Re:What if we tested laws before passing them?
by jhancock on Monday December 13, 2010 @02:48PM
(#2001732)
"are people doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again"
This is a common view in mainland China. Particularly, the last few years, in regards to the U.S.: "They've had a good 200-250 year run, now this arc/dynasty is coming to its end and another arc will replace it. Hopefully the turmoil while bootstrapping the next won't be too painful." 200-300 years is the generally accepted time of a Chinese dynasty. As near I as can tell, this is due to people "forgetting" their history. Written history may not be enough. You need to be able to feel it similar to those that put their lives on the line to create it.
Re:What if we tested laws before passing them?
by jacques_chester on Monday December 13, 2010 @06:48PM
(#2002448)
In different ways, many Chinese and many Americans both believe in the "Mandate of Heaven" idea.
We have effectively turned a distributed system into a monolithic piece of spaghetti. And now folks are suggesting that what we need -- wait for it -- is more testing.
We're effectively having all the same conversations large organizations have when creating billion-dollar POS centralized software development systems. Should we focus on requirements (listen to the voters). Should we be more clear on the impact of the change (environmental, financial, etc)? Maybe we just need some super-smart people put in the right spots. That'll fix it.
Many times I wonder: are people doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again just in slightly different settings? (sigh)