Software engineers work in a field where accreted complexity exists at every turn. Windows has 20-years of bug-for-bug compatibility because of the pressures of hundreds of millions of people relying on it every day. And it&#x27;s also a field where the dangers of rerwrites are well known and appreciated.<p>So why is it that many engineers are so ready to see complexity as the product of conspiracy, rather than organic evolution, in every other field?