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> Why? Because everyone loves to believe the worst about the government, so it's easy to sell voters on the necessity of a shitload of burdensome rules. There'

> Why? Because everyone loves to believe the worst about the government, so it's easy to sell voters on the necessity of a shitload of burdensome rules. There's also a fundamental difference between you being cavalier with your money, and me being cavalier with our money. Being tax payer funded changes accountability, investment horizons, and access to capital. The CEO of Twitter gets to put whoever he wants in wherever, and eats the costs if it works bad, but to ensure responsible fiduciary practices with our collective wealth we, the taxpayers, demand less aggressive and efficient practices to limit corruption and incompetence. This is a conscious social decision, to move slower and more carefully, and will hopefully be minimized with increasingly robust Civic Tech. Alternative federal structures would historically point towards oligarchies and widespread corruption.

wbl 9y ago
Why does Singapore have so much better administration?
SiempreViernes 9y ago
Uh, it's about as much your money in both cases, that is to say it's not. In both cases its their money in both a the practical and legal sense. The difference is that when a company takes your dollars and put it towards their new SAP system to hopefully upgrade their shitty web services, wasting $100 million, you don't fell you have any agency over what happens at all. On the other hand, when the government invests money in a huge SAP project that then fail, you do feel entitled to rage about it, since there are actual ways you could have acted to prevent this waste (convoluted that the process may be). But the money the government owns isn't yours in any real sense, since most of it is unaffected by any formal action you can take. In fact, you might in practice be more in control, by the avenue of complaints and media campaigns, of money you've given to private enterprises. At least on the extremes, it is certainly easier to get your favourite pub to buy new lamps than getting the Army to get some new artillery.

wbl 9y ago

Why does Singapore have so much better administration?

SiempreViernes 9y ago

Uh, it's about as much your money in both cases, that is to say it's not. In both cases its their money in both a the practical and legal sense. The difference is that when a company takes your dollars and put it towards their new SAP system to hopefully upgrade their shitty web services, wasting $100 million, you don't fell you have any agency over what happens at all. On the other hand, when the government invests money in a huge SAP project that then fail, you do feel entitled to rage about it, since there are actual ways you could have acted to prevent this waste (convoluted that the process may be). But the money the government owns isn't yours in any real sense, since most of it is unaffected by any formal action you can take. In fact, you might in practice be more in control, by the avenue of complaints and media campaigns, of money you've given to private enterprises. At least on the extremes, it is certainly easier to get your favourite pub to buy new lamps than getting the Army to get some new artillery.