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In the rainforest, a strangler fig begins its life high in the canopy, germinating not in the soil but in the crook of another tree. It sends tendrils downward, encircling the host. Over time, the fig thickens, strengthens, and slowly takes over. Eventually, the host withers, leaving a hollow column of living wood where something else once stood.
Software engineers know this as the strangler fig pattern — a way to modernize legacy systems without tearing them out wholesale. You build new components alongside the old, routing traffic incrementally to the new until the old fades away. No “big bang” rewrite. No fragile all-at-once migration. It’s organic, steady, relentless.
This isn’t just a clever approach for code. It’s a philosophy for systems change.
In the first great wave of civic technology — the Web 2.0 era — Code for America embodied the hope of showing what was possible. A small team could build a clean, humane interface to a broken public process and demonstrate, in miniature, that better was possible. This was the “look — it could be like this!” moment.
That was necessary. But it was not sufficient.
Now, in the third wave of the web, the challenge is no longer proving possibility. It is replacing the scaffolding of how government works — operationally, procedurally, culturally. The metaphor isn’t just adding a fresh coat of paint to a mainframe. It’s replacing the mainframe itself.
We’ve been here before. At the turn of the 20th century, the Progressive Era introduced industrial-era tools for governance:
Scientific management to replace patronage guesswork.
Professional budgeting to align resources with strategy.
Civil service reform to wrest control from machine politics.
These were structural rewrites — the operating system upgrade that allowed the public sector to navigate an industrial nation.
We stand at a similar threshold now.
The strangler fig begins by finding a foothold in the canopy — the niches where light still reaches. In government, these are the overlooked edge cases and pilot projects where a better way can be tried without threatening the whole trunk. We’ve seen this in the quiet rise of California-style data collaboratives — simple agreements and repeatable practices that let localities share, compare, and act on information together. These are not grand reforms written in marble. They are living protocols, passed from hand to hand, that start to wrap themselves around the old machinery of government.
From there, the roots thread downward, seeking the ground truth. This is the Gov Sherpa’s worm’s-eye view — the ability to connect what’s actually happening on the street to the decision-making canopy above. Street sensors become civic organs, feeding a shared nervous system that local agencies can use to decide what to fix, build, or maintain. Permitting protocols take the friction out of everyday transactions between residents and their city hall. Infrastructure backlogs can be measured and mapped in weeks, not years.
As the fig grows, it doesn’t just imitate the shape of the host. It begins to redirect the flow of life. Seals, scrolls, and the softening of stone become metaphors for undoing the hardened absurdities of government forms and workflows. Composting the dung of bad process becomes an act of civic renewal — don’t digitize the mess, break it down into something fertile. And when the consultant industrial complex can no longer monopolize the how, local governments can adopt protocols directly, scaling what works without paying the toll at every step.
The key is that each of these examples is not a one-off pilot. They are the roots of a replacement tree. Protocols give them the power to replicate — to be adapted, forked, and remixed across thousands of localities. In the places where real action happens — where potholes are filled, permits are issued, budgets are allocated — protocols can change the how of government at scale.
Like the strangler fig, this work is patient but relentless. It doesn’t wait for the old tree to fall. It grows alongside it, wraps around it, and quietly takes over the work of holding the canopy aloft. By the time the host is hollow, the new has already taken root.
In this light, the Second Foundation is not a think tank. It is not a civic startup accelerator. It is a distributed guild that works from within and alongside government to quietly strangle the legacy patterns that no longer serve us — and to grow a new operational core that can survive the century to come.
The Web 2.0 pioneers of civic tech excelled at “show and tell.” The Web 3.0 civic movement must excel at grow and replace.
The challenge ahead is not simply technical. It is mythic. Like the fig, we must be patient but relentless. We must work in the canopy, at the trunk, and in the roots all at once.
And when the hollow shell of the old falls away, what remains will not be a museum piece of reform — but a living organism, resilient enough to weather the storms of the next hundred years.
This is part of a recurring series of field notes and mythic seeds from the Patchwork Protocol. These fragments are not final—they are sketches, invitations, and tuning forks for a deeper song waiting to be sung.
Vol 1: The Edge and the Ember
Vol 2: The Quiet Power of California style data collaboratives
Vol 6: Seals, Scrolls, and Softening the Stone That Stops Common Sense Government Operational Updates
Vol 8:
This piece grew out of an earlier metaphor in our Patchwork Protocol series about breaking the spell that keeps us from actually building. You asked to connect that thinking to the strangler fig pattern — a cloud architecture idea for replacing legacy systems incrementally — and extend it to the realm of civic operations.
We began with a historical arc from Code for America to the “third wave” of civic tech, tying it to the Progressive Era’s operating system upgrades for government. Next, we reframed the “Strangler Fig Statecraft” section to weave in threads from earlier volumes — data collaboratives, Gov Sherpa, street sensors, seals and scrolls, composting dung, and upending the consultant industrial complex — showing them as roots and tendrils of a new civic tree.
The final revision tightened the focus on protocols as the replicable unit of change, capable of scaling across thousands of localities. The goal was to make the strangler fig metaphor not just poetic, but a practical mental model for the slow, distributed replacement of the old operating core of government.
In the rainforest, a strangler fig begins its life high in the canopy, germinating not in the soil but in the crook of another tree. It sends tendrils downward, encircling the host. Over time, the fig thickens, strengthens, and slowly takes over. Eventually, the host withers, leaving a hollow column of living wood where something else once stood.
