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Comment by babesh | Hacker News Reader

If he wins, I expect the tech support to draw in tech talent into government. That will be a good thing.

Tech can’t fix everything. It can’t fix graft and corruption. You need people like Morgenthau and Giuliani but even more fearless and aggressive to rip out corruption by just about everyone in government. Start with a clean slate. But that cannot happen.

Think “deep interests”.

I would think tech could clear up some corruption. Open and transparent accounting would be a good start.

There's nothing secret about New York's "deep interests" - real estate development is the city's king maker.

I mean the billion-dollar per mile subways, the graft, the garbage collection, holding up mixed concrete deliveries (ruining it), etc., etc. it does not end.

I think that would be good for tech-specific things. But improving schools or public housing isn't much of a tech problem.

A "Move fast and break things" approach isn't really desirable in government.

Why? Purely curious, what’s wrong with trying lots of things quickly and reverting quickly if it breaks something?

Because the “something” is often people’s livelihoods and reverting policy doesn’t always undo the damage it causes.

With software, nothing.

With human systems? The impact of your change is not always readily apparent, easily traceable, or based in logic.

Particularly, because there is always going to be lag between change and outcome as the humans adapt their behaviour over human time scales, not computer time scales.

Implementing any political changes requires support from other stakeholders. After a politician breaks things a few times that support evaporates, regardless of successes in other areas.

Instead we get "move slow and keep things broken".

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