

I’ve always taken it to mean: put your effort into making it work first, before worrying about optimization. Once it works, you can decide whether it’s worth putting effort into optimization. But if you do that first, you might optimize for the wrong thing. Or get distracted by optimization so you never get it to work.
That is very well put, and as far as I can tell it applies to all forms of conservatism, from monarchism where the king is above the law and peasants have no rights, to oligarchy where the rich are above the law while the poor have no rights, to fascism where the inner circle and the stormtroopers who serve them are above the law while minorities have no rights, or class-based societies where your laws and rights depend on your class or caste, and theocracy where the clergy decides your rights and obligations depending on your position.