Software engineers know this as the strangler fig pattern — a way to modernize legacy systems without tearing them out wholesale. You build new components alongside the old, routing traffic incrementally to the new until the old fades away. No “big bang” rewrite. No fragile all-at-once migration. It’s organic, steady, relentless.
This isn’t just a clever approach for code. It’s a philosophy for systems change.
In the first great wave of civic technology — the Web 2.0 era — Code for America embodied the hope of showing what was possible. A small team could build a clean, humane interface to a broken public process and demonstrate, in miniature, that better was possible. This was the “look — it could be like this!” moment.
That was necessary. But it was not sufficient.
Now, in the third wave of the web, the challenge is no longer proving possibility. It is replacing the scaffolding of how government works — operationally, procedurally, culturally. The metaphor isn’t just adding a fresh coat of paint to a mainframe. It’s replacing the mainframe itself.
We’ve been here before. At the turn of the 20th century, the Progressive Era introduced industrial-era tools for governance:
Scientific management to replace patronage guesswork.
Professional budgeting to align resources with strategy.
Civil service reform to wrest control from machine politics.
These were structural rewrites — the operating system upgrade that allowed the public sector to navigate an industrial nation.
We stand at a similar threshold now.
The strangler fig begins by finding a foothold in the canopy — the niches where light still reaches. In government, these are the overlooked edge cases and pilot projects where a better way can be tried without threatening the whole trunk. We’ve seen this in the quiet rise of California-style data collaboratives — simple agreements and repeatable practices that let localities share, compare, and act on information together. These are not grand reforms written in marble. They are living protocols, passed from hand to hand, that start to wrap themselves around the old machinery of government.
From there, the roots thread downward, seeking the ground truth. This is the Gov Sherpa’s worm’s-eye view — the ability to connect what’s actually happening on the street to the decision-making canopy above. Street sensors become civic organs, feeding a shared nervous system that local agencies can use to decide what to fix, build, or maintain. Permitting protocols take the friction out of everyday transactions between residents and their city hall. Infrastructure backlogs can be measured and mapped in weeks, not years.
As the fig grows, it doesn’t just imitate the shape of the host. It begins to redirect the flow of life. Seals, scrolls, and the softening of stone become metaphors for undoing the hardened absurdities of government forms and workflows. Composting the dung of bad process becomes an act of civic renewal — don’t digitize the mess, break it down into something fertile. And when the consultant industrial complex can no longer monopolize the how, local governments can adopt protocols directly, scaling what works without paying the toll at every step.
The key is that each of these examples is not a one-off pilot. They are the roots of a replacement tree. Protocols give them the power to replicate — to be adapted, forked, and remixed across thousands of localities. In the places where real action happens — where potholes are filled, permits are issued, budgets are allocated — protocols can change the how of government at scale.
Like the strangler fig, this work is patient but relentless. It doesn’t wait for the old tree to fall. It grows alongside it, wraps around it, and quietly takes over the work of holding the canopy aloft. By the time the host is hollow, the new has already taken root.
In this light, the Second Foundation is not a think tank. It is not a civic startup accelerator. It is a distributed guild that works from within and alongside government to quietly strangle the legacy patterns that no longer serve us — and to grow a new operational core that can survive the century to come.
The Web 2.0 pioneers of civic tech excelled at “show and tell.” The Web 3.0 civic movement must excel at grow and replace.
The challenge ahead is not simply technical. It is mythic. Like the fig, we must be patient but relentless. We must work in the canopy, at the trunk, and in the roots all at once.
And when the hollow shell of the old falls away, what remains will not be a museum piece of reform — but a living organism, resilient enough to weather the storms of the next hundred years.
This is part of a recurring series of field notes and mythic seeds from the Patchwork Protocol. These fragments are not final—they are sketches, invitations, and tuning forks for a deeper song waiting to be sung.
Vol 1: The Edge and the Ember
Vol 2: The Quiet Power of California style data collaboratives
Vol 6: Seals, Scrolls, and Softening the Stone That Stops Common Sense Government Operational Updates
Vol 8:
This piece grew out of an earlier metaphor in our Patchwork Protocol series about breaking the spell that keeps us from actually building. You asked to connect that thinking to the strangler fig pattern — a cloud architecture idea for replacing legacy systems incrementally — and extend it to the realm of civic operations.
We began with a historical arc from Code for America to the “third wave” of civic tech, tying it to the Progressive Era’s operating system upgrades for government. Next, we reframed the “Strangler Fig Statecraft” section to weave in threads from earlier volumes — data collaboratives, Gov Sherpa, street sensors, seals and scrolls, composting dung, and upending the consultant industrial complex — showing them as roots and tendrils of a new civic tree.
The final revision tightened the focus on protocols as the replicable unit of change, capable of scaling across thousands of localities. The goal was to make the strangler fig metaphor not just poetic, but a practical mental model for the slow, distributed replacement of the old operating core of government.
Vol 9: The Ekumen Exchange
Vol 9: The Ekumen Exchange
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@patwater
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In the latest blog post by @patwater, the strangler fig pattern is spotlighted as a metaphor for modernizing government systems organically. Instead of opting for complete overhauls, this approach nurtures new components simultaneously with outdated structures, allowing for incremental change. The post also explores historical parallels to civic technology and calls for a shift from merely “showing” possibilities to actively “growing” replacements that can adapt across various levels of government, making systems more resilient for the future.