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To me this all reads as corruption. You know why SpaceX can build a new rocket, faster, better, cheaper? Because there’s little corruption - aka bureaucrats, wh
by lettergram 6y ago
To me this all reads as corruption. You know why SpaceX can build a new rocket, faster, better, cheaper? Because there’s little corruption - aka bureaucrats, who’s sole job is to justify themselves.
- munk-a 6y agoSpaceX wouldn't exist without NASA sinking a lot of money into very risky R&D and training up a whole fleet of engineers capable of doing the work that SpaceX does. The public sector can be insanely bloated and slow - that's quite true - but it's necessary and contributes a lot to society that the private sector would never deliver. We need balance in all things.
- megaman821 6y agoThe Government should do things it is uniquely suited to do. Like risky, multi-decade R&D that launched the first satellites and delivered men to the moon. Once these feats become more common-place, let private industry take over and put the cost-savings into new R&D.
- temp8964 6y agoNot really. China's big projects all have corruptions, but corruption can help sort things out. Read my comment above. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26483703 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26483703
- himinlomax 6y agoThe point of this paper is precisely that bureaucrats, at least the right type of bureaucrats, are necessary for public works to proceed smoothly. Without (qualified, motivated) public servants, public works are driven by politics and lawyers instead of domain experts. I've seen the same kind of things happen in the private sector. A company with no in-house IT expertise regularly gets fucked over by their contractors. This is less common now but this was rather the norm 20 years ago, even for large enterprises.