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Comment by dr_dshiv | Hacker News Reader

The assumption is that there is a way to do JWST at far less money at far greater scale. Apply same logic to everything. It won’t always hold. Those places become mistakes to be fixed.

Elon and Trump might be evil. But I don’t really believe in evil. And I keep underestimating both of them. It’s no longer a matter of choice; but if there is a positive possibility, I like to imagine it and make it a plausible pathway. Tons of bad things can happen; is there a path where the current direction could be very very good?

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As someone who’s worked on NASA projects, I can assure you they could cut 20% and things would probably run more smoothly, since less people would be standing around bored looking for things to do

No.

Just with regards to space-tech: clearly there will be huge advances in the next few years.

Government will become vastly more efficient.

And for a left field example: I suspect that the next few years will see a rapid advancement in the science of solar radiation management, aka geoengineering. This was never going to happen with status quo leadership. But the fact is that we will not stop using fossil fuels in the next couple decades. So we clearly need to minimize the known risk of climate change, (even for the unknown risks of geoengineering). It costs about $10b to put enough calcium carbonate or sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to achieve heat balance and stop runaway climate change effects. Can’t have Florida flood, right?

Beyond that, there is a genuine likelihood that there will be a better economy and less war.

I’m not claiming this is the most likely outcome. But there is a reasonable chance that the next few years will work out really, really well.

If you think there is a chance we're going to start deploying stratospheric aerosol injection, might as well get good at it, if you want to help scale up deployments: https://makesunsets.com/products/join-the-next-balloon-launc...

> Government will become vastly more efficient.

This prediction is necessarily predicated on a reduction in budget with an expectation of similar performance, but the administration that is pursuing the budget cuts is also diligently working to remove accountability from the executive branch. I do not predict a more efficient government, but a less effective one.

As I said in another thread here, to solution to waste is not slashing budgets but better accountability. Without the latter there is no guarantee that any other attempted measures will have the expected results.

What country are you referring to? Most of the HN audience is in the USA.

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