What exactly is the difference between systems and standards and policies and procedures?<p>Algorithmic systems can be internally deterministic and consistent, but always always the problem is ascribing significance to symbols. Rights and laws try to solve fundamentally ill-posed problems. Rights and laws inevitably conflict with each other and the baroque complexity of law is the result of top-down systems attempting to resolve such inconsistencies as they arise.<p>I for one do not welcome our algorithmic overlords. It sounds like the revenge of Han Feizi and the Legalists, who wanted to bind all human behavior to a systematic, all-pervading set of rules and thus bring human subjects into perfect harmony with the state. I do not see why systems and standards are better than policies and procedures.