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I don't know about USA politics to have an opinion on the matter, so I'd rather believe you assesment. But I want to add another point of data. Or rather point

by ordu 3y ago

I don't know about USA politics to have an opinion on the matter, so I'd rather believe you assesment. But I want to add another point of data. Or rather point of view from outside. My experience of communication and collaboration with individual Americans points to the opposite direction. They are focused on a problem solving, not on a blame assignment. I can compare with my fellow Russians, I can't play games with them, because they kill all the fun looking for someone to blame. But at the same time, if we take a look at our Russian politicians... If they even look for someone to blame, they look for a blatant scapegoat. So, I mean, it seems like a complete reverse. Probably it is a coincidence or a result of a flawed methodology, but still...

smcin 3y ago
The discussion here is specifically about US (political) oversight of government agencies like NASA, specifically after a failure. Not private companies, or tech, or problem-solving in general, or scenarios where positive incentives outweigh the likelihood of blame. Compare the huge public scrutiny of Space Shuttle failures vs the FAA being out-to-lunch on oversight of Boeing 737MAX for over a decade. Some people have commented that excessive scrutiny (e.g. at NASA) has resulted in changes in culture and the rise of risk-averse 'professional administrators'.
- gumby 3y ago
  True, but my comment was intended to point out that the punitive nature of political oversight of government agencies is a consequence of a more general attitude of the public, and thus probably impossible to broadly change.
  - smcin 3y ago
    I don't think the more general US attitude of the public towards private, non-govt entities is very critical (absent any scandal/ coverup/ bribery). Here's the obvious counterexample which I didn't even think was necessary to include in my previous post: if SpaceX has quite a lot of (unmanned) launch failures that cost them (or their insurers) a lot and set back their plans for demonstrating manned launch, the general public don't care and think that's overall a net positive and cost of SpaceX making progress on its plan (as long as the debris lands at sea and doesn't cause injuries or significant pollution). If SpaceX did too much of this, it would collapse, lose its launch contracts and its investors would lose their money. Compare to Facebook/Meta's failed Connectivity division [0], Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, et al. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/meta-unplugs-connectivity-division-home-of-satellite-and-drone-internet-experiments/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/meta-unplugs-connectivity-...

by ordu 3y ago

smcin 3y ago

The discussion here is specifically about US (political) oversight of government agencies like NASA, specifically after a failure. Not private companies, or tech, or problem-solving in general, or scenarios where positive incentives outweigh the likelihood of blame. Compare the huge public scrutiny of Space Shuttle failures vs the FAA being out-to-lunch on oversight of Boeing 737MAX for over a decade. Some people have commented that excessive scrutiny (e.g. at NASA) has resulted in changes in culture and the rise of risk-averse 'professional administrators'.

gumby 3y ago
True, but my comment was intended to point out that the punitive nature of political oversight of government agencies is a consequence of a more general attitude of the public, and thus probably impossible to broadly change.
- smcin 3y ago
  I don't think the more general US attitude of the public towards private, non-govt entities is very critical (absent any scandal/ coverup/ bribery). Here's the obvious counterexample which I didn't even think was necessary to include in my previous post: if SpaceX has quite a lot of (unmanned) launch failures that cost them (or their insurers) a lot and set back their plans for demonstrating manned launch, the general public don't care and think that's overall a net positive and cost of SpaceX making progress on its plan (as long as the debris lands at sea and doesn't cause injuries or significant pollution). If SpaceX did too much of this, it would collapse, lose its launch contracts and its investors would lose their money. Compare to Facebook/Meta's failed Connectivity division [0], Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, et al. [0]: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/meta-unplugs-connectivity-division-home-of-satellite-and-drone-internet-experiments/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/meta-unplugs-connectivity-...