[softwaredoug]

The problem of important projects surviving political change is a tough one.

A lot of these important projects have a single point of failure - who is the president every four years. I wonder how we build institutions and resources resilient to that?

I realize privatization is an ugly word, but could some of this stuff be provided by the private sector?

Can we make it possible to fund initiatives in a multinational manner where countries contribute to these efforts, but if one country blinks out, then you still have it go along?

[Shivatron]

> A lot of these important projects have a single point of failure - who is the president every four years. I wonder how we build institutions and resources resilient to that?

We already did. The legislative branch allocates funds for stuff that the people deem worthy. That budget becomes law. The Constitution says the "President shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." There's even a specific law that prevents the President from withholding Congressionally-approved funds.

What you are seeing here is not a lack of designed resilience, it's the wilful removal of that system.

[cwillu]

If a president can ignore the laws requiring those projects to exist, the president can ignore the laws protecting private companies from being nationalized and shut down.

[e3bc54b2]

> who is the president every four years...could some of this stuff be provided by the private sector?

A president cares about election every four years. Private sector cares about it every quarter. I doubt privatization is improvement if you want to focus on long term.

[gkanai]

> could some of this stuff be provided by the private sector?

Yes, but the key man problem still exists. For instance, SpaceX could build/operate a network of weather satellites for various nations but the instability of the founder leads to similar issues.

[ars]

This project was actually shut down in 2015.