6 ms·

Can't speak to the world as a whole but the US has we spent 50 years gutting most government functions that aren't part of the police/military/surveillance appa

by advael 2mo ago

Can't speak to the world as a whole but the US has we spent 50 years gutting most government functions that aren't part of the police/military/surveillance apparatus (and many of those as well). SpaceX itself is an example of the primary mechanism of this: Diverting funding to private, no-bid contracts that remove both market forces and democratic oversight from those services while also ballooning their costs

redsocksfan45 2mo ago
[dead]
thegreatpeter 2mo ago
Medicare, social security and the interest on the debt are the 3 top federal spending categories Social welfare is the top local spending category in many local/state governments
- advael 2mo ago
  Yea, and medical costs - including those paid for by medicare, often for people who aged into the program with worse health, which in turn is partially attributable to a tendency to avoid preventative care earlier in life due to higher costs - in the US are drastically more expensive than elsewhere, primarily because of this exact pump: Providers, insurance, equipment manufacturers, and various middleman orgs have arisen to deal with a system that is riddled with cost-inflating private-public partnerships and regulatory band-aids to mitigate small parts of the mess that end up having second-order effects that mostly also raise costs. I believe some functions are simply best performed by non-profit-motivated government agencies. However, I would usually prefer an actual unregulated or black market over the corrupt frankenstein of private-public partnerships
bell-cot 2mo ago
While there's a lot of truth to your "gutting most gov't functions" claim, you might want to compare SpaceX's subsidies and launch costs with those of the gov't's traditional providers. And look at myriad $billions that have been squandered on the Senate Launch System. There are plenty of solid reasons to despise Elon - no need for counterfactuals.
- parineum 2mo ago
  > There are plenty of solid reasons to despise Elon - no need for counterfactuals. There really aren't that many. He's kinda a dick and briefly supported the president very publicly. Most of the other reasons are just as fatuous as this.
- advael 2mo ago
  I would rather things like internet not be provided by entities that are incentivised by profits, controlled by one or a few individuals, none of whom are publicly accountable. I am actually willing to tolerate some inefficiency for the upsides of that tradeoff, but I think lots of governments manage to do utilities competently, too
  - inemesitaffia 2mo ago
    I'd like to see a pre SpaceX post like this from you. Anything pre 2015 is fine. Because this is nothing new. What you're essentially arguing for is SpaceX building this for the government and government being the middleman. More money would be spent. Not less.
    - advael 2mo ago
      I not only haven't mentioned Musk a single time, but have thought this for my entire adult life. Utilities should be public goods. Hell, this isn't even that unpopular an opinion. Not everything boils down to culture war or mindless gossip about particular famous rich people Also frankly I would mind companies like SpaceX being contracted to build and sell satellites a lot less than them also continuing to control or operate them
      - inemesitaffia 2mo ago
        I'm not talking about Musk, or culture war stuff. The rest is fine. The government has Starshield. And several other non SpaceX satellite systems. They famously sent four (4) recievers of that sort to Ukraine. There's this idea out there that SpaceX is somehow stealing from NASA. Paired with the notion/assumption that the government builds its space vehicles. Completely incomprehensible.
inemesitaffia 2mo ago
Private no bid contracts? Disinformation on the Internet? Never seen it before. The contracts are not just publicly bid but paired. Come off this nonsense. Space is the sphere of government and the launchers and satellites have always been built by companies and SpaceX is very visibly cheaper.
- advael 2mo ago
  Private here is meant to refer to the "private sector", as in using a company, not the existence of the contract being classified or something. I suppose SpaceX is publicly traded now, but that distinction also, in my opinion, is not the important one here. At any rate, if you think I'm wrong or mistaken, I'm happy to hear you out, but you're going to have to go into a little more detail if your intent is to convince me. Like I am not even sure what "paired" means in this context
  - inemesitaffia 2mo ago
    Paired means at least two companies get the contract. SpaceX to my memory has always been paid less when that happens. Examples are CCrew - Boeing CCargo - Sierra, SpaceX is now a sub for another company bc their engines are made in Ukraine. HLS - Blue Origin NSSL - ULA, Blue Origin (Maybe RKLB) NRO Starshield GMTI - Northrop Grumman SDA - York Space SEA-2 - OneWeb >Can't speak to the world as a whole but the US has we spent 50 years gutting most government functions that aren't part of the police/military/surveillance apparatus (and many of those as well). It's the likes of Boeing and Lockheed vs SpaceX not Government vs Private Sector. That's how it's worked since Apollo. >SpaceX itself is an example of the primary mechanism of this: Diverting funding to private, no-bid contracts that remove both market forces and democratic oversight from those services while also ballooning their costs This is the core of the disinformation. SpaceX has always been cheaper, see Europa Clipper for one of the most egregious examples. The post SpaceX era is also cheaper for the government because of the shift in contract types. That's how you hear Boeing is losing money on Starliner and Air Force 1, because companies now eat the losses they used to pass on. Raytheon (and SpaceX mind) dropped out of SDA because of this. The contracts are also openly bid. And if they aren't classified you can bid too. Lots of these contracts don't even have pré-qualification. This stuff is known to anyone that follows the industry. In fact, the fact other companies are involved makes it more expensive because they charge more than SpaceX per unit of work. But government keeps its leverage and industrial base. The person you read from who claimed (I can tell they aren't original thoughts) these things is lying to you and any cursory check (sometimes just reading articles instead of just headlines is enough). It's like the X company isn't paying taxes, "this is a bad thing" stories, then you look at the balance sheet and not only is the company paying taxes, it's lifetime and operationally unprofitable, so it has no corp tax incidence (like anyone doing part time work at minimum wage or below (at a charity))

