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I think this is really insightful. Misallocation of resources is what eventually brings down economies. There are lots of bright people around, but corruption c

I think this is really insightful. Misallocation of resources is what eventually brings down economies. There are lots of bright people around, but corruption can drain a lot of talent.

chrisco255 6y ago
Perhaps the problem is that the government has too much of a role in allocating resources in our economy as it stands. Maybe the military-industrial complex had some cool things for the first couple decades of its existence, but as the decades went on, it became a rusty, slower version of its old self as bureaucratic creep and complacency set in. Now it seems hard to disrupt that, like what tends to happen in the non-monopolized private sector.
- wongarsu 6y ago
  The elephant in the room is that military budget has to keep going up ("support the troops", create jobs and satisfy lobbyists) but there is no good goal to work towards. Great things happened in the 1940s to 70s because there were clear enemies and clear steps to take to gain and keep superiority. Today the US has a military budget three times bigger than that of the next largest spender, and everything necessary to fulfill the current challenges already exists and is in operation. So you spend the rest to prepare for the future, but with no external pressure to do so fast or efficiently.
  - uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 6y ago
    First one with a manned orbital fighter wins!
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  Lots of us would love to believe this, and yet what does the unrestrained private sector churn out? Ad networks, app addiction, gig economy, throwaway culture, urban sprawl, climate apathy... hardly a winner. SpaceX is everyone's favourite private sector success story, but they're basically just a younger, leaner version of Lockheed— surviving off of NASA and doing what they're contracted to do. I don't think the private sector is ever going to do ambitious things like build rail infrastructure all on its own, nor is the current PPP model necessarily the way either, but maybe there is some option out there to get things done which looks like the bakeoff that NASA held with CRS.
  - robocat 6y ago
    > SpaceX ... surviving off of NASA and doing what they're contracted to do Really this is more similar to VC investment where NASA funded it so they could get a return (better launches), but the future is that a probably large percentage of launches will be for commercial purposes (~50% of 2022 launches are for Starlink).
  - skissane 6y ago
    > SpaceX is everyone's favourite private sector success story, but they're basically just a younger, leaner version of Lockheed— surviving off of NASA In 2020, SpaceX did 26 launches. Only six of those had NASA as a customer. The rest were a mix of US military, commercial customers, foreign governments (Argentina and South Korea), and Starlink. Even if you add up NASA and US military, that's still only nine out of 26 with the US government as the customer. So while no doubt SpaceX does benefit from NASA's business, it is now only a minority.
    - mikepurvis 6y ago
      Sure, and legacy launch providers do business with the private sector also, but none of them could have been bootstrapped without years of unprofitable R&D on the public's dime. There is no VC who would have accepted a pre-SpaceX pitch for low cost launches, Starlink, or any of the rest of it. It would have been straight up "lol Iridium amirite, get out."
      - shazmosushi 6y ago
        > There is no VC who would have accepted a pre-SpaceX pitch for low cost launches, Starlink, or any of the rest of it. It would have been straight up "lol Iridium amirite, get out." SpaceX was funded by Elon Musk and later, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund. Starlink has been in part funded by a $1 billion investment from Google and Fidelity. And since then further funding rounds have been raised. The DFJ and Founder's Fund investment was before SpaceX had any substantial NASA development contracts, let along their 2008 $1.6 billion launch contract.

I think this is really insightful. Misallocation of resources is what eventually brings down economies. There are lots of bright people around, but corruption can drain a lot of talent.

chrisco255 6y ago

Perhaps the problem is that the government has too much of a role in allocating resources in our economy as it stands. Maybe the military-industrial complex had some cool things for the first couple decades of its existence, but as the decades went on, it became a rusty, slower version of its old self as bureaucratic creep and complacency set in. Now it seems hard to disrupt that, like what tends to happen in the non-monopolized private sector.

wongarsu 6y ago
The elephant in the room is that military budget has to keep going up ("support the troops", create jobs and satisfy lobbyists) but there is no good goal to work towards. Great things happened in the 1940s to 70s because there were clear enemies and clear steps to take to gain and keep superiority. Today the US has a military budget three times bigger than that of the next largest spender, and everything necessary to fulfill the current challenges already exists and is in operation. So you spend the rest to prepare for the future, but with no external pressure to do so fast or efficiently.
- uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 6y ago
  First one with a manned orbital fighter wins!
mikepurvis 6y ago
Lots of us would love to believe this, and yet what does the unrestrained private sector churn out? Ad networks, app addiction, gig economy, throwaway culture, urban sprawl, climate apathy... hardly a winner. SpaceX is everyone's favourite private sector success story, but they're basically just a younger, leaner version of Lockheed— surviving off of NASA and doing what they're contracted to do. I don't think the private sector is ever going to do ambitious things like build rail infrastructure all on its own, nor is the current PPP model necessarily the way either, but maybe there is some option out there to get things done which looks like the bakeoff that NASA held with CRS.
- robocat 6y ago
  > SpaceX ... surviving off of NASA and doing what they're contracted to do Really this is more similar to VC investment where NASA funded it so they could get a return (better launches), but the future is that a probably large percentage of launches will be for commercial purposes (~50% of 2022 launches are for Starlink).
- skissane 6y ago
  > SpaceX is everyone's favourite private sector success story, but they're basically just a younger, leaner version of Lockheed— surviving off of NASA In 2020, SpaceX did 26 launches. Only six of those had NASA as a customer. The rest were a mix of US military, commercial customers, foreign governments (Argentina and South Korea), and Starlink. Even if you add up NASA and US military, that's still only nine out of 26 with the US government as the customer. So while no doubt SpaceX does benefit from NASA's business, it is now only a minority.
  - mikepurvis 6y ago
    Sure, and legacy launch providers do business with the private sector also, but none of them could have been bootstrapped without years of unprofitable R&D on the public's dime. There is no VC who would have accepted a pre-SpaceX pitch for low cost launches, Starlink, or any of the rest of it. It would have been straight up "lol Iridium amirite, get out."
    - shazmosushi 6y ago
      > There is no VC who would have accepted a pre-SpaceX pitch for low cost launches, Starlink, or any of the rest of it. It would have been straight up "lol Iridium amirite, get out." SpaceX was funded by Elon Musk and later, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Peter Thiel's Founder's Fund. Starlink has been in part funded by a $1 billion investment from Google and Fidelity. And since then further funding rounds have been raised. The DFJ and Founder's Fund investment was before SpaceX had any substantial NASA development contracts, let along their 2008 $1.6 billion launch contract.