I think that’s the only real objection to this move. Any country is entitled to do what it wants regarding DST, but transitions should be orderly and planned well in advance, not imposed from one day to the next.

I guess it shows how Morocco is not exactly a democratic country, so you get the classic tyrant-style decision-making here and there.

> I guess it shows how Morocco is not exactly a democratic country, so you get the classic tyrant-style decision-making here and there.

It has nothing to do with Democracy but incompetence. Many people think that democracy brings modernity and order. It is really the other way around.

It has to do with separation of powers.

In a democracy a single individual couldn't make this decision, so if a president or prime minister decides to do such a drastic change so quickly other people (congress for example) will put a brake to it and force a reflexion/transition period.

Until the whole govt is too incomptent

Sure. When talking about Finland or Scandinavia. But it is very possible/likely to have a bunch of incompetent congress-man. That's even worse that a single incompetent douche.

How is a bunch of incompetent leaders worse than one incompetent leader?

A bunch of incompetent leaders can get nothing done. They'll focus on attacking each other and destroying what ground they live on. An incompetent leader will try to get his vision realized. Might not work all of it but some of it might pan out.

I’d rather have a bunch of idiots doing nothing than have them rule a country.

I think the parent is suggesting that they don’t do nothing. Only that they do nothing to further the best interests of the people. They will absolutely further their own interests and have little interest in the (often human cost) side-effects of attacking each other.

Eg. Medicare.

Yeah, but if they do nothing, things might turn out okay. If they manage to succeed with the wrong choice, then everything will be shit.

As a Moroccan I can state it's both. A blessed tyranny in a silk glove with a big side serving of incompetence.

I think it has nothing to do with Democracy. Frankly, central authority should make this kind of stuff easier because a central entity can take into consideration all of the bureaucracies and do what needs to be done.

In Democracies, pushing through such changes has to be a nightmare - so many competing interests, populism, you have to find the right legislative window, legislation is burdened with irrelevant stuff, bureaucracies are resistant to change etc..

“Easier” means nothing. All those checks and balances you despise, will often produce transition plans that are much more respectful of the overall system - precisely because an authority cannot steamroll arbitrary changes that might harm this or that legitimate interest.

Efficiency and correctness are not the same thing.

Easier absolutely means something and I'm not suggesting we dump democracy.

FYI - most of your government, wherever you are from, is run by bureaucratic edict, not by political means.

The heads of government agencies often wield immense power and have no need to respond to voters interest because there's effectively too much 'on the ballot' so to speak, and too much mundane detail for voters to understand.

An technical that transcends agencies though ... my god man.

The government of Canada's (and probably the US as well) IT situation is a massive mess, there's no consistency across organizations, there's no concept of identity management across entities, let alone for the general public. Nothing is integrated, nothing works. You can have a doctor examine you in one place and it's very difficult to get your medical history across to a different entity. Try even finding a doctor? Who's available? Who's not? My health is at risk, I want to know where I can get a doctor? Nope. Shut up, we can't figure that out, it's too hard - go to a clinic and just see whoever is on duty - is the only answer. I would vote for a bunch of ex-Google PM's and Engineers to literally take over my nations IT (especially in Health) to simplify and scale it. Or at least to have it under the control of one entity.

Having someone say that, for example, “from tomorrow all your health data will be in Google Docs!” is likely to generate caos and harm people. Democratic government must operate on scales measured in decades, not months, and make sure to be as inclusive as possible (remote island with satellite internet? Probably will oppose any solution with 80mb of single-page JS. Etc etc). This makes for slow progress. It’s just how it is. Add to that the continuous jockeying of vendors, and poor training of administrative elites (a very underestimated problem in many countries)...

Modern society is just big and complex, no matter how hard we wish that weren’t the case.

"“from tomorrow all your health data will be in Google Docs"

Who is advocating that? Nobody. I didn't even infer that.

What I want is some highly talented and organized people, like those from Google, to take over IT for Healthcare in Canada, and then shift our non-existent IT solutions over to something that works. Because right now it's a non-existent bureaucratic mess.

"Modern society is just big and complex, no matter how hard we wish that weren’t the case"

I didn't say it wasn't.

But that doesn't mean that many governments aren't supremely inefficient in many areas. Canadian Healthcare IT being a big one.

CGI, a Canadian IT company spent $2B making the Obamacare sign up website - something a handful of Google Engineers had to come in and fix. They basically wrote much of it from scratch.

> I didn't even infer that.

No you didn't. Toyg did. You implied it (arguably)

But one person can say "We are now at war!" and the missiles start flying. That seems like a much more fraught decision than whether or not to stay on daylight saving time.

In many countries, that is actually a prerogative of Parliament.

Pro tip: launch first, declare war later.

> I would vote for a bunch of ex-Google PM's and Engineers to literally take over my nations IT (especially in Health) to simplify and scale it.

I have seen that happening (not with Googlers, not at a national level) within my province/state and now everyone has to deal with an inefficient global IT management service that is borderline useless and has the "know-it-all" syndrome.

YMMV.

(My department managed to be the rebel over the years and we have our own setup but it's slowly getting taken away from us.)

> FYI - most of your government, wherever you are from, is run by bureaucratic edict, not by political means.

A more correct formulation would have read:

> is run by bureaucratic edit within the boundaries set by lawmakers.

Its crazy to me that this style of thinking is re-surging.

Between this and recent nationalist movements, I'm concerned that our generation will be responsible for a regression in progress.

What's 'crazy' is that people would think this is crazy. Or even a new idea or an idea that ever went away.

And what does this have to do with Nationalism? Nothing.

Someone suggests something not normative and people yell 'Trump'?

Consider how South Korea, Japan, France, UK, Germany, Poland, Belgium were re-built after the war?

It was mostly centrally planned management by powers, taking a lot of orders from Washington. 'post war' is a great opportunity for central power as most of the value creating enterprises are obvious, and very low hanging fruit: i.e. 'we need schools, and roads, and electricity where all that has been undone'.

Nobody is suggesting totalitarianism, some people just point out that in many cases, a well organized and efficient control system is much better than bureaucratic kludge.

For Italy, it’s actually the opposite: centrally-managed efforts have typically failed, while grassroots-led initiatives are pretty solid. We did get tons of money after the war, but reconstruction was not a coherent effort.

Why is not working in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq ? From what I remember De gaulle (and others) fought over the distrification of western Europe that the US wanted after the war.

Or you end up like China with one timezone, much to the health detriment of those who live on the far edges.

eh, good good test for all those systems so it might go smoothly when we finally do it here