I've been slowly reading "Seeing Like a State" for the better of the year, and it has certainly done a nice job of shifting my view of the world a bit. I'm hesitant to say that it's offered me some sort of post-rationalist world view where everything can be seen as a "process" managed by some "state". But the point about legibility is pretty interesting. In my own life, I think I resist anything that attempts to make my life more "legible", but now I also see the value in those kinds of processes.

Scott dedicates at least one whole chapter to basically tearing apart the housing schemes in the former Soviet Union. But one thing it did guarantee was housing for all. And from what I've heard, growing up in communal housing in the Soviet era wasn't all too bad. Barbers, grocery stores, etc were all part of the common block and within walking distance. Friends live all around you, and there was a common courtyard to play in. If you ignore the politics of it all, I think a lot of us would love to in a society like that.

Somehow, in the Western world today, we've created a similarly legible process for housing (little boxes on the hillside, little boxes all the same). But housing is still the single biggest problem the Western world seems to face right now. So it's not clear to me that legibility in this system actually offered any benefit, except to enrich the landlords

I don't really know how much of analogy can be drawn to software processes. We aren't forced to obey the Agile overlords - I gladly tell them to piss off any opportunity I get. You aren't required to entertain leetcode interviews - many software jobs don't subject their potential employees to such degrading forms of testing. In fact, in software we are probably more empowered than any career to blaze our own paths and do the "illegible". Have an idea? You can sit at home and make it. No one can or will stop you. I guess it's what drew me to this career in the first place, after studying entirely different subjects.