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Comment by sandworm101 | Hacker News Reader

>> by an incorruptible chain of command and leadership by elected officials given privileged access.

Nope. All chains are corruptible. Nothing should ever be based on the idea that some core group of people is above reproach. That is the stuff of superhero movies. Realworld trust systems must be built on the basis that everyone and anyone might be a bad actor. All nodes should have oversight. All actors should be accountable to multiple levels of supervision. Everything should be documented. Those who become corrupt need to be detected and removed. When dealing with classified information the process will operate more slowly but must still take place.

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On the obverse, we could just eschew hierarchies of power altogether. No nodes to supervise in that case, and everyone is directly accountable. Of course we long ago crossed the Rubicon, and we're simply riding the momentum to the inflection point wherein we are all doomed.

Injecting more naive rationalist bureaucrats into the system won't quell its demise. Those who have the greatest leverage over world outcomes have no interest in remedying even an iota of the social decay. And those who directly act under the dictates of the moment of those people have only self-interest to motivate them. Those of us at the bottom are onlookers, helpless to move the inertial mass away from its predestined impact, or blind to it - either by deliberate delusion or by ignorance and perhaps both. All of this because we allowed the reins to be taken by mere men, unprepared to pilot the immeasurable potential of mankind responsibly.

> All nodes should have oversight.

This is a lovely way of phrasing something that I have been thinking about.

Basically that low accountability systems are really bad across the board. If they work for one generation (as in a benevolent dictatorship) then that’s nice, but it’s not a long-term solution.

We need a parity chip on everything.

I think that systems that require oversight to fight off corruption aren't stable in the long-term. Almost inevitably the executive and the oversight get corrupted in the same way. And then they end up perpetuating themselves. The only real solution seems to be to 'randomly' reset the system once in a while.

The superhero approach might (arguably) be valid in some cases -- I'm thinking of Lincoln, Washington, and FDR.

But an institution must be larger than a single person. Because if you want something to last longer than about 40 years (which is about the maximum amount of time a superhero can be super) you have to have succession.

It's also notable that those "greats" had in common a vision larger than themselves. Selflessness and an annihilation of ego, in service of a larger project, seems to be a requirement for getting yourself to that superhero status in the first place.

Lincoln, Washington, and FDR was good presidents, but they where not saints.

FDR tried to manipulate the supreme court by increasing the number of judges.

Lincoln engaged in secret manipulating of the media.

Washington was a slave owner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Procedures_Reform_Bil...

https://observer.com/2014/11/abraham-lincoln-as-media-manipu...

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