The worrying part is not just that banned substances show up at trace levels, but that a non-trivial number of products were apparently over the legal limit

It also shifts a lot of the real exposure onto farm workers and local environments outside the EU, while EU firms still capture the upside

The obvious question is: if these pesticides are considered too unsafe to use in the EU, why are EU companies still allowed to export them?

Probably the law says "they cannot be used in the EU" and that's it. If the law would ban the production of said pesticides it would be a completely different story.

Isn't that the only way they can profit?

I think the pyramid/army analogy works for some kinds of work, but maybe not for the kind of work the essay is mostly talking about.

The more interesting question is whether you can make higher levels of government depend more explicitly on lower levels, instead of the other way around

I think the middle ground probably isn't "no hierarchy" but "less fake hierarchy"

Plenty of startups recreate the same dysfunction at a smaller scale, just with less process and worse boundaries (I think...)

A polished website and audited reports don't always tell you whether aid is reaching people effectively on the ground

I agree with the second point especially. What stood out to me was not just that Django endured the bureaucracy, but that he remained grateful and composed through it

It sounds less like arrogance and more like both sides trying to improvise with incomplete information

Well, it was more for the overconfidence meaning than the arrogance one.