy (or democratic republics) be nearly as widespread in the world
today? I suspect most of us would still be living under monarchies.

~~~
eru
You may be right. Though the old founding fathers did not found on new
territory. They just took a stretch of British Empire.

~~~
skyfaller
Good point. I guess I was hoping to avoid violent revolution.

------
jrmurad
> What would Thomas Jefferson and my cousin John Adams say if they were here
> today?

Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the
blood of patriots and tyrants."

(John) Adams: "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and
murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide."

So they'd expect us to have "upgraded" by the 200-something year mark?

------
m0th87
Germany proves an excellent example of a "national rewrite". The government
along with other elements (e.g. corporations) were completely changed after
WW2. Seems to be working pretty well for them.

~~~
eru
But we got mostly lucky. The political live played out quite different from
what the writers of the constitution had in mind.

Just like in the US, which also was quite lucky in the same way.

~~~
baguasquirrel
Countries never just get lucky. The work doesn't stop on launch day. Both
countries' power structures were built in a way that allowed a willing
populace to correct its problems. The self-correcting mechanisms seem to have
lost their footing in the US of late.

------
saturdayplace
I've wondered more than once about the possibility of the peaceful, orderly
transition he's talking about. It seems as through every great past
civilization eventually collapsed under it's own weight, devolving into
anarchy or was torn apart by war. Given the past, it seems entirely
impossible.

~~~
eru
That's the funny thing about the industrial revolution (or modern capitalism,
which is slightly older).

While previous societies had their golden ages, their invariably sunk back
into the mediocrity that they came from. The Dutch and English finally hit a
sweet spot, and their societies keep thriving in absolute terms. Not to
mention that they exported their way of living to the rest of the world.

------
edw519
_It's no surprise that our system doesn't work. It was designed hundreds of
years ago,_

It _does_ work, mainly because it was designed by hackers...

Think about it, our government is based upon an application that was launched
15 years before Babbage was even born!

It has redundancy (feds and states), load balancing (redistricting), semi-
autonomous components (local governments), built-in testing (checks and
balances), and even maintains itself (constitutional amendments).

I didn't say that it always runs well, but it keeps on running. I only wish
that I can launch something that runs for 230 years.

~~~
baguasquirrel
It's also fair to say that entropy has taken its toll on the implementation of
the system, and it's overdue for some refactoring.

Let's be more constructive here. For starters, how many people know their
local reps and actually expect said reps to improve the quality of life in
their neighborhood? Why is that?

------
rubashov
Pointing to China for excellent government is highly questionable. Singapore,
however, is probably the best run country on the planet.

~~~
skyfaller
I would tend to agree with you about China, but Singapore? Citation needed.

~~~
lionhearted
I'll back that up from firsthand experience - it's completely clean,
completely safe, with friendly, helpful and quick civil servants, perfect
order, with the exception of drugs you're left alone to do almost whatever you
want within reason, the quality of life is extremely high, an encouraging
culture that values business, great infrastructure, high levels of technology
and entrepreneurship, pretty good research, pretty good education, low
bureaucracy, low taxes, low red tape, and the government programs they do have
run really well and efficiently. Singapore might indeed be the best governed
place in the world.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore>

~~~
potatolicious
> _"it's completely clean, completely safe, with friendly, helpful and quick
> civil servants, perfect order"_

Shivers of "Brave New World" ran down my spine as I read this sentence. It's
safe, clean, and orderly because it's incredibly conservative and repressive -
culturally and politically. I mean come on, can you seriously buy that only a
single person stepped forth to run for the highest office of the land? Or that
a single party has 97.6% representation in parliament?

IMHO this is too high of a price to pay. This is a fine example of a place
that has thrown away the heterogeneity of life, the celebration of differences
and quirks, in exchange for strictly enforced harmony. No thanks - some things
are worth the dirt and grime, the chaos of disagreement and protest.

You mentioned Hong Kong in another post - I'd much rather explore Hong Kong's
system than Singapore's. It's dirtier, grimier, but much more human and IMHO
real. It's free market almost to a fault, and is IMHO a pretty damn good
example of libertarianism as a success rather than Singapore's story of
centralized one-party rule.

Your idea of "well governed" seems to have an awful lot to do with lacking in
things that ruffle feathers and make people uncomfortable. IMHO the mark of an
enlightened society and people is its ability to integrate individualism and
inevitable disagreements into the core of how its society functions - rather
than seek to squash all semblance of it in exchange for artificial harmony.

[edit] I also find it somewhat distasteful that we harp on China for its human
rights abuses, its repressive single-party rule, and its incredibly socially
conservative policies... yet we give Singapore a free pass. I suppose all of
the above is okay as long as quality of life is high, economy is good, and
everything gleaming and spotlessly clean.

~~~
lionhearted
> Your idea of "well governed" seems to have an awful lot to do with lacking
> in things that ruffle feathers and make people uncomfortable.

You mean things like crime, disease, decay, unsafe conditions, corruption,
bureaucracy, and waste? Yeah, those ruffle my feathers, and I think
eliminating those things and striving for their elimination is an element of
good governance.

> This is a fine example of a place that has thrown away the heterogeneity of
> life, the celebration of differences and quirks, in exchange for strictly
> enforced harmony.

That's nonsense. There's nightclubs, art, technology, universities, fashion,
discussion groups, live music, things to do, meetup groups... they're fairly
relaxed about letting you in and out, and there's a fusion of Chinese,
Southeast Asian, Western, and Japanese culture.

Your post is just so entirely off the mark - "a place that has thrown away the
heterogeneity of life" - that I have to ask before continuing to discuss: Have
you actually been to Singapore?

