3 ms·

> At least with privately funded research, the people providing the money aren't going to fund bullshit fake research. Citation needed, first of all, but gover

> At least with privately funded research, the people providing the money aren't going to fund bullshit fake research. Citation needed, first of all, but governments are at minimum accountable to voters. Private money is in no way accountable.

WalterBright 5y ago
> governments are at minimum accountable to voters Voting on how government spends money is in no conceivable way like you deciding how to spend your money. > Private money is in no way accountable It's accountable to the people who are providing the funds out of their own pockets. People do not like wasting their own money. I bet you look at your own budget. You have to, otherwise you'll be in jail for bouncing checks and tax evasion. I also bet you've never looked at your city, county, state or federal budget. It's other peoples' money, so who cares!
- bluGill 5y ago
  > I also bet you've never looked at your city, county, state or federal budget. I have. Not in great detail though. The problem is I can't really do anything about it. Even if I find something bad and by lucky chance get people to care (there are plenty of slow news nights) - there is far more bad things in the budget than I can expose before people get tired of the corruption and give up listening. I try to elect politicians who will do something about it - I have low success: people who benefit from any specific spending are more powerful than people who are just against waste in general. That is assuming I can get my person on the ballot in the first place (low odds), and they don't realize once elected that reelection (read power) comes from handing out pork to those who want some specific waste. There are more things that make it hard - I just scratched the surface. Pork is hard to figure out. Is spending money not to repair something that isn't broken good money or bad? I've seen perfectly good buildings get needless remodels and I've seen perfectly good buildings suffer because they never got maintained. I've seen towns put in sewer systems they don't need, and other towns fail to put in a sewer system until it was an expensive emergency. Flint had 40 years to replace the lead pipes in their water system - or they could have investing in water treatment chemicals that makes lead not leach from the pipes for much less money even over 40 years (you can pick anything from 60 to 30 years ago as the date when lead is bad became known - 40 was my somewhat arbitrary pick).
WalterBright 5y ago
Another way to look at it is voting is not the same as choice. If you wanted a mcburger but 51% voted for mcnuggets, you got mcnuggets. If you knew in advance that 75% were going to vote for mcnuggets, you likely wouldn't even bother to vote. You knew you had no choice at all.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> but governments are at minimum accountable to voters. Governments are at a minimum accountable to the people willing to use force against the government if they are sufficiently displeased. They may also be accountable to voters qua voters, depending on whether they have voting at all, and, if they do, what options are presented to voters and how fairly voted are counted, all of which are axes on which governments vary considerably, with many falling into ranges resulting in little or now accountability to voters.

WalterBright 5y ago

> governments are at minimum accountable to voters Voting on how government spends money is in no conceivable way like you deciding how to spend your money. > Private money is in no way accountable It's accountable to the people who are providing the funds out of their own pockets. People do not like wasting their own money. I bet you look at your own budget. You have to, otherwise you'll be in jail for bouncing checks and tax evasion. I also bet you've never looked at your city, county, state or federal budget. It's other peoples' money, so who cares!

bluGill 5y ago
> I also bet you've never looked at your city, county, state or federal budget. I have. Not in great detail though. The problem is I can't really do anything about it. Even if I find something bad and by lucky chance get people to care (there are plenty of slow news nights) - there is far more bad things in the budget than I can expose before people get tired of the corruption and give up listening. I try to elect politicians who will do something about it - I have low success: people who benefit from any specific spending are more powerful than people who are just against waste in general. That is assuming I can get my person on the ballot in the first place (low odds), and they don't realize once elected that reelection (read power) comes from handing out pork to those who want some specific waste. There are more things that make it hard - I just scratched the surface. Pork is hard to figure out. Is spending money not to repair something that isn't broken good money or bad? I've seen perfectly good buildings get needless remodels and I've seen perfectly good buildings suffer because they never got maintained. I've seen towns put in sewer systems they don't need, and other towns fail to put in a sewer system until it was an expensive emergency. Flint had 40 years to replace the lead pipes in their water system - or they could have investing in water treatment chemicals that makes lead not leach from the pipes for much less money even over 40 years (you can pick anything from 60 to 30 years ago as the date when lead is bad became known - 40 was my somewhat arbitrary pick).

WalterBright 5y ago

Another way to look at it is voting is not the same as choice. If you wanted a mcburger but 51% voted for mcnuggets, you got mcnuggets. If you knew in advance that 75% were going to vote for mcnuggets, you likely wouldn't even bother to vote. You knew you had no choice at all.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> but governments are at minimum accountable to voters. Governments are at a minimum accountable to the people willing to use force against the government if they are sufficiently displeased. They may also be accountable to voters qua voters, depending on whether they have voting at all, and, if they do, what options are presented to voters and how fairly voted are counted, all of which are axes on which governments vary considerably, with many falling into ranges resulting in little or now accountability to voters.