THE "MOON"...Ah, the moon!!!

[GumNaam]

Well, discoveries and inventions usually find their use WAY outside their intended use.

Think about this, Galileo, who worked in a glasses shop, is considered as one of the early known inventor of compound microscope. Now by the same token, what is the use of seeing really small objects like cells. Or very small living creatures like amoeba etc? During the time of Galileo, microbes model of disease was not fully formed. People suspected something living might be causing some diseases but no one knew what it was. These were all conjectures. Heck, this theory was not fully proved till 18XX by Louise Pasture. Compound Microscope or magnification by multiple lens could only have very limited use. For instance in watch making. Studying microbes itself was not as useful.

It was only later when people linked microbes and disease (as in 18XX by Louise Pasture), study of small organisms had a lifesaving impact.

Did Galileo knew or INTENDED that his discovery will have a life saving use? Did those who studied very small microbes knew the impact of their work on microbes? Perhaps a bit, but arguably not as much. Only after Louise Pasture formulated his theory of microbes causing disease, these entire pieces started to snap and fit into complete puzzle and we now have a life saving science called modern medical field.

Science and technology has a lot of chance in it. Its not something you can completely plan out and execute in a top down manner. Thats why each nation should spend a part of their revenue in pursuit of science and technology. Even if you spend that money on more seemingly practical use, it is likely that you won't have as much value in present as you might have in future -- many times simply accidentally.

It ultimately boils down to cost verses the return. Galileo wasn't costing the tax payer billions of dollars only to turned out and say "a few billion more please". But now, we DO have this situation today where hundreds of billions can return utterly useless success that doesn't help the common man in the short term while the fraction of the cost can return tremendous success that WILL help the common man in the short term. Both include scientific & technological innovations so it's not like what I'm advocating will scuttle the scientific mind, it won't. But it will make the lives of people like you & me better and sooner than we think. Sure, space exploration will bear fruit in the long, VERY long term...but in the words of keynesian economists, worry about the short term cuz in the long term, we're all dead!

 

[BringHarmony]

but you have to cross that bridge REGARDLESS of the end goal. It is the end goal that was misguided in the first place...i.e. it was for petty political gains, not humanitarian ones. That is EXACTLY what the government did though, take things in one single direction. Now...nothing wrong with that if the intent was the greater good of mankind instead of enormously STUPID idea that we must somehow show socialism/communism down...face it, that is exactly was the initial reason was...recall Kennedy's speech that america must commit itself to going to the moon & back...WWWWWHY? just show the Soviets down when there are sho many human beings suffering? Basically a "height" contest and a very STUPID one at that!

You need to decouple two things.

1. End use and planned goals: Intention or planned use often diverges from end use.
2. Resources and outcomes: Relationship between resouces and outcomes is NOT linear.

If you were to spend ALL your resources to purely pragmatic goals, you will soon find that you won't move further. Why? Because you were exploiting what is in your boundary. You will never try to push the boundary. Think about it. Which is better use of public money : universal health care or research in quantum computing? I will say that may be 80% for universal health care and 20% for quantum computing. Even if that leads to a situation in which many non-essential treatments were delayed. Like painful back. If we were putting all the money to cover as much as universal health care as we could, we would seldom be able to provide adequate cover and we will never discover new ways to compute which could have changed our lives for good.

 

[KhanBaba2]

Instead of coming with us hunting or farming, this guy sits around making something round he calls the wheel. Useless waste if time. Is the wheel going to put meat in the fire. Or grow our crops.

So went a thread on prehistoric pdf

 

[GumNaam]

Instead of coming with us hunting or farming, this guy sits around making something round he calls the wheel. Useless waste if time. Is the wheel going to put meat in the fire. Or grow our crops.

So went a thread on prehistoric pdf

Wheel is not the problem. HOW you make the wheel isb the problem...would you rather the wheel be made the cheapest & most effective way in the shortest possible amount of time or the most expensive, long & drawn out way.

 

[BringHarmony]

It ultimately boils down to cost verses the return. Galileo wasn't costing the tax payer billions of dollars only to turned out and say "a few billion more please". But now, we DO have this situation today where hundreds of billions can return utterly useless success that doesn't help the common man in the short term while the fraction of the cost can return tremendous success that WILL help the common man in the short term. Both include scientific & technological innovations so it's not like what I'm advocating will scuttle the scientific mind, it won't. But it will make the lives of people like you & me better and sooner than we think. Sure, space exploration will bear fruit in the long, VERY long term...but in the words of keynesian economists, worry about the short term cuz in the long term, we're all dead!

