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| Thread: NASA? Miltary? |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 · NEXT» |
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 16, 2007 03:00 AM |
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Poll Question:
NASA? Miltary?
Do you approve of nasa's doings. do you beleive it is more important to look for intellegant life or search for life on mars or a moon near neptune. NASA will spent approximately 17 BILLION us dollars on what ever NASA does. How much is 17 BILLION us dollars?
5.8 billion can provide 43 million children in developing countries a year of schooling.
second topic.
this graph is quite disturbing
look at all the money we spend on a war when millions are tens of thousands are dieing worldwide from disease and save potential millions in the future as well as enriching our lives.
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bottom line: is it nessesary to explore that asteroid that passes the earth every 4 years to find out the origin of earth?
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Binabik
Responsible
Legendary Hero
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posted November 16, 2007 04:54 AM |
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Edited by Binabik at 04:55, 16 Nov 2007.
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There's a "well duh" side of this. On first glance we tend to look at things from an emotional perspective. The image of starving children eats at our emotions and it's natural to want to help them. This side of the coin is quite obvious so I won't go into it.
So what is the potential negative effect of spending the money to feed or school children in developing areas? The effect is to increase the population in an area that is most likely already overpopulated. The earth can naturally sustain only a limited number of people. Any time the population increases beyond that number, the population is wholly dependent on more and more advanced technologies to sustain them.
I did a study on this back when the world population was 4 billion people. Now it's 6 billion within less than half a lifespan of one person. It was well known back then that world population was a very major concern. If I remember correctly, it was estimated that only 1/6 of the population could survive without the intervention of scientific methods for farming, water management and purification, housing, etc. I don't know what that ratio is now, but my guess is that it hasn't gotten better, and very likely has gotten worse.
The bottom line is that when mankind is dependent on technologies to survive, and we have a rapidly increasing population, the rate at which those technologies increase had darn well better be faster than the rate the population increases. If that can't be done we are very quickly heading toward world starvation.
This isn't just about feeding children. The same logic applies to modern medicine. With advances in medicine we are heading in the direction that someday (probably soon), medicine will be capable of keeping a person alive virtually forever. It has exactly the same net effect on population, but with different ethical issues (Like is the only way for a person to die by suicide or the family deciding to "pull the plug"?).
In either case it's a matter of using technology and knowledge to keep people from dieing. At the same time births continue to increase.
There is a struggle between mankind and the earth's ability to sustain us. Man is in the process of raping mother earth. We are cutting her trees, draining her fresh water supplies, clearing her land for housing and farming, polluting the air and water which she provides, blowing up mountains to get at whatever lies below, fishing the oceans to the point of extinction, and a host of other sins against our provider.
To me it's an abhorrent thought to allow children to die. But we have to ask the hard questions. By our actions, are we saving starving children, or are we creating more of them?
Funding of NASA and feeding children are really two separate issues. It's not really a tradeoff of one vs the other. We can fund both, but the question is, should we?
The way I see it there's only one decision I can make and still retain my humanity. I'm not emotionally capable of deciding one person should die, so that someone else may live.
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TitaniumAlloy
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posted November 16, 2007 12:35 PM |
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What about money spent on, say, S&M sex toys. Or trading card games. Or scented toilet paper. Or junk food. Or any other pointless symbol of today's modern consumerist society.
Think about every single pointless industry in this world and add up their combined wealth, and suddenly government spending on the further research of science doesn't seem so bad.
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John says to live above hell.
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Consis
Honorable
Legendary Hero
Of Ruby
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posted November 16, 2007 05:54 PM |
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Hmm . . .
I believe this to be the very reason why JFK was assassinated. While the soviets were competing with us in a nuclear arms race and placing those nuclear arms as close as Cuba, JFK couldn't keep his mind off the space program. This is the reason why it is more likely and suitable for space exploration to be proliferated by private companies rather than government. Every president since JFK wants to live thus they do not space out and ignore global competitors. One of the greatest compliments a person give me is to say that I am human. It is also one of the worst insults. While some of humanity's dreamers look to the stars for answers and exploration, still others of humanity plot for world domination. Too much dreaming and you might find your world a different place when you wake up.
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Roses Are Red And So Am I
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 16, 2007 07:08 PM |
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Yeah but when you think about it we
spend enought money on the history of earth
and space exploration. Its not like
Finnish or Afghans are a different species.
we are all the same,
we are all human and we still to this day
are hypocrites who would rather find ways
to make money off of space "vacations" than
to help fellow man get up and march right
aside us. we are a unique race and fate
has smiled upon us to evolve that way.
the way things are going we are nearly
as alien as men from alpha centauri. this
unique pride we should hold as being dominant
species and caretakers of earth doesn't
take root because of greed for money,
knowledge, power, love, etc.
