An oddball thought crossed my mind (as they so often do), but I decided to toss this one out here, because it's at least tangentially related:
I read an article saying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is targeted for major budget cuts. And I thought...
How do you think the government would react if somebody with deep pockets and a generally NOT social-conservative mindset offered to privatize such an agency, running it for his/her profit but letting the scientists pursue research the GOP doesn't like? How would they respond once they realized that Americans who wanted real scientific data would turn to his/her firm and ignore anything the government said on related topics? And I'm not just talking climate. Suppose somebody of the Elon Musk ilk made it clear he intended to put NASA completely out of the space business — and hire away all its best people while he was at it?
Of course, I don't believe there's anybody with enough money and the right attitude for this. But I like the idea of Republicans' horror as socially-liberal capitalists make the U.S. government irrelevant.... (You know, if you can fund a space program, you can fund a well-equipped private army/navy/air force "industrial security division," too. Oh, a few more weasel words would need to be applied, but that's what lawyers are for.)
N.B.: This concept resembles certain aspects of some short stories Jerry Pournelle wrote in the 1970s. "High Justice," in particular.
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.
I read an article saying the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is targeted for major budget cuts. And I thought...
How do you think the government would react if somebody with deep pockets and a generally NOT social-conservative mindset offered to privatize such an agency, running it for his/her profit but letting the scientists pursue research the GOP doesn't like? How would they respond once they realized that Americans who wanted real scientific data would turn to his/her firm and ignore anything the government said on related topics? And I'm not just talking climate. Suppose somebody of the Elon Musk ilk made it clear he intended to put NASA completely out of the space business — and hire away all its best people while he was at it?
Of course, I don't believe there's anybody with enough money and the right attitude for this. But I like the idea of Republicans' horror as socially-liberal capitalists make the U.S. government irrelevant.... (You know, if you can fund a space program, you can fund a well-equipped private army/navy/air force "industrial security division," too. Oh, a few more weasel words would need to be applied, but that's what lawyers are for.)
N.B.: This concept resembles certain aspects of some short stories Jerry Pournelle wrote in the 1970s. "High Justice," in particular.
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Big Brother is watching you. And damn, you are so bloody BORING.