Disagree. It is a huge mistake that intelligent people make and especially hackers make, to think that human behaviour can be fixed or controlled through some kind of abstract system. You can have the most wonderful constitution and laws in the world, but they mean nothing if the people and the culture aren't up for it. People can not be controlled the same way you control your docker images in Linux root.
Rotten politicians and leaders are not because of any lacking in some "system", it is because you have a rotten people. And getting people to a higher level is very difficult, but not impossible.
Well.. partly yes of course. But it's also partially about systems. For example modern democracies all accept "one person, one vote" but that rule of engagement is part of the reason we have polarizing political systems. If we had "one person, one minus and one plus vote" the situation would be very different.
It's of course true that if the people don't support the system they can overthrow it, like Maost China, Tsarist Russia, Revolutionary USA, and closer to home here in Sweden we have had several total rewrites of the constitution. So at the very bottom the people have to accept the system to some degree.
But all this doesn't mean the system doesn't influence behavior. It does. A LOT. Just go into Reddit with the up/down vote system with publicly viewable vote counts on each comment and see what that does to the debate climate. It's bad!
The nerds are for once more correct than this liberal opinion of bad-apples.
The system itself shapes what people can rise to the top. Of course it does. It sets the rules and is (as an emergent entity) more powerful than any individual in the system.
This is why people who know things about social systems talk about “systemic issues”.
Ah, and minor point of order. I said "systems shape behavior" and that was vague. I meant was that systems partially shape behavior. It's one of many inputs. Maybe not the most important one, but not nothing.
Rotten politicians and leaders are not because of any lacking in some "system", it is because you have a rotten people. And getting people to a higher level is very difficult, but not impossible.