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Protection From Everything.
dota
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russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted November 16, 2007 07:18 PM |
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Hi, mamgaeater
If everyone was like you, we'd never get out of the stone age. Wait... would we even get to the stone age? 
I am really happy to know that there are people out there who dedicate their life to exploring something new, whether it is new technologies, new concepts, new continent, or the universe!
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 16, 2007 08:07 PM |
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New technologies ehh... New technologies are simply a fancied up way of saying "We are lazy". We built cars so we wouldn't have to take a long time. Progress is powered by distress. We made artificial light so we could do things later in the day. Has it occured to you russ that you may have new technologies in the field of science? Has it occured to you that by making new inventions we attempt to satisfy our instaiable greed and laziness.
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Protection From Everything.
dota
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Geny
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What if Elvin was female?
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posted November 16, 2007 08:20 PM |
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You kinda contradict yourself here, mamga.
First, you say that the nature has given us the wonderful gift of evolution, but then you say that our inventions may not be that needed because they are powered by our greed and laziness. After all, even the "invention" of fire was motivated by greed and laziness - greed for for more eatable food and laziness of fighting of predators at nights. Heck, even the use of a club is motivated by our laziness of fighting with our bare hands.
So, if all these are not necessarily needed, then what's the point of the gift of evolution?
Or did I understand something wrong?
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DON'T BE A NOOB, JOIN A.D.V.E.N.T.U.R.E.
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Homer171
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted November 16, 2007 09:32 PM |
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Quote:
Its not like Finnish or Afghans are a different species.
We Finnish are definitely different species than you Mamga 
You can't really plain Nasa for this.. What have you done for this cause? I send every month few euros for Unicef and i suggest for others to do the same rather than complaining "WHY? NASA, WHY?!"
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Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
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Dingo
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Legendary Hero
God of Dark SPAM
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posted November 16, 2007 10:01 PM |
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What does this have to do with funding for the military and/or NASA? Give the money to the military, NASA is waste.
If you want to help eliminate poverty in the world, good luck with that when nearly everything is based capitalism.
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The Above Post/Thread/Idea Is CopyRighted by, The Dingo Corp.
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Binabik
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posted November 16, 2007 10:12 PM |
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Quote:
Give the money to the military, NASA is waste
They are closely intertwined, especially NASA and the Air Force. Much of the NASA research takes place within the Air Force and much of the technology is shared.
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baklava
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Mostly harmless
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posted November 17, 2007 12:16 AM |
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Quote:
If you want to help eliminate poverty in the world, good luck with that when nearly everything is based capitalism.
I agree, but...
What alternative do you propose? Communism? Fascism? Theocracy?
All systems are screwed up. It's just that some are screwed up more than the others. :\
At topic, what goes on my nerves the most is how whenever overpopulation of the planet starts becoming a problem, those on top take it out on poor (and preferably black) people. "Let them just exterminate each other and starve. And pass them a gun or two in the meantime so that we speed it up and make a profit". How sick is that.
I'd like to see those guys killing their own sons to make room for the population.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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mamgaeater
Legendary Hero
Shroud, Flying, Trample, Haste
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posted November 17, 2007 12:56 AM |
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Quote:
Quote:
If you want to help eliminate poverty in the world, good luck with that when nearly everything is based capitalism.
I agree, but...
What alternative do you propose? Communism? Fascism? Theocracy?
All systems are screwed up. It's just that some are screwed up more than the others. :\
At topic, what goes on my nerves the most is how whenever overpopulation of the planet starts becoming a problem, those on top take it out on poor (and preferably black) people. "Let them just exterminate each other and starve. And pass them a gun or two in the meantime so that we speed it up and make a profit". How sick is that.
I'd like to see those guys killing their own sons to make room for the population.
a positive unholy dictatorship
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TitaniumAlloy
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Professional
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posted November 17, 2007 01:23 AM |
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Quote:
What does this have to do with funding for the military and/or NASA? Give the money to the military, NASA is waste.
Give the money to the military?
The US military expenditure is close to 650 billion per year in 2007/2008.
USA is responsible for 48 per cent of the world total military spending and is the principal determinant of the current world trend.
This is more than Japan, Russia, China and the UK combined in 2005, and has risen since then. It is also higher than the rest of the world (after the aforementioned) combined.
The allocation of the US taxes was 41% military in 2006, 12% on responses to poverty and only 3% on science, energy and the environment combined.
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John says to live above hell.
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frostwolf
Famous Hero
livin' in a bottle of vodka
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posted November 17, 2007 01:48 AM |
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No, I think we should give the money to starving children. Let the earth's population rise by a few billion more. I mean, why would we spend money on such trivial stuff as space exploration, science and so on, when we can just feed some ethiopians instead. That way we can at least make sure we have even more people living just for the sake of living.
