5 ms·

> "government successes" Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tang

> "government successes" Please, name for me one product or service that the US government has created, that people willingly buy, that has made your life tangibly better. I can list a billion made by businesses. Please, go for it. Just one.

mbgerring 8mo ago
USPS Medicaid The National Park System I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but
- palmotea 8mo ago
  > I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system. The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted. My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language. The flawed assumption there is the government should be conceptualized as just another company selling in the market, when the government's actual role is very different.
  - SunshineTheCat 8mo ago
    As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company. Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape). Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements. Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, inefficiency, and corruption. A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. The government on the other hand, is $38 TRILLION dollars in the red. Yes, the things that "people willingly buy" are the literal engine that makes all of this possible. It is not the reverse.
    - cyberax 8mo ago
      Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices. > A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.
      - cucumber3732842 8mo ago
        Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there. I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying. Imagine the consequences if I did that with government. Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.
        wredcoll 8mo ago
        I have called the dmv. They said enter a number and we'll call you back later, which they did. It wasn't fast but it was fairly efficient. I've had the irs write me a letter saying I owed them money. They were correct and I paid them in a couple of months. It wasn't very hard. I don't enjoy paying taxes but I do very much enjoy the things they buy.
        cyberax 8mo ago
        Well, ask your state to fix the issue. Perhaps elect better politicians? The states where I lived all have online booking. And their websites are well-designed and functional. There are customer support emails and phone numbers. > Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. About that... A couple of years ago I got locked out of AT&T because I forgot to update my credit card. And I couldn't log in because it required a (you guessed it) one-time SMS password. Their "pay your bill" needed a bill number, for which I needed to log into their website. Their fix? Visit the store. > Imagine the consequences if I did that with government. A couple of years ago I accidentally overpaid the IRS (I paid the capital gains tax twice, as it was already deducted during the sale by the broker) to the tune of $10k. A year later, they sent a letter asking me for clarifications. I called them, and they sent me a refund check. > The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service. And what's wrong with a check or ACH?
  - WalterBright 8mo ago
    > My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language Well, they aren't willingly buying it. They are funded with taxes.
    - wredcoll 8mo ago
      People can choose not to use a lot of those things.
      - WalterBright 8mo ago
        Right, but they cannot choose to not buy them.
  - Dylan16807 8mo ago
    This discussion about the purpose of government is valid as a way to disagree with the "willingly buy" language, but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question and to refuse them is not "weaseling out".
    - palmotea 8mo ago
      > but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question That's because the question is bad. It was meant to challenge the benefit of government, and a non-answer was meant to be interpreted as "government < business." But at its core is was fundamental misunderstanding of government, so if the question was answered mindlessly, it was unfairly biased towards the asker's biased conclusion. > and to refuse them is not "weaseling out". It'd be weaseling out of the faults of the question.
- SunshineTheCat 8mo ago
  Every single thing you just mentioned is insolvent.
  - wredcoll 8mo ago
    Like, even if that was true, which super blatantly they are not, they are not intended to make a profit, they are intended to accomplish a goal.
- WalterBright 8mo ago
  USPS - is self-funded, though it is operating at a loss. It also is a legal monopoly, meaning competitors for first class mail are illegal. Medicaid - funded by the government, meaning people are not willingly paying for it The National Park System - funded by the government, meaning people are not willingly paying for it
- NetMageSCW 8mo ago
  The USPS is failing because people aren’t that interested in it. Medicaid is hardly a competitive market, but medication pricing alone says it is a failure. On Medicaid, my FIL can’t get his prescription for G7s filled by anyone.
hash872 8mo ago
The proto-Internet. GPS. Nuclear energy. MRIs. Fracking. The Human Genome Project. Fiber optics. Optical data storage. Jet engines. Heck, the entire space industry. Lithium ion batteries. Radar. Night vision technology. Modern lower limb prosthetics. Just off the top of my head
- wredcoll 8mo ago
  You had me until fracking.
  - hash872 8mo ago
    The Department of Energy funded much of the early research into fracking in the 70s https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/articles/does-early-investment-shale-gas-technology-producing-results-today https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/articles/does-early-investment-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_States https://clearpath.org/tech-101/hydraulic-fracturing-a-public-private-rd-success-story/ https://clearpath.org/tech-101/hydraulic-fracturing-a-public...
- WalterBright 8mo ago
  Jet engines - Frank Whipple (England) and Franz Ohain (Germany) invented them. In both cases the governments were not interested in them until flying jet aircraft were demonstrated. Lockheed was ordered by the government to abandon their jet engine project and focus on piston engines instead (which resulted in the US having to get started on jet aircraft by buying British machines). Human genome - J. Venter was the first to sequence the human genome, privately funded. the entire space industry - Liquid fuel rockets were pioneered by Goddard, through private funding. Radar - originated from late 19th-century experiments on radio wave reflection, pioneered by Heinrich Hertz in 1886. While Christian Hülsmeyer patented a "telemobiloscope" for ship detection in 1904 The proto-Internet - Pioneered by Samuel Morse, see "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage. Privately funded. Optical data storage - Invented by D Gregg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paul_Gregg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paul_Gregg, at a private company. Nuclear energy - a very long list of contributors. See "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". And so on.
hellojesus 8mo ago
Didn't gov funded science invent MRIs?
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]

mbgerring 8mo ago

USPS Medicaid The National Park System I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but

palmotea 8mo ago
> I know that the next step is you explaining why these don’t count, or saying “wow only 3” or whatever, but Oh, there's more: Medicare, Social Security, the highway system. The whole food/medicine regulatory system is also a big one, and it's the reason a lot of US (and European) products like baby formula are imported into China, because they can be more trusted. My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language. The flawed assumption there is the government should be conceptualized as just another company selling in the market, when the government's actual role is very different.
- SunshineTheCat 8mo ago
  As with anything, they are all things that could be done better by a company. Airlines are a great example of this. They have changed very little in the last 30 years (again, thanks to all the government regulation and red tape). Smartphones, TVs, (and literally anything else not in the hands of the government) has also seen rapid improvements. Anything the government handles is always rife with overspending, inefficiency, and corruption. A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. The government on the other hand, is $38 TRILLION dollars in the red. Yes, the things that "people willingly buy" are the literal engine that makes all of this possible. It is not the reverse.
  - cyberax 8mo ago
    Oh yeah. I feel sooooo good dealing with Comcast. At this point in life, I spent more time on the phone with Comcast support than I ever spent time in various DMV offices. > A company must maintain profitability to stay alive. Yeah. And once it becomes a monopoly (like Comcast), it can just keep raising prices.
    - cucumber3732842 8mo ago
      Have you ever called the DMV? In my state it's worse than Comcast. 45min wait time when the lines open in the morning, only increasing from there. I "owe" Comcast $200. They say I didn't cancel at an old apartment. I say I did. I have the email. They insist. They've sent me a letter once a year for a decade. About 2yr in it went to collections. They're still trying. Imagine the consequences if I did that with government. Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service.
      - wredcoll 8mo ago
        I have called the dmv. They said enter a number and we'll call you back later, which they did. It wasn't fast but it was fairly efficient. I've had the irs write me a letter saying I owed them money. They were correct and I paid them in a couple of months. It wasn't very hard. I don't enjoy paying taxes but I do very much enjoy the things they buy.
      - cyberax 8mo ago
        Well, ask your state to fix the issue. Perhaps elect better politicians? The states where I lived all have online booking. And their websites are well-designed and functional. There are customer support emails and phone numbers. > Say nothing of the fact that if I tried to pay it, Comcast would be able to take my money no problem. About that... A couple of years ago I got locked out of AT&T because I forgot to update my credit card. And I couldn't log in because it required a (you guessed it) one-time SMS password. Their "pay your bill" needed a bill number, for which I needed to log into their website. Their fix? Visit the store. > Imagine the consequences if I did that with government. A couple of years ago I accidentally overpaid the IRS (I paid the capital gains tax twice, as it was already deducted during the sale by the broker) to the tune of $10k. A year later, they sent a letter asking me for clarifications. I called them, and they sent me a refund check. > The government would take a check, ACH or charge me $5 to use a buggy 3rd party CC processing service. And what's wrong with a check or ACH?
- WalterBright 8mo ago
  > My bet is the GP's going to weasel out using his "that people willingly buy" language Well, they aren't willingly buying it. They are funded with taxes.
  - wredcoll 8mo ago
    People can choose not to use a lot of those things.
    - WalterBright 8mo ago
      Right, but they cannot choose to not buy them.
- Dylan16807 8mo ago
  This discussion about the purpose of government is valid as a way to disagree with the "willingly buy" language, but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question and to refuse them is not "weaseling out".
  - palmotea 8mo ago
    > but it's still true that most of those examples don't answer the question That's because the question is bad. It was meant to challenge the benefit of government, and a non-answer was meant to be interpreted as "government < business." But at its core is was fundamental misunderstanding of government, so if the question was answered mindlessly, it was unfairly biased towards the asker's biased conclusion. > and to refuse them is not "weaseling out". It'd be weaseling out of the faults of the question.
SunshineTheCat 8mo ago
Every single thing you just mentioned is insolvent.
- wredcoll 8mo ago
  Like, even if that was true, which super blatantly they are not, they are not intended to make a profit, they are intended to accomplish a goal.
WalterBright 8mo ago
USPS - is self-funded, though it is operating at a loss. It also is a legal monopoly, meaning competitors for first class mail are illegal. Medicaid - funded by the government, meaning people are not willingly paying for it The National Park System - funded by the government, meaning people are not willingly paying for it
NetMageSCW 8mo ago
The USPS is failing because people aren’t that interested in it. Medicaid is hardly a competitive market, but medication pricing alone says it is a failure. On Medicaid, my FIL can’t get his prescription for G7s filled by anyone.

hash872 8mo ago

The proto-Internet. GPS. Nuclear energy. MRIs. Fracking. The Human Genome Project. Fiber optics. Optical data storage. Jet engines. Heck, the entire space industry. Lithium ion batteries. Radar. Night vision technology. Modern lower limb prosthetics. Just off the top of my head

wredcoll 8mo ago
You had me until fracking.
- hash872 8mo ago
  The Department of Energy funded much of the early research into fracking in the 70s https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/articles/does-early-investment-shale-gas-technology-producing-results-today https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/articles/does-early-investment-s... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fracking_in_the_United_States https://clearpath.org/tech-101/hydraulic-fracturing-a-public-private-rd-success-story/ https://clearpath.org/tech-101/hydraulic-fracturing-a-public...
WalterBright 8mo ago
Jet engines - Frank Whipple (England) and Franz Ohain (Germany) invented them. In both cases the governments were not interested in them until flying jet aircraft were demonstrated. Lockheed was ordered by the government to abandon their jet engine project and focus on piston engines instead (which resulted in the US having to get started on jet aircraft by buying British machines). Human genome - J. Venter was the first to sequence the human genome, privately funded. the entire space industry - Liquid fuel rockets were pioneered by Goddard, through private funding. Radar - originated from late 19th-century experiments on radio wave reflection, pioneered by Heinrich Hertz in 1886. While Christian Hülsmeyer patented a "telemobiloscope" for ship detection in 1904 The proto-Internet - Pioneered by Samuel Morse, see "The Victorian Internet" by Tom Standage. Privately funded. Optical data storage - Invented by D Gregg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paul_Gregg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Paul_Gregg, at a private company. Nuclear energy - a very long list of contributors. See "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". And so on.

hellojesus 8mo ago

Didn't gov funded science invent MRIs?

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]