How We Institutionalized Incompetence
Have I noticed all these things? You can cherrypick examples to fit whatever narrative you want.<p>Our space program is finally running at a more reasonable cost thanks to some private competition. What services are costing more now outside of healthcare? Most things are getting commoditized/cheaper. What enormous investments in infrastructure education etc? The problem right now is a lack of investment into fixing bridges- not that the money we're pouring in is wasted. And - the new laguardia terminal seems pretty great. Isn't that an example of an infra success? Are all the highly paid academics clueless and delusional? In the past few years we got CRISPR, an explosion in AI, the Higgs boson, gravitational waves, etc etc etc. All from academics. If every decision is made to maximize self interest - what about the near eradication of polio and Guinea worm disease by the gates and Carter foundations?<p>Personally, I'm not that compelled by the "everything sucks because you know it just <i>feels</i> that way" arguments. You can make someone feel whatever way you want by picking your examples properly. Isnt America doing so great now? Spacex and CRISPR and a booming tech sector so on? And this is pretty clearly just meant to get you into the mood the author things will make you most likely to buy his book at the end.