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But we don't want to know the running costs; if we did, we'd loose opportunities to cultivate mutually agreeable agreements with private industry leaders and businesses (read: opportunity for grift, backscratching, and socialised losses&costs/privatised profits).

And we'd be forced to work in a competitive work assignment structure; studies (that's been cherry-picked from the get-go) shows civil service works better without such, instead focusing on trimming and specialising core competencies vis-a-vis inclusivity and equityamong clients. (Don't need to translate that, you've been to the DMV, yes?)

Also, from the political angle, your suggestion would mean heightened demand for lowering of taxes, and such populist radicalism is a threat to democracy: since politicians are the guardians and paladins of democracy, anything which diminishes or shrinks their freedom and ability to act is an attack on democracy itself.

(They really do think that way, no sarcasm intended.)

We have the same perverse incentive-structure here, ever since the 1980s/1990s, when neoliberalism and its inbred family of moronic theories got implemented.

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LOL you nailed it so hard it makes me suspicious that you've worked in government! *suddenly suspicious*

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Well, pol sci was one of my subjects and in studying for that, organisatonal theory and practice was one of the subjects and topics. Even did a little essay on why Singapore was such an outstandingly well-functioning nation next to its cultural and geographical neighbours.

Today, I wouldn't even have been allowed to present the conclusion, that combining the chinese cultual traits of a well-ordered bureaucracy with the british traits of efficiency and "making the pie bigger for everyone" to use a short-hand phrase, was key - that without the european colonial influence Singapore would have been justas mired in corruption, ehtnic-religious conflict and so on; also, scarcity of resources breed creativity and breeds out wasteful traits. Cultures from areas with (historically) few problems due to natural resources, climate and soon are farless creative - those from areas with the right combination of features had to select for creativity and ingenuity paired with selective altruism and co-operation as ideals.

/sus

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I'm not saying you're stupid or something. I just disagree. ;)

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If we all just agree all the time, none of us can learn or get smarter. Disagreeing is the whetstone of the mind, yes?

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I get extremely suspicious if somebody agrees with me 100% of the time.

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I agree...😉

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You're WRONG!

ha ha just kiddin

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I have no problem with disagreement. ;) Obviously. That doesn't mean I don't LIKE you. But is it about liking each other, or is it about learning how to share our thoughts? I don't often engage in long detailed explanations of what I think unless I feel that doing so will be productive somehow. So often people simply shut the other person down by making some disparaging remark that is personal and not really even related to the topic at hand. Me, I generally enjoy a debate, unless it turns into trading insults.

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Yeah, I onboard with that. When I was a greenhorn in academia, polite disagreement in matters of any factual topic was the ideal.

Then along came gender studies and the rest of the PC-cults.

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