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We can't even say it will improve the functioning of the government; it will just make the government faster. Faster at doing good things, or faster at doing ba

We can't even say it will improve the functioning of the government; it will just make the government faster. Faster at doing good things, or faster at doing bad things. The US government doesn't always make good choices when it comes to infrastructure investments. For example: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/2/five-ways-federal-infrastructure-spending-makes-cities-poorer https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/2/five-ways-feder...

burlesona 9y ago
My 2 cents is that a faster approvals cycle will lead to more private sector activity which should help increase the productivity of investments. Even for public sector stuff, in many cases the cost is greatly inflated by the regulatory delay. Or to put it another way, I’m pretty wary of federal infra projects in general but I don’t think there’s a compelling argument in favor of slower regulatory review.
- chiefalchemist 8y ago
  Well said.
musage 8y ago
What we can say with 100% certainty however is that when there's an article about some shop increasing thoughput by X%, we never talk about how that just allows them to shovel more marketing faster. Or imagine "show HN: static site generator made with A and B" being met with "most of your blog entries aren't that good though".
surfmike 8y ago
If the process is the same, faster should always be better.
- eric_h 8y ago
  There's an argument to be made that a process that allows more time for evidence to be gathered to stop the bad projects would generate a more net positive result. That argument does, of course, relegate the machinations of bureaucracy and the pressure from various stakeholders to a bit of a spherical cow, though.
deleted 8y ago
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adrianratnapala 8y ago
> , or faster at doing bad things. In this context "bad things" would mean either approving things that shouldn't go through, or blocking things that should. It seems to me that leaving things in limbo where they might go through or not at an unknown later date is worse than either. And that's without even counting the benefit when correct decisions get sped up.

burlesona 9y ago

My 2 cents is that a faster approvals cycle will lead to more private sector activity which should help increase the productivity of investments. Even for public sector stuff, in many cases the cost is greatly inflated by the regulatory delay. Or to put it another way, I’m pretty wary of federal infra projects in general but I don’t think there’s a compelling argument in favor of slower regulatory review.

chiefalchemist 8y ago
Well said.

musage 8y ago

What we can say with 100% certainty however is that when there's an article about some shop increasing thoughput by X%, we never talk about how that just allows them to shovel more marketing faster. Or imagine "show HN: static site generator made with A and B" being met with "most of your blog entries aren't that good though".

surfmike 8y ago

If the process is the same, faster should always be better.

eric_h 8y ago
There's an argument to be made that a process that allows more time for evidence to be gathered to stop the bad projects would generate a more net positive result. That argument does, of course, relegate the machinations of bureaucracy and the pressure from various stakeholders to a bit of a spherical cow, though.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

adrianratnapala 8y ago

> , or faster at doing bad things. In this context "bad things" would mean either approving things that shouldn't go through, or blocking things that should. It seems to me that leaving things in limbo where they might go through or not at an unknown later date is worse than either. And that's without even counting the benefit when correct decisions get sped up.