Too few laymen understand that software development is a knowledge discovery process. Furthermore, its processes are meta-processes that involve the management of symbolic complexity.
These meta-processes can be applied to any human endeavor requiring collective development. The biggest companies in the world are software companies and the reason they are able to scale is that they have organizational processes superior to any other company.
Therefore, these companies are intrinsically knowledge discovery behemoths at scale. They can sustain their growth because of their existing processes and the constant influx of new talent.
To be honest, if I was involved in another technical field and not immersed in software development, I doubt I would understand advanced software development processes. There was a long time in software where agile development seems like woo to so many in the field.
Advanced software development practices will appear as woo to even people who just graduated with a computer science degree. The management of complexity is rarely taught at the undergraduate level.
But what is even worse is that complexity science is rarely ever taught anywhere. It's not taught in the most applicable fields, that is, in the social and biological sciences. This is perhaps because students in these fields lack the mathematical maturity to grasp the concepts.
Thus we are left with a society of people in the social and biological sciences that do not (1) know the meta-processes for knowledge discovery and (2) are unaware of complexity science. It is no surprise that we have failed miserably in mitigating the risk of the pandemic.
We have government structures that were invented in the 1700s to address the concerns of agricultural society. Only through patches was governments modified to address a mercantile economy.
What is obviously absent is a government structure that is in tune with the complexities that emerge from a knowledge-based economy. Most governments have been flying blind for decades and will continue to do so until there's a big reset.
A reset is creative destruction. Unfortunately, creative destruction can be a very painful process. All we can ask for is that we install processes that can reduce the pain.
Unfortunately, just as we have bungled the pandemic response (due to exponential viral growth), we will continue to bungle civilization transformation (due to exponential technological growth). Like the pandemic, we will find the least informed and least adaptive suffer the most.
The reason is that our governments do not have the processes for rapid knowledge discovery. They are structured only to address the slow pace of agricultural development. They are not adequate for the task at hand.
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