That's one way to view it. An alternative that isn't necessarily exclusive:
I recall holding a public debate at the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center in San Diego during the 1980s -- before the collapse of the Soviet Union -- regarding NASA's role in launch services vs the fledgling private launch services. During the debate an engineer from General Dynamics who had worked on the Atlas got up and declared that the reason the US government couldn't get its launch services running as well as the communists was that the communists executed corrupt bureaucrats, and that was what was needed if the public sector was going to be in charge of launch services. In short: The commies were good at communism because they had no private sector to tax, so they had to make communism work. The us public sector is the worst of both worlds because it has a private sector to tax and so doesn't have to execute it corrupt bureaucrats to stay alive. On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 5:23 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > James Bowery <[email protected]> wrote: > > To what do you attribute Italy's relatively-functional immune system? > > > A laid-back attitude. I mean it. They don't take themselves as seriously > as we do. They know their institutions are far from perfect. > > The U.S. is burdened by too much self-respect. We take ourselves too > seriously. We have too much high regard for out place in the world and our > institutions. (Other than the Congress.) All this blather about being the > best place on earth leads us to act like the world's policeman, and to > imagine that our universities and scientists are the best of the best. When > experts at the DoE or the major journals say that cold fusion does not > exist, ordinary people give their opinions far too much credibility. Too > much respect. > > Japanese people tend to be even worse in that regard. They have waa-a-a-y > too much respect for experts. > > The fact is, many scientists are incompetent screw-ups. It is the human > condition. Farmers, programmers, stock brokers, bank presidents, army > generals . . . people everywhere make mistakes. Half the population is > below average, as an army general was once horrified to discover. I think > the Italians are more aware of that. It helps that they lost several wars > in a row. It helps to be a smaller country, less full of yourself. See the > novel "Catch 22" for details. > > - Jed > >