*Note: I have nothing against ethiopians.
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What can you expect from a world where everybody lives because they're too afraid to commit suicide?
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TitaniumAlloy
Honorable
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posted November 17, 2007 02:14 AM |
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I don't disagree with helping fight poverty, but I think science is the wrong thing to take the funding from.
There's nothing wrong with the population rising so long as we are able to sustain it.
Giving food to starving children won't increase the population by a few billion, it will just help them to live longer, and since we have such an obese society of waste and excess, this is a trivial question.
But the real problem is bridging the gap between the rich and the poor, but as Dingo said, so long as capitalism lives the world's wealth will continue to be owned by a handful of people while the rest starve, unless an extreme attitude shift occurs.
Like Steven Merchant (The Office, The Extras) said in comic relief: "They could probably solve all of Africa's problems with just the money they make from doing adverts!" 
But if the LECD countries can develop their economies at a sustainable rate then this isn't out of the question. I don't see who can say that, all things being equal, one person has more right to live than another, and for that reason I think that it is us better off people who need to give more.
I was thinking the other day, a sort of "thought experiment". Say you're eating a roast chicken, or ribs, or any sort of meat with bones in it (I'm sure all of us have at some stage), and you have a starving african orphan sitting next to you. You're eating your roast chicken as normal, eating most of the meat off the bones, until you're full, then throw the eaten bones to the child.
Naturally, this child would pounce on the bones and eat any last scrap of meat you may have left on them.
Doesn't this seem wrong? Of course it does. Presumably you would share or something more in this situation.
But the situation is far worse than this in fact, every day, because you don't even give the scraps. You throw them out.
Of course it seems ridiculous when people say "Eat up, there's people starving in the world!", as if not eating the rest of your meal will somehow make those people less hungry, and I'm not saying you should mail your chicken bones to Africa, by any means.
But it does put it into perspective of how easy it would be for these people to get food, how trivial the idea truly is, and not giving even just a little bit should be out of the question.
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baklava
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Mostly harmless
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posted November 17, 2007 09:58 AM |
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@Frostwolf
I believe you cared when your people died of hunger and got a reputation for poverty under the Soviet regime. Am I wrong?
Then understand other peoples with same (and worse) problems.
____________
"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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frostwolf
Famous Hero
livin' in a bottle of vodka
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posted November 17, 2007 12:59 PM |
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Quote:
@Frostwolf
I believe you cared when your people died of hunger and got a reputation for poverty under the Soviet regime. Am I wrong?
Then understand other peoples with same (and worse) problems.
Yes, people in my country did die from a lot of things during the communist era. Little food and no heating in houses even during the winter was a cause. It was unfortunate that things turned out that way. But it was how it was, and we could not change it. History made us fall under soviet Moscow's control and he result was horrible, but then again, it was just the way it happened. I'm not saying people deserve to die of hunger or poverty. I'm just saying that people will always die, and that's not always a bad thing. We know that the planet is over populated. We know it's a bad thing. Not helping it overpopulate is not a bad thing. I can't judge who lives and who dies. 30 years ago it was us under the soviets. Now it's the countries of Africa. People will always die. Trying to stop this is not always the best thing to do. And did you ever consider that it might be a solution if people that cannot sustain children would not breed like rabbits? There are still households in my country that have no running water or heat, on the outskirts of town. That doesn't mean that they stop having 6-8 children. None of which they can dress, send to school or feed.
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What can you expect from a world where everybody lives because they're too afraid to commit suicide?
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Mytical
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
Chaos seeking Harmony
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posted November 17, 2007 01:06 PM |
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We have something similar here. Only they have children just to keep/get on/increase welfare checks. It's really sad to see some of these kids too. Large families are not a problem, heck I come from a large family, but when you can't take care of them then it's an issue. I've seen kids running around filthy, covered in there own feces, unclothed. It's just heartbreaking. That is one reason I volunteer at a place in town. It hands out donated clothing, food, and offers a warm meal to anybody who wants. Since I can hardly make ends meet myself, at least I can do something to help. Nobody at all is ever turned away.
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Message received.
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Shai-Hulud
Known Hero
Sicomor
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posted November 17, 2007 01:23 PM |
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There is a reason persons like magmaeater exist. I believe they are called idealists. Their sole purpose is to bring papers of the caring and goodness that exists in humans, so that they do not go TOO MUCH off the course in their visions of science. Idealism is there to help science.
Their is a rule in nature of things : too much of everything is bad. So it is with science and idealism.
The problem resides when either of the factions goes extreme. Idealists trying to help the world trough brute fear, scientists wanting to push science from the back too much.
So my advice... People like Russ and others. Don't be so critique of people like magmaeater. They exist and they have their purpose on this path called Human Advancement.
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~~~Azzy~~~
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