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Comment by akomtu | Hacker News Reader

If software was developed the way politicians pass laws, Linux would get one master commit every few years with thousands of unrelated things in it, from typo fixes to sketchy telemetry, with a 1500 pages long description, and the commit would be branded as "build security better". The review would be a months long show where maintainers of all factions with their own agendas would try to negotiate behind the closed doors. Linus would be advocating for splitting the "pile of garbage" into individual commits, but the agitated mob (who thinks Linux is a game on Xbox) would be trying to bully him on Twitter for having a different opinion.

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In fairness this is a feature of the American political system, the business of making laws does not have to be done this way. It’s just a sign of how dysfunctional the system is.

Plenty of laws get passed with specific language and quick votes.

The difference here is that the Democrats are trying to pass a massive spending bill and have a very slim majority in the house and Senate, so they need “all hands on deck”, so they need to offer some sugar to everyone to get it passed.

You're probably underestimating the amount of boring laws passed in a given time period.

The difference between law and software is that with law you have more disadvantages from churn. Companies depend on stable legal situations, and it's important for people in the law system to keep up with changes.

Thank you for putting it in terms us programmers understand, now we see the problem clearly. Now to show them politicians how we have already solved this problem.

Yes, but is a benevolent dictator the solution?

Here's what I propose, to lessen the effect of populism: The elections are held in a tournament format. People are divided into randomised brackets. People then in that bracket decide who amongst them is most fit to be a leader. This is then repeated recursively until enough politicians are selected.

After a few iterations you only have "leader" personalities left, at which point things might get as ugly as politics itself.

Real world is more complex than some glorified text editor (or whatever Linux is)

It's a game on Xbox.

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