4 ms·

You'd think for their own self-worth they'd rather be working on something that makes far more sense.

JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
I'd think the same thing about Facebook employees.
ItsMe000001 8y ago
You cannot blame "politicians" though even though they appear to be the ones in control of the budget. They only do what the population tells them to. The masses are far more willing to tolerate inefficient expensive bloated programs for defense than for civilian programs. Imagine they actually made that huge trillion dollar infrastructure program. A lot of people would rail against the expense, and worse, every single exposed misstep, story of corruption (which we have from the military too of course but that does not lead people to demand a stop to financing the military), and story about inefficiency or waste will create a lot of bad press and pressure on politicians. I must say we have pretty much exactly the situation that the overall compound will of the people wants, unfortunately. If the people could accept the level of incompetence, waste and worse that is pretty much normal for any big enterprise (including what we see in private enterprise or dilbert.com would not be so popular) then the politicians/government could experiment with massively funding something non-military for a change. Each time I hear a story that could be changed by some people who seem to be in control (but I would like to point to the king in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The little Prince") I briefly try to imagine what would happen if they would actually do that. I usually conclude that people with public power (from CEO to politician) don't have nearly as much power or control as seems to be assumed, instead they just go with the flow (they have to!) and the problem is actually caused by all of us. Nobody individually though. There is a certain network dynamic that prevents the individuals from really doing things differently, there always are forces that keep us on our tracks even when individually we see other paths.

I'd think the same thing about Facebook employees.

You cannot blame "politicians" though even though they appear to be the ones in control of the budget. They only do what the population tells them to. The masses are far more willing to tolerate inefficient expensive bloated programs for defense than for civilian programs. Imagine they actually made that huge trillion dollar infrastructure program. A lot of people would rail against the expense, and worse, every single exposed misstep, story of corruption (which we have from the military too of course but that does not lead people to demand a stop to financing the military), and story about inefficiency or waste will create a lot of bad press and pressure on politicians. I must say we have pretty much exactly the situation that the overall compound will of the people wants, unfortunately. If the people could accept the level of incompetence, waste and worse that is pretty much normal for any big enterprise (including what we see in private enterprise or dilbert.com would not be so popular) then the politicians/government could experiment with massively funding something non-military for a change. Each time I hear a story that could be changed by some people who seem to be in control (but I would like to point to the king in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The little Prince") I briefly try to imagine what would happen if they would actually do that. I usually conclude that people with public power (from CEO to politician) don't have nearly as much power or control as seems to be assumed, instead they just go with the flow (they have to!) and the problem is actually caused by all of us. Nobody individually though. There is a certain network dynamic that prevents the individuals from really doing things differently, there always are forces that keep us on our tracks even when individually we see other paths.