Well, think about it, public expenditure is what? Tax money?
You have two options :

1. One is everyone/those who are interested try to be Galileo. No one pays tax for research -- rather fundamental research.
2. We all pay tax which also contribute to research.

Now pray tell, which one of the above two will be more effective. Some places distributed planning work better, some places centralized planning works better.

Actually you can apply this thinking to other field as well. Will it be better if we all were to pave our own roads. And only that much road which was useful to us in short term. Because in long term, we re all dead. May be we will be all dead before even travelling 100 KM.

 

[GumNaam]

You need to decouple two things.

1. End use and planned goals: Intention or planned use often diverges from end use.
2. Resources and outcomes: Relationship between resouces and outcomes is NOT linear.

If you were to spend ALL your resources to purely pragmatic goals, you will soon find that you won't move further. Why? Because you were exploiting what is in your boundary. You will never try to push the boundary. Think about it. Which is better use of public money : universal health care or research in quantum computing? I will say that may be 80% for universal health care and 20% for quantum computing. Even if that leads to a situation in which many non-essential treatments were delayed. Like painful back. If we were putting all the money to cover as much as universal health care as we could, we would seldom be able to provide adequate cover and we will never discover new ways to compute which could have changed our lives for good.

The end goals IS the problem...with so many outstanding & difficult problems, the powers that be decided that time, resources & money should spent on going to the moon, Mars & then outta the solar system? It's like, your the head of the household, one child is handicapped, the other one is doing bad in school while the wife has suffers from chronic migraine and the father's solution is to go out and take part in a lightest & fastest frisby competition! I mean...WHATHAFFF?

 

[BringHarmony]

Wheel is not the problem. HOW you make the wheel isb the problem...would you rather the wheel be made the cheapest & most effective way in the shortest possible amount of time or the most expensive, long & drawn out way.

If no one ever tried to extract rubber and put it around wheels, you would never have vehicles that could move with less bumps or move fast enough. Someone had to take that chance.

The end goals IS the problem...with so many outstanding & difficult problems, the powers that be decided that time, resources & money should spent on going to the moon, Mars & then outta the solar system? It's like, your the head of the household, one child is handicapped, the other one is doing bad in school while the wife has suffers from chronic migraine and the father's solution is to go out and take part in a lightest & fastest frisby competition! I mean...WHATHAFFF?

Actually it a question of proportion.
You have 1000 dollars. Will you spend ALL 1000s to make sure that your family is fully fed or will you spare 100 to plant seeds in the garden? Those 100 used to plant seed may grow into fruit bearing trees in 10-20 years. Even though you had to sleep few nights with only bread and salt as dinner.

Surely if you had spent ALL 1000s to plant trees, it would have been stupid. Or even 500.
But 100 out of 1000 is justifiable for a better future.

 

[GumNaam]

Well, think about it, public expenditure is what? Tax money?
You have two options :

1. One is everyone/those who are interested try to be Galileo. No one pays tax for research -- rather fundamental research.
2. We all pay tax which also contribute to research.

Now pray tell, which one of the above two will be more effective. Some places distributed planning work better, some places centralized planning works better.

Actually you can apply this thinking to other field as well. Will it be better if we all were to pave our own roads. And only that much road which was useful to us in short term. Because in long term, we re all dead. May be we will be all dead before even travelling 100 KM.

What? Incorrect sir...we pay for the loans with interests that were taken out to finance those researches. But none the less before deciding on which of the two options to follow, I dunno about you but if I have a society full of pollution, famine, drought & diseases I would CERTAINLY ask WHY isn't a brilliant mind line Galileo being applied to fixing these immediate problems that threaten us instead of wasting the ta resources on having him invent shiny looking telescope. Good invention? Yes...was it so urgent the billions of tax dollars were spent on it? Oh heck no!

 

[BringHarmony]

What? Incorrect sir...we pay for the loans with interests that were taken out to finance those researches. But none the less before deciding on which of the two options to follow, I dunno about you but if I have a society full of pollution, famine, drought & diseases I would CERTAINLY ask WHY isn't a brilliant mind line Galileo being applied to fixing these immediate problems that threaten us instead of wasting the ta resources on having him invent shiny looking telescope. