The "starve the beast" strategy has crippled our government. If this were the early post WWII era we'd have major government projects to do this kind of infrastructure and do it well.

Without a major political shift, the US will not be leading the way. This kind of major project seems impossible from both parties currently.

It's not only the US; this disease seems to be affecting all western nations. I feel that we'll have to wait for China to successfully deploy such a project, which will finally provide enough political coordination (read: envy) to convince some western nations to just copy it.

Nah, Singapore will just invest in the infrastructure necessary to make it possible when it’s not good enough for California yet and pass the laws and regulations to make it happen. Probably ban non self-driving cars at the same time.

I’d say our assumption that the big stuff should be done by the government cripples our thinking and stops us from encouraging more innovative private projects. I’ve lost faith in government in a way that goes beyond candidates and parties - I think the structure is broken. I do not want to wish any more power in to the hands of thieves. That is - Congress and those who buy the congress people.

> those who buy the congress people.

You mean the private-project innovators here, right?

Spot on.

I can't for the life of me understand why people would think that the sponsors/"corruptors" would act better without a government, even when parts of that government is corrupted by the private entities.

Also: if you want to see real corruption, just take a closer look at how regular small businesses operate. Befriend an employee of a grocery store. Or at a company selling lightbulbs, furniture, etc. I guarantee you from personal experience, your moral compass will go haywire from the stories you'll hear.

(Also, you'll unfortunately discover that a subset of customers are total assholes. These days I believe that working in a customer service, or other field that has you interact with a wide variety of people on a daily basis, is the best way to ultimately lose faith in humanity.)

I can confirm this. I used to work at a gas station and my bosses would regularly steal gas and write it off as a "business expense" when going to and from home.

Also, customers were the worst. Either from wanting free stuff because they came in so often to wanting preferential treatment because they were older, the vast majority of customers seem to want everything handed to them on a silver platter.

Nah, my company sells lightbulbs and many other things. Yeah some people are unbelievable, and the fraud... but most people are decent. We work hard to be ethical and I think everyone who works here would agree that we have a working moral compass.

The idea that our government is starving is amusing.

Spend some time around it. Anything discretionary is funded below sustainable levels, even if that costs more.

There’s a reason why most government offices are full of 1970s olive tile and orange cubicles.

Well in a way it's starving because it's become so greedy that it can't get enough food to feed itself anymore. Most governments create more debt than they can ever manage.