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Its inspiring to see him but it's also ridiculous that Elon Musk is the one pushing the space and auto industries forward. I really hope he succeeds, but it is

Its inspiring to see him but it's also ridiculous that Elon Musk is the one pushing the space and auto industries forward. I really hope he succeeds, but it is just stupid that our hopes for scientific and technological advancement have shifted to the private sector. The private sector has historically been the one that had sane and logical business practices minimizing risk, while government had the funding necessary to take on large, risky projects for the good of their constituents. Somehow taxes have gone further and further up while our expectations of government plummeted, and now we are looking to these single "genius" entrepreneurs to revolutionize science and technology with investor money.

aglavine 9y ago
Yeah, sure. Edison, Tesla, Ford were all public employees.
wgerard 9y ago
> The private sector has historically been the one that had sane and logical business practices minimizing risk, while government had the funding necessary to take on large, risky projects for the good of their constituents I'm not a "free market trumps all" person by any means, but is this really true? Xerox PARC, GE, IBM, Ford all come to mind. Sure, still the government was involved in quite a few of these, but I wouldn't say these companies were minimizing risk by any means.