Heather Cox Richardson Is a Byzantine General and She Doesn’t Even Know It
- john raymond
- Aug 27
- 2 min read
The Byzantine Generals Problem (BGP) is one of the most powerful metaphors in modern mathematics and computer science. It describes the dilemma of coordinating truth among multiple actors in the presence of treachery, misinformation, and unreliable messengers.
The paradox seems insoluble at first: how can any army of generals, spread across different hillsides, trust each other enough to mount a synchronized attack when traitors may be embedded among them?
The surprising result, worked out in the early days of distributed systems theory, is that good coordination does not require perfect certainty. What it requires is enough loyal actors repeating the true signal, reinforcing one another until the traitorous lies collapse.
Heather Cox Richardson, in her quiet insistence that even the smallest act of goodness matters, instinctively channels the logic of the Byzantine Generals Problem. In her most recent talk, she reminds listeners that the struggle is not over, that despair is premature, and that seemingly minor civic gestures—attending a local meeting, voicing discontent, even returning a grocery cart—aggregate into a moral counterforce.
Her words translate perfectly into the mathematics of BGP: every honest signal strengthens the network, every act of good coordination makes treachery less effective, and every citizen who refuses to capitulate contributes to the resilience of democracy.
The brilliance of Richardson’s appeal is that it reframes political agency away from spectacular heroics and into the realm of distributed defense. Authoritarianism thrives by convincing people that they are alone, isolated, and powerless.
By contrast, democracy survives when ordinary people choose to act as loyal nodes in the system. In BGP terms, a single honest general cannot carry the day alone; but a quorum of loyal generals repeating the true message—hold, be brave, it is not over yet—renders traitorous lies unsustainable.
The implications are profound. Against a brittle autocrat propped up by sycophants and propaganda, the most effective counter is not passivity or waiting for elites to rescue the nation. It is the accumulation of small but relentless acts of good coordination.
When multiplied across millions, those acts achieve the very property the Byzantine generals discovered: truth reinforced becomes stronger than deception.
Richardson may not have had distributed systems or Byzantine mathematics in mind when she urged her audience not to give up. But the parallel is exact.
She is, in effect, a Byzantine general who doesn’t know she is one—broadcasting the signal that goodness is not futile, that the loyal outnumber the traitors, and that synchronized truth is the ultimate defense against authoritarian collapse.
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