by advael 2mo ago

redsocksfan45 2mo ago

[dead]

thegreatpeter 2mo ago

Medicare, social security and the interest on the debt are the 3 top federal spending categories Social welfare is the top local spending category in many local/state governments

advael 2mo ago
Yea, and medical costs - including those paid for by medicare, often for people who aged into the program with worse health, which in turn is partially attributable to a tendency to avoid preventative care earlier in life due to higher costs - in the US are drastically more expensive than elsewhere, primarily because of this exact pump: Providers, insurance, equipment manufacturers, and various middleman orgs have arisen to deal with a system that is riddled with cost-inflating private-public partnerships and regulatory band-aids to mitigate small parts of the mess that end up having second-order effects that mostly also raise costs. I believe some functions are simply best performed by non-profit-motivated government agencies. However, I would usually prefer an actual unregulated or black market over the corrupt frankenstein of private-public partnerships

bell-cot 2mo ago

While there's a lot of truth to your "gutting most gov't functions" claim, you might want to compare SpaceX's subsidies and launch costs with those of the gov't's traditional providers. And look at myriad $billions that have been squandered on the Senate Launch System. There are plenty of solid reasons to despise Elon - no need for counterfactuals.

parineum 2mo ago
> There are plenty of solid reasons to despise Elon - no need for counterfactuals. There really aren't that many. He's kinda a dick and briefly supported the president very publicly. Most of the other reasons are just as fatuous as this.
advael 2mo ago
I would rather things like internet not be provided by entities that are incentivised by profits, controlled by one or a few individuals, none of whom are publicly accountable. I am actually willing to tolerate some inefficiency for the upsides of that tradeoff, but I think lots of governments manage to do utilities competently, too
- inemesitaffia 2mo ago
  I'd like to see a pre SpaceX post like this from you. Anything pre 2015 is fine. Because this is nothing new. What you're essentially arguing for is SpaceX building this for the government and government being the middleman. More money would be spent. Not less.
  - advael 2mo ago
    I not only haven't mentioned Musk a single time, but have thought this for my entire adult life. Utilities should be public goods. Hell, this isn't even that unpopular an opinion. Not everything boils down to culture war or mindless gossip about particular famous rich people Also frankly I would mind companies like SpaceX being contracted to build and sell satellites a lot less than them also continuing to control or operate them
    - inemesitaffia 2mo ago
      I'm not talking about Musk, or culture war stuff. The rest is fine. The government has Starshield. And several other non SpaceX satellite systems. They famously sent four (4) recievers of that sort to Ukraine. There's this idea out there that SpaceX is somehow stealing from NASA. Paired with the notion/assumption that the government builds its space vehicles. Completely incomprehensible.

inemesitaffia 2mo ago

Private no bid contracts? Disinformation on the Internet? Never seen it before. The contracts are not just publicly bid but paired. Come off this nonsense. Space is the sphere of government and the launchers and satellites have always been built by companies and SpaceX is very visibly cheaper.

advael 2mo ago
Private here is meant to refer to the "private sector", as in using a company, not the existence of the contract being classified or something. I suppose SpaceX is publicly traded now, but that distinction also, in my opinion, is not the important one here. At any rate, if you think I'm wrong or mistaken, I'm happy to hear you out, but you're going to have to go into a little more detail if your intent is to convince me. Like I am not even sure what "paired" means in this context
- inemesitaffia 2mo ago
  Paired means at least two companies get the contract. SpaceX to my memory has always been paid less when that happens. Examples are CCrew - Boeing CCargo - Sierra, SpaceX is now a sub for another company bc their engines are made in Ukraine. HLS - Blue Origin NSSL - ULA, Blue Origin (Maybe RKLB) NRO Starshield GMTI - Northrop Grumman SDA - York Space SEA-2 - OneWeb >Can't speak to the world as a whole but the US has we spent 50 years gutting most government functions that aren't part of the police/military/surveillance apparatus (and many of those as well). It's the likes of Boeing and Lockheed vs SpaceX not Government vs Private Sector. That's how it's worked since Apollo. >SpaceX itself is an example of the primary mechanism of this: Diverting funding to private, no-bid contracts that remove both market forces and democratic oversight from those services while also ballooning their costs This is the core of the disinformation. SpaceX has always been cheaper, see Europa Clipper for one of the most egregious examples. The post SpaceX era is also cheaper for the government because of the shift in contract types. That's how you hear Boeing is losing money on Starliner and Air Force 1, because companies now eat the losses they used to pass on. Raytheon (and SpaceX mind) dropped out of SDA because of this. The contracts are also openly bid. And if they aren't classified you can bid too. Lots of these contracts don't even have pré-qualification. This stuff is known to anyone that follows the industry. In fact, the fact other companies are involved makes it more expensive because they charge more than SpaceX per unit of work. But government keeps its leverage and industrial base. The person you read from who claimed (I can tell they aren't original thoughts) these things is lying to you and any cursory check (sometimes just reading articles instead of just headlines is enough). It's like the X company isn't paying taxes, "this is a bad thing" stories, then you look at the balance sheet and not only is the company paying taxes, it's lifetime and operationally unprofitable, so it has no corp tax incidence (like anyone doing part time work at minimum wage or below (at a charity))