Can they? The US government has spent more on, and done more to advance space travel and exploration than Musk can ever hope to. The CDC completely eliminated malaria and other mosquito born illnesses in the US, amongst many other things. Gates has done nothing comparable. If you look at every billionaire’s pet projects you’ll find governments that have already done and are doing more. What billionaires lack is oversight and what they have in spades is budget and incentives to spend on PR to make themselves look good while doing little. As an average person, I’d rather governments did these things than have to put up with billionaires class who get less done while talking about it more.
This is exactly right. In huge swaths of the US, your local county's Mosquito Control department is probably a small number of full timers (maybe one or even zero), some budget for seasonal staff, and some commercial F-150s with sprayers in the bed. They probably have six-seven figures a year in budget.
They don't have a PR budget, just trucks and sprayers. But they are absolutely the reason that there isn't endemic malaria in your county.
there is no doubt that government employees can innovate. Anyone can innovate. Provided with the correct competitive structure (large market rewards, big prizes, etc).
And yet, the F150 was built by capitalists, the sprayers are built with capitalists. The chemicals were built by capitalists.
so yes some problems are best solved by government, but innovation isnt one of them.
> so yes some problems are best solved by government, but innovation isnt one of them.
1. I've worked in gov labs, industry labs, and academic labs. Mostly industry labs. People and culture are the most important thing. The variability in innovation between companies is often WAY higher than the variability between the public and private sector. Gov labs can be insanely innovative or quagmires. Same for industry labs. It's all about the people and culture. Good people and good culture and possible in the public and private sectors. Bad people and bad culture are also possible in the public and private sectors. Anyone telling you otherwise is trolling and/or selling an idiology (sic).
2. The whole point of the above post was that there's ENORMOUS value in the "tried and true". Getting rid of endemic malaria has been possible for the better part of a century. It's a governance problem, not an innovation problem.
"In 2018 a whistleblower told me about a new satellite thruster that used mercury, the poisonous liquid metal, as a propellant, and that it would inevitably fall back to earth when used, thus beginning my Space Lawyer arc. The company that designed it was in the process of selling the tech to big space companies: SpaceX, OneWeb, etc., who were in the planning stages of putting new "megaconstellations" of 10,000s of satellites into orbit. Every one of these satellites has 20-100kg of propellant onboard, which is ionized and expelled over time to do orbital correction and scoot around up there. Mercury is heavy, which means that it gives you a lot of Δ(v) per unit of propellant used, it isn't explosive, you don't have to heat it as much as other fuels to stay liquid, and it's cheap because nobody wants it.
