This is such a clear articulation of a problem that’s quietly eroding policy capacity across sectors. The expectation that every public concern deserves an immediate policy response creates the illusion of action while straining institutions that are already functioning at the edge of their bandwidth. Your point about alternative levers—convening, modelling, incentivizing—is exactly the shift that’s missing in contemporary governance.
One might gain insight by translating this analysis to the language of modularity in design, particularly in relation to the mapping of societal *concerns* to large-scale *organizational modules* (e.g., departments, offices, agencies, corporations, sectors, etc.). Adding concerns adds costs, but so does mapping disparate societal concerns to individual modules. It diverts resources away from than organizations' intrinsic concerns, increases the risks they face, and thereby likely makes them more conservative overall . Of course one needs to detect and deter bad actors and actions, as well, including the devolution of good actors into bad ones over time. How one does this without imposing unreasonable burdens (e.g., for compliance) on outfits with track records of good behavior, I'm not sure. But it does seem nevertheless that we're in for some major "refactorings" of societal systems in the West. Can Belady and Lehman help? Parnas? AOP? We have intellectual tools for managing complexity but I don't see much talk of applying this kind of analysis at the scales you're addressing here. Maybe there's something there to consider.
This very much accords with my outlook. Government is poorly organised to address systems change. This is pervasive. There is a lack of systems thinking skills, the technical and analytic tools that are available are not used (this is increasingly recognised by policy professionals). The structures are not well suited to cross cutting concerns. When organisational systems are established through government action they are not set up to facilitate analysis or accommodate change. The insights gained in the design of large software systems (such as those you point to) would be extremely valuable.
This is such a clear articulation of a problem that’s quietly eroding policy capacity across sectors. The expectation that every public concern deserves an immediate policy response creates the illusion of action while straining institutions that are already functioning at the edge of their bandwidth. Your point about alternative levers—convening, modelling, incentivizing—is exactly the shift that’s missing in contemporary governance.
One might gain insight by translating this analysis to the language of modularity in design, particularly in relation to the mapping of societal *concerns* to large-scale *organizational modules* (e.g., departments, offices, agencies, corporations, sectors, etc.). Adding concerns adds costs, but so does mapping disparate societal concerns to individual modules. It diverts resources away from than organizations' intrinsic concerns, increases the risks they face, and thereby likely makes them more conservative overall . Of course one needs to detect and deter bad actors and actions, as well, including the devolution of good actors into bad ones over time. How one does this without imposing unreasonable burdens (e.g., for compliance) on outfits with track records of good behavior, I'm not sure. But it does seem nevertheless that we're in for some major "refactorings" of societal systems in the West. Can Belady and Lehman help? Parnas? AOP? We have intellectual tools for managing complexity but I don't see much talk of applying this kind of analysis at the scales you're addressing here. Maybe there's something there to consider.
This very much accords with my outlook. Government is poorly organised to address systems change. This is pervasive. There is a lack of systems thinking skills, the technical and analytic tools that are available are not used (this is increasingly recognised by policy professionals). The structures are not well suited to cross cutting concerns. When organisational systems are established through government action they are not set up to facilitate analysis or accommodate change. The insights gained in the design of large software systems (such as those you point to) would be extremely valuable.