Michael Lewis

I've talked before about scary governments are. These massive slow AIs, these superorganisms that can amplify the whims and idiocies of indviduals or gangs. Governments are hideous Lovecraftian monsters. But governments are made of people. Most of those people are not corrupt and /or lazy, a waste of money. 

Quite the opposite, there is far more waste and fraud in the private sector, festering with layabouts, deadbeats and overpaid incompetents. Public service, on the other hand, actually serves the public. And most of the time, no one notices this excpet when something goes wrong.People-run, people-centered governing that does good and even great things, this news is drowned out by the chattering noise poured out by the other smaller slow AIs: corporations, via media corporations. 

Michael Lewis is the author of three books on government: The Premonition, The Fifth Risk, and the recent Who Is Government?

The Premonition is a cogent and lucid look at the COVID pandemic. What worked What didn't.  What went wrong.What went right. What would have gone better under practically any other administration.  

The Fifth Risk is about what the layers of bureaucracy actually do, this weirdly fungal neural net that many departments that together called the Deep State, and how it attempted to accomodate the administration of Donald John Trump. The Fifth Risk is the risk posed by incompetent government leaders. It's a scary book, and, ha ha a premonition of our current interesting times.

I'm now reading Who Is Government?, which came out of the Fifth Risk. Who Is Government is a collection of essays from various authors about public servants as individuals and their accomplishments. Each essay details the exemplary work of federal employees.

So far I read out about a former coal miner who developed and enforced regulations to end mind roof collapses How? Statistics, followed by regulations. The key factor is the word enforced. Corporations do not police themselves. Mine owners don't care if workers die, but they do care if coal isn't coming out due to too many collapses. This bureaucrat worked on this successfully because he was allowed to. 

(What is interesting is you get the impression that at some level, Level 6, say, there's an expert on almost everything that's been allowed to pursue whatever they are interested in. Rather like the old research laboratories from the 1930s.)

I've also read about the man in charge of the nation's military cemeteries. This National Cemetary Administration is a jewel in the VA, of otherwise not-so-great reputation.  The NCA is considered the finest run public or private organization in the nation.

I'm sure the other essays are just as fun.

Our current administration? Second verse, same as the first, but worse. Trump's got a nest of parasitoids eating everything, even the vital organs within the bureaucracy. Elon Musk is laying eggs in your children's throats. All your data are belong to us, and us is high on the supply of Enterprise AI.

Enterprise AI infested government gets you a demon, a demiurge, a weakling godlike entity built from the rickety ladder of monkey nests and monkey brains. If people run government is not your friend, what will this thing be?

If IT keeps us around, you're going to see a boom in the suicide net business.