This column by @ddayen — which berates the tendency by Congress (or Dems in Congress, more properly) “to resolve longstanding policy issues by erecting complicated systems that an untutored public must navigate” — is spot on. nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opi… 
A thought that’s stayed on my mind through the protracted negotiations over BBB is the imperative of driving home to key Dem decision makers that we—despite our educations, our experience, our standardized-test verified wisdom—are not so smart.
https://twitter.com/ryanlcooper/status/1446152628430311424
What I mean by this: with our big brains, Dem wonks have the brainpower to work up the most byzantine policy designs. But whatever brilliance gets put to paper by Congress — the proposal to run paid leave through private insurance companies, for instance — has to get executed.
https://twitter.com/erinmulvaney/status/1441115494291935239
As Dems complicate their proposals, the ways in which they can get botched proliferate. We do not have a civil service brilliant enough to means-test every piddling program to a fare-thee-well. We need lawmakers smart enough to accept that very basic fact. (cc: @Sen_JoeManchin)
Keep things simple. Get benefits to folks. Build from there. Or, as Dayen puts it:
“[A] model of hassle-free, permanent programs should animate the entire project. … Enact [any new programs] in the simplest and best ways possible.” nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opi…
“[A] model of hassle-free, permanent programs should animate the entire project. … Enact [any new programs] in the simplest and best ways possible.” nytimes.com/2021/10/26/opi…
Or to invoke an article to which I keep returning, when I think of Dems’ tendency toward Rube Goldberg-ian policy designs: democracyjournal.org/arguments/keep…
While I know the peril of comparing politics and tech, screw it for a sec and think of the iPod — which Apple released 20 years ago this week.
It was, as first conceived, a dead-simple proposition: 1,000 songs, right in your pocket. macworld.com/article/546264…
It was, as first conceived, a dead-simple proposition: 1,000 songs, right in your pocket. macworld.com/article/546264…
What’s key to recall is nothing about the device itself. Focus instead on the strategy Apple went on to follow: it released something simple — from which it could then learn, and _on_ which it could then build.
As tech observer @gruber has written, Apple “rolls” — “they start with a few tightly packed snowballs and then roll them in more snow to pick up mass until they’ve got a snowman … [through] a slow & steady process of … iterative improvement.” daringfireball.net/2010/05/this_i…
As @dmoren notes in that piece about the iPod’s anniversary, nearly every device Apple makes today — tablets, phones, watches, Macs that run on Apple’s designed-in-house mobile chips — owes something to the iterative process that began with the original iPod.
But Apple did not _set out_ to design, or to sell the public, some complex proposition (such as, hypothetically, a pocket computer that can make phone calls and play songs) at day one. It started with a simple fundamental — 1,000 songs in one’s pocket — and built from there.
Like I never tire of rolling my eyes at having to tell other people: politics and governing are not tech! BUT we can draw a small lesson here:
What is the point in “starting work on all the problems at once” if — as @ddayen warns — the approach Dems will take is half-baked?
What is the point in “starting work on all the problems at once” if — as @ddayen warns — the approach Dems will take is half-baked?
The more tried-and-true approach, if Dems have to rationalize the BBB package and shrink their ambitions, is to do less — to “embrac[e] fewer programs … [and] enact them in the simplest and best ways possible.”
Do less. Do it straightforwardly. Do it well. Build from there.
Do less. Do it straightforwardly. Do it well. Build from there.
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