Whack-A-Politician

Hello World,

Bill, that was a great intro.  I particularly liked your comparison of a software program to a social system.  Spoken like a true software engineer! 

Your point that small changes make for measured and better steps is understandable and in many cases desirable.  Unfortunately it is not how the programs usually change in the natural and social worlds.

First, lets look at natural world--evolution did not actually happen in a nice incremental way.  We now know that it happened in spurts and starts.  Stable for a few million years and then BANG!!! a huge change

Now to Social:  Look at the US struggle to get rid of slavery.  From July 4th 1776 to April 12, 1861 US politicians tried to get slavery outlawed through small incremental changes.  Did it work?  Unfortunately no.  We had to have four years of civil war but after April 9, 1865 we had no more slavery in this country.  Same for Women's right to vote, same for Civil Rights movement. 

The natural history, evolutionary and social do not lend themselves to engineering quite as well as a computer program (I wish it did).  And when the system/program is too flawed to fix, one needs to scrap it and start a new code.  Unfortunately, the parts in the social code are not 0s and 1s and they bleed, complain, demand, and lobby!

I will agree with you Bill, that when there is a good system/program, small incremental improvements are best, like we are doing in our Whack-a-Politician game.  One example of a good engineered social system is our Constitution.  It was created from the start as a real system, with checks and balances, and despite its imperfections it stood the test of time and any changes to it Need to be incremental.  But may I also mention that in 1776 the Constitution was a complete and radical rewrite of the laws of the Common Wealth.  No incremental steps there!

Now to the present: I believe that in places where our social fabric is not so systematic, a much more drastic approach needs to happen--we need a COMPLETE rewrite.  Lets take our Health care "system" for another example of a program that should be changed.  I would assume you would argue that it should be done incrementally, but if our health care system was a computer program it would never, never work to begin with.  It was haphazardly put together WITHOUT social engineering as a response to a wage freeze after WWII.  Since then, it developed as an insurance monster connected to a JOB of all things.  Does our country values our citizen's health only when he is working? And why does it stay at the job instead of following the person?  What sense does that make?  Of course it does not, but then again our health care system is not a real system.  So making small incremental changes to a completely flawed system is not always very effective. 

What is needed is a re-engineering approach.  People with great engineering prowess to create and engineer a health care system need to look at the last 60 years of our system, and those abroad and create a new system that learns from our mistakes and takes into account the new reality of the 21st century.  The Obama care that Conservatives say is so drastic is still a patchwork of fixes on a leaky roof, but at least it changes the paradigm somewhat to a reality that health care is seen in this country as a social right.  And if it is, it needs to be treated that way.

What say you?