People often ask why institutions fail. They blame bad leaders, eroded morals or hidden agendas.

I think that is usually wrong.

Systems collapse not primarily because people are evil, but because power is permitted to operate without clear, enforceable limits.

To see this clearly, let’s get 2 unlikely mentors:

Both were designed around the same hard truth.

1. Trust Is NEVER Enough

If you design a system that operates only when everyone acts virtuously, you’ve built something doomed to fail.

Humans get exhausted. They get scared. They crave shortcuts. Internally rationalize “just this once”.

Rust embraces this reality from day one.

It doesn’t ask: “Is this programmer trustworthy?”

It demands: “Can you prove this code won´t cause harm?”

Rust enforces safety through:

Beginners tend to rage-quit over the friction. Experienced engineers praise it for keeping large codebases alive years later (I know rust is not that old, but it seems to prove its value).

2. The Roman Republic Applied the Same Principle

Rome didn’t endure for centuries because its citizens were inherently better humans.

It endured because it institutionalized distrust of power.

The founders knew: If wielding power is easy and consequences-free, it will be abused.

Modern democracies often forget this lesson.

3. What Happens When Limits Become optional

When boundaries blur, the same patterns emerge every time:

3.1 - Exceptions multiply - “Just this once” becomes policy

3.2 - Accountability evaporates - diffused responsibility means no one owns the outcome.

3.3 - Corruption normalizes - not as scandal, but as structure.

We can see it today:

The result is slow rot: systems that limp along without dramatic collapse -- The most insidious kind of failure.

Not driven bu cartoon Villains, but by the absence or guardrails.

4. Rust’s unsafe Keyword: A Model for Accountability

Rust’s most powerful rule: You cannot perform dangerous operations without declaring them.

Want to mutate shared state? Bypass ownership? Access freed memory?

You must write:

unsafe { // your risky code here }

This single word achieves three critical things:

Contrast this with many modern institutions:

They cloak overreach in vague statutes, “good intentions”, or perpetual emergencies.

Rust refuses obfuscation. It forces explicitness.

5. Corruption Is a Design Flaw, Not Just a Moral One

When people shrug, “Corruption is everywhere”, what they really mean is: “Power lacks sharp edges”.

It thrives where:

Rome countered this with codified law.

Rust counters it with strict typing and lifetimes.

Both enforce a simple rule: If you cannot precisely state what power you hold, you do not hold it.

6. Why Good Intentions Often Accelerate Decay

Broken systems are frequently defended with noble rhetoric:

Intentions are not constraints.

Rust ignores programmer intent.

Rome ignored ruler intent.

Both insisted in one question: What exact power does this grant, and what mechanism stops its abuse?

Refuse to answer that leads to gradual drift, then sudden fracture.

7. The Core lesson

You don´t prevent abuse by pleading for better people.

You prevent it by:

This isn’t punitive. It’s kindness to future generations.

8. In Plain Language

Freedom isn’t the absence of rules.

It’s the presence of rules that even power cannot evade.

A system that survives human vice has a far better chance than one that demands constant virtue.

That’s what Rust teaches silicon.

That’s what Rome once taught the world.

What lessons are we choosing to ignore?