Technology has always been a two-edged sword: it covers and strengthens those who use it while robbing them of strength they had. Navigating with computer-generated, turn-by-turn directions is far easier than selecting a route on a paper map or calling someone or stopping at a gas station to ask the attendent; but while the stories of someone driving their car into a lake while following turn-by-turn directions are dramatic and unusual, the more subtle, more insidious reality is that many people have come to rely on those directions to navigate to the degree that they no longer have a mental model of the layout of the city they live in. They are quite literally lost without someone, or something, telling them where to go. As long as those turn-by-turn directions are available and accurate, the person who relies on them has access to more accurate, more dynamic, and more expansive directions to anywhere in their city, province, country, or world. But what happens when those directions become unavailable?

We have created a world where the question “should we do something?” is rarely asked. We ask “can we do this?” and if we can figure out a way to, we do. Ignoring the ethical and moral implications this perspective might have, we have created ever increasing complexity and interconnected systems. Our software has grown to the point that no one person can understand it. This is a reality that concerns me. I do not trust things humans have created when no one human can understand what has been created.

The solution to this problem, as near as I can tell, is principled restrictions [1]. Restrictions that by themselves either do not make sense or that seem unnecessary, but that serve some greater goal.

Why would I do this when I could just do that?

I would like to see software consciously written with certain restrictions in mind. I would like to write software that defines these restrictions up front rather than expanding to fill the space.

[1] When I started writing this, I called it arbitrary restrictions, but that is the wrong perspective. They might be arbitrary from the outside, but from within there are principles that guide those restrictions. They exist to serve a purpose, not as an arbitrary imposition. At least not in general. There are times when a truly arbitrary restriction is worth exploring as it forces thinking in new directions.