There’s this passage in Systemantics which talks about “dual bureaucracy” in ancient Egyptian organisations (presumably public office).
It sounds like an excellent idea, but I cannot find any sources.
Does anyone know if it is true, and of any research or articles which explain it in more detail?
@samir Sounds like a variant of the ancient Persian technique to make important decisions. They were discussed twice, first drunk, then sober the following day. If the decisions matched it was the right one. 🍻 (documented by Herodotus of Halicarnassus around 430 BC, apparently)
https://greekreporter.com/2025/12/29/persians-decided-twice-drunk-sober/
@thirstybear This explains so much!
Also a great way of making sure your “genius” idea is actually solid, while encouraging the out-of-the-box ideas. I like it a lot.
@samir All Adams seemed to see is the danger of dirty phones… and we still have that problem. A lot of dirt is being spread with phones on this fine planet.
Which only raises more questions, considering that we are, according to him, descended from those who came here in the B Ark.
@samir Well, Marvin may have been the clearest thinker, but Ford also seemed to be a skilled observer… IMHO
Anyway, Ford wrote about earth he didn’t write the whole guide.
@fubaroque Yeah, but it’s Earth’s origin story we are concerned with. Perhaps he made it all up?
(TBF, as far as I can tell, he was mostly interested in saving word count.)
@fubaroque Was it direction from on high? I can’t remember.
I guess I’ll have to re-read them all…
@samir No. At some point the guide gets an update, user interface changes etc. Then he (Ford) takes a look at what the earth entry, that he spend years in fleshing out with all kinds of details that could be of interrest for the intergalactic hiker on, looks like and discovers that all it says now is “mostly harmless”.
That is all, two words.
@samir @rysiek If you’re interested in doing some legwork, I would consider contacting the author’s widow :)
I was in touch with her over the phone last year to buy a copy of the book (Website was broken, so I tried the phone number).
I got the impression that: 1. She’s a lonely older woman who did not mind having someone to talk to for a few minutes. 2. She’s intimately familiar with subject matter.
@samir I tend to think about this type of problem a lot when I'm idle.
The thing that keeps spinning in my mind is always something-something-sortition. But mostly applied in ways to highten the quality of political process rather than "removing parasitic Systems-people".
@plc Why not both!?
Have you seen this article by @DRMacIver on voting?
https://www.drmaciver.com/2013/09/towards-a-more-perfect-democracy/
Ooh, that is a very nice and clear exposition. I think time had erased the distinction between sortition and random ballot in my mind.
But how would you use e.g. a random ballot to weed out "parasitic systems people"? Oftentimes those are appointed professionally, and their roles exist because "the system" itself perceives a need for them. (not saying it couldn't be a component, just that it needs more structure)
One thing I think could bring much good with it would be to assign a cost to the complexity of laws (somehow). Laws that are too complex to interpret (both for the populace and administrators) are a curse (EU and DK have their fair share for what I know) - they are at of risk selective enforcement and just maladptive. And probably reducing that could reduce the need for some "systems people" too.
samir, a terminally deprecated method
Chris Pitts
Fubaroque
Philip Mallegol-Hansen
jon r
plc