Schneier: The Dishonest Minority: Security and its Role in Modern Society
"But none of these systems, with the possible exception of some fanciful science-fiction technologies, can ever bring that dishonest minority down to zero."<p>This is a concept that is very useful to internalize. In systems its the 'no subsystem will operate 100% correctly all of the time' in social justice scenarios its 'there will always be people who are poor'.<p>While the first part of that "things break" or "shit happens" to be colloquial, is accepted easily the latter 'there will always be poor people' is less easily so. But as Schneir has eloquently pointed out in his thesis statement humans are just another system composed of independent actors who are nominally out for the collective good.<p>Understanding this core systems concept can really help you understand where you will need to focus systemic processes or tools which will maintain the systems primary function.