Institutions as living entities.
This week there have been a lot of discussions about defunding the police and what would take their place. All of the discussions tend to be based on certain assumptions, and so it's difficult to talk about that one issue in isolation. In fact, it might be counter productive. One very interesting article published on Medium took an even more radical position: Defund (and redesign) everything. Broadly speaking, “policing” in the United States has become a bad combination of corrupt and obsolete. This is not, however, a problem that is either exclusive or unique to policing. Quite the opposite. When I say corrupt here, I do not necessarily mean things like bribery, brutality and self dealing (though to be sure these are widely present). Corruption at its most fundamental is the simple consequence of time and entropy working at things. An old rubber hose left out in the sun becomes corrupt and unable to hold water. Our vascular system becomes caked with plaque. Our institution...