Small but necessary crimes are entirely required for the functioning of all non-algorithmically governed civilisations.

The existence of a network of capabilities outside the purview of the operating system allows the friction generated by the system to be minimised—at the COST of corruption, with the NET BENEFIT of things being able to Actually Get Done.

Why can’t things Actually Get Done without incurring friction: SNAFU at work. Maxwell’s Demon. Fog of war. Reality having anfractuously more depth the more you concretise it. Microparticles that get incinerated when rubber hits the road aggregate. Panopticons governed by humans hit attentional and institutional limits and still seem insane to outsiders.

Mercy and common sense can be programmatically distributed, but not at the level of skill we have presently.

You can have a panopticon, but it leaves nowhere to hide, the self-immolation of the righteous, the uncovering of incompetent management, the solving of moral mazes. We don’t get to maintain Shannon-perfection, and there’s grace hidden in lossy transmissions as well as tragedy. You can still talk with the screws in jail. Judges take lunch breaks. Do not become corrupt, but do not eliminate crime.

Putting the entirety of all possible actions inside a set of capabilities alongside root users is like locking yourself into a cagefight with God.