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Comment by gitgreen | Hacker News Reader

As a programmer in state government this approach is not feasible for many reasons the chief of which is that at almost every level of government we lack technocrats. In the very unlikely event that one is appointed or hired that has Audrey Tang's(from the podcast, digital minister for Taiwan) background I predict that the amount of pushback received from other levels of government and unions would smother any software with similar utility to that of the mask finder. I can't wait to jump to private industry.

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Yes the current Taiwanese government is truly one of the world's finest, and the US governance one of the worst.

One of the reason I enjoy reading https://pedestrianobservations.com/ and other in depth discussions of public transit is that it's really quite the barometer for overall civic function. The rate of new public transit is also a fine derivative, and as such even more "low latency".

Something I really enjoy at Taiwan is the bike sharing system they've put all around the country. Liking it at a point where I've wrote an essaye about it[1]. It's cheap, everywhere, and built on a really high standard

[1] https://erickhun.com/posts/taiwan-youbike-bike-sharing/

They are trialing 2nd version of the system and it's better in every way - as in all the things you wish can be improved, they went ahead and did it (more solid bike, faster card swipe, better lock)

However, in most cities the trafic is just so bad that riding a bike on the road is risking your own life.

I get downvoted for telling the truth.

Disclaimer: I am Taiwanese. We have been doing well handling the COVID-19, but we did far worse on traffic accidents prevention than our neighbors.

The design of Taiwanese Roads leaves no room for bikes and passengers. Taipei does this better because it has MRT and so U-bike is widely used there. Other cities are not so lucky.

> Yes the current Taiwanese government is truly one of the world's finest

World's finest in what regards?

Have you seen what the conflict resolution[1] they chose in parliament meetings?

> and the US governance one of the worst.

Are you also aware that United States has almost 14x of the population than Taiwan's? The governance of 330 million people coming from many different backgrounds and ethnicities around the global vs. 98% of homogeneous Han Chinese[2] are an order of magnitude difficult?

I am afraid your anecdotal doesn't tell the full story.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-40640043

[2]: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/ethnic-groups-of-taiwan....

With 14x the population, isn't the cost of a given mask-finder app like the one the OP pointed out amortized over 14 times as many taxpayers?

If you update your Hacker News profile with an updated bio and contact info, then perhaps we'd be able to help ;).

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