Can you expand on your opinion regarding NASA's problems stemming from "failure is not an option?" Based on Gene Kranz's Wikipedia page, specifically the "Failure is not an option" section ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Kranz#.22Failure_is_not_an... ), this is a complicated and controversial topic.
> I have some predictions: Gox will not be bailed out.
MtGox will not be bailed out because of the relative unimportance of bitcoin to the larger economy, not of any high-minded free market idealism.
Since the MtGox explosion, bitcoin prices (and therefore real purchasing power) are down by about 30%. If bitcoin were a national currency, the government would be doing everything in its power to prevent such a decline, including saving MtGox by any means possible. It would absolutely be too big to fail.
By way of comparison, Greece's economic woes drove its real purchasing power down by about 11%.
I think the writer was comparing Mt. Gox to certain US financial institutions, not Greece.
And this isn't "high-minded free market idealism". It's a practical observation. The state has given unconditional support to large financial institutions; institutions that are owned and managed for private profit. How can that possibly end well?
The problem is that there is a central authority that gets to decide "relative importance". Even granting that, isn't it perverse that this authority, having presumably decided what is and isn't of "relative importance", lacks the foresight to prevent the agents of these relatively important institutions to bring entire economies to the edge of the precipice?
In line with the thinking in "Antifragile" by Taleb - failures of individuals in a population makes the the population as a whole stronger. The forrest fire example is also in the book - artificially "stabilizing" a system only sets it up for a bigger disruption later. Great book, with lots of interesting ideas.
Failure has always been an option in small, unproven, socially unimportant markets. It really shouldn't take 7 paragraphs to compare apples to oranges...
And on a totally unrelated note, pivoting off the title: I think the "failure is not an option" philosophy led to a lot of NASA's problems.