(ˌpaɪəˈnɪərɪŋ ˈspɪrɪt ) noun. a willingness to endure hardship in order to explore new places or try out new things 

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The March of Folly

Why did the Trojans fall for such a seemingly obvious ruse as a wooden horse housing an invading army? Why did the Renaissance popes persist in corrupt behavior — ranging from rampantly promiscuous parties to using the papacy as a tool for self enrichment — that ignored growing resentment amongst the people? Why did the British act to turn their colonists into rebels and instigate a war which could never achieve Parliaments initial financial objectives? Why did America back a decrepit regime ...

#folly#current_events#future#troy#vietnam#rebellion

State capacity shortage, California public employee edition

California spending on city workers has grown 76% since 2010. Inflation over that period was 42%, meaning that real wage growth increased 185%. Much of that cost comes from exponentially increasing pension costs. Meanwhile, California population has declined slightingly over that period. Are city services 185% than 2010?Anyone know the core factors affecting the wide disbursement of city employee costs per resident? Are the sub-thousand dollar cities having services largely provided by the Co...

#muscular state#california

State capacity shortage, process for the sake of process edition

This procedural burden weighs especially heavily on new players and novel technologies that haven’t had time to work the system. Oil and gas drilling companies, for instance, have been granted several NEPA exceptions that reduce the requirements for things such as drilling exploratory wells. Geothermal energy, on the other hand, does not receive such exceptions, even though it involves drilling wells like those for oil and gas. Procedural requirements, like most regulations, heavily favor the...

#state capacity#procedure#rules

State capacity shortage, let people do the work

Who wouldn't want to let more kids learn? “Oh, by the way, I have the solution to your problem of low learning levels, or at least part of the solution. Look, we’ve got this powerful evidence that this works to improve leading outcomes by putting these volunteer tutors and pulling their low learning kids out.” The response of the secretary of education was, “What do you think my job is? Why do you think that this is a solution to a problem I have? Look around my office. See these piles and pi...

#state capacity#muscular government#digital public goods
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How no-code tools increase adaptive capacity in water utilities

Many water utilities struggle to shift from traditional water meters to AMI or automated metering infrastructure. This means moving from monthly or bimonthly meter reads to a torrent of high frequency regular data. That requires a intricate array of data transfers -- bringing data from the meter via radio, centralizing and storing that data, making that meaningful for billing and also easily accessible for customers on their phone, on the web, via a mailer or really however the customer prefe...

#water#data#ami#climate

State capacity shortage, IT inanity edition

The following Bloomberg deep dive into one of the big local government IT titans you've never heard of does a great job of describing how "lock in" works:A multiyear license for a city of 20,000 people might cost $1 million up front, then bring in $200,000 annually for software support. Moore’s predecessor as CEO used to joke that he had three daughters and a fourth kid named “maintenance revenue.” This golden child came to haul in hundreds of millions of dollars each year, as clients proved ...

#state capacity#more muscular government#digital public goods#public interest technology

State capacity shortage, talent matters edition

The Progress Ireland Institute did a nice analysis of global transit projects as part of examining how to improve project delivery in Ireland, with lessons for the larger Anglosphere. The chart below shows the massive discrepancy in normalized costs. Over 10x across the range of countries!* What accounts for the difference in construction cost per kilometre? The most important difference between models is in their use of in-house expertise. Metro projects in English-speaking countries don’t t...

#muscular government#talent#ireland

The first week of September

19401964 19972024The first of its kind, the Council of Europe Framework Convention on AI and Human Rights, Democracy, and the Rule of Law was signed last week by the EU, the UK, the USA, Israel, Norway, Andorra, Georgia, Iceland, the Republic of Moldova and San Marino. ... Although the AI Convention creates a principles-based framework, introducing foundations for AI systems rather than prescriptive compliance measures, the AI Convention provides a clear steer on requirements particularly aro...

#perspective#world#history#world events

The Last Week of August

1913Train and auto accidents, New York machine politics, palace intrigue south of the border... a different world existed before the grea...

#world#fair#future#history#perspective#what's next#horseless driverless

How Harris's housing plan could work (a bit better)

Megan McCardle has an excellent article out arguing that the best parts of Harris's housing plan are unlikely to actually happen. Buildin...