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>This is the authority we trust to build our roads and virtually every other meaningful physical infrastructure in our civic life. Trusting the government to b

>This is the authority we trust to build our roads and virtually every other meaningful physical infrastructure in our civic life. Trusting the government to be able to do something is not the same them actually doing it, nor is it the same as them doing it well. With roads the people using them have much more incentive in maintaining them than the government. What a person experiences driving down the road everyday is just a statistic to the government.

doginasuit 2mo ago
How about the electric grid and our water/sewer systems, is it reasonable to trust the same entity that manages those vital services to build a basic web form? > Trusting the government to be able to do something is not the same them actually doing it, nor is it the same as them doing it well. You are absolutely right. My point is not that the government has proven its competency in this domain, it is whether we should expect it.
- charcircuit 2mo ago
  >we should expect it. The monetary incentives for the most governments don't exist to run projects efficiently, so I don't think it is realistic to expect it. The government can just print money or steal money via taxes to cover up inefficiencies. And since government bureaucracy tends to force things to move at a glacial pace that will be reflected in how it executes projects.
  - wredcoll 2mo ago
    This is so wrong I literally don't know where to start. Governments have as much incentive as anyone else to save money. I shouldn't even need to type this but raising taxes is unpopular and tends to cause people to get voted out of office. People need to stop repeating thise weird talking points about "the government" and its incentives. It's a big, complixated entity made up of literally millions of people all of whom have different motivations and incentives and non-government employees affect those not just in the super obvious way by voting but by every interaction we have with anyone who works there.
    - charcircuit 2mo ago
      >raising taxes is unpopular and tends to cause people to get voted out of office. This is missing the point. If you got rid of taxes altogether it would reveal what really is being propped up tax money as opposed to actually being valuable enough to exist on its own. >complixated entity made up of literally millions of people all of whom have different motivations and incentives Which is why it's important to get the big incentives correct. Otherwise one of these actors will waste resources since expecting people to do the right thing without incentives does not scale.
      - wredcoll 2mo ago
        > This is missing the point. If you got rid of taxes altogether it would reveal what really is being propped up tax money as opposed to actually being valuable enough to exist on its own. No, that's not how reality works. Things do not "exist on their own". People create them. People maintain them. They do this for a very large variety of reasons and via lots of different mechanisms. Some dude buying lemons and selling lemonade as a business is no more special or deserving of existence than a bunch of dudes deciding they should all chip in to pay someone to clean the neighborhood pool. The "right thing" is extremely complicated because people will not agree with each other.
wredcoll 2mo ago
> With roads the people using them have much more incentive in maintaining them Are you implying the random people driving down a road also do the maintenance on it? What? How is this any different from literally any other government service?
- charcircuit 2mo ago
  >Are you implying the random people driving down a road also do the maintenance on it? I'm implying that the people and businesses along a private road pay another company to come in and do maintenance. Unlike government modes you don't have to wait until whenever the government feels like fixing road.
  - doginasuit 2mo ago
    We actually have public roads that are built and maintained by private companies, they are toll roads. If you don't mind paying separate tolls everywhere you travel, this would be a fine solution.
    - charcircuit 2mo ago
      There are other ways to fund it than tolls for using it. Similar to how restraints have free parking on their property despite paid parking being a thing.

doginasuit 2mo ago

How about the electric grid and our water/sewer systems, is it reasonable to trust the same entity that manages those vital services to build a basic web form? > Trusting the government to be able to do something is not the same them actually doing it, nor is it the same as them doing it well. You are absolutely right. My point is not that the government has proven its competency in this domain, it is whether we should expect it.

charcircuit 2mo ago
>we should expect it. The monetary incentives for the most governments don't exist to run projects efficiently, so I don't think it is realistic to expect it. The government can just print money or steal money via taxes to cover up inefficiencies. And since government bureaucracy tends to force things to move at a glacial pace that will be reflected in how it executes projects.
- wredcoll 2mo ago
  This is so wrong I literally don't know where to start. Governments have as much incentive as anyone else to save money. I shouldn't even need to type this but raising taxes is unpopular and tends to cause people to get voted out of office. People need to stop repeating thise weird talking points about "the government" and its incentives. It's a big, complixated entity made up of literally millions of people all of whom have different motivations and incentives and non-government employees affect those not just in the super obvious way by voting but by every interaction we have with anyone who works there.
  - charcircuit 2mo ago
    >raising taxes is unpopular and tends to cause people to get voted out of office. This is missing the point. If you got rid of taxes altogether it would reveal what really is being propped up tax money as opposed to actually being valuable enough to exist on its own. >complixated entity made up of literally millions of people all of whom have different motivations and incentives Which is why it's important to get the big incentives correct. Otherwise one of these actors will waste resources since expecting people to do the right thing without incentives does not scale.
    - wredcoll 2mo ago
      > This is missing the point. If you got rid of taxes altogether it would reveal what really is being propped up tax money as opposed to actually being valuable enough to exist on its own. No, that's not how reality works. Things do not "exist on their own". People create them. People maintain them. They do this for a very large variety of reasons and via lots of different mechanisms. Some dude buying lemons and selling lemonade as a business is no more special or deserving of existence than a bunch of dudes deciding they should all chip in to pay someone to clean the neighborhood pool. The "right thing" is extremely complicated because people will not agree with each other.

wredcoll 2mo ago

> With roads the people using them have much more incentive in maintaining them Are you implying the random people driving down a road also do the maintenance on it? What? How is this any different from literally any other government service?

charcircuit 2mo ago
>Are you implying the random people driving down a road also do the maintenance on it? I'm implying that the people and businesses along a private road pay another company to come in and do maintenance. Unlike government modes you don't have to wait until whenever the government feels like fixing road.
- doginasuit 2mo ago
  We actually have public roads that are built and maintained by private companies, they are toll roads. If you don't mind paying separate tolls everywhere you travel, this would be a fine solution.
  - charcircuit 2mo ago
    There are other ways to fund it than tolls for using it. Similar to how restraints have free parking on their property despite paid parking being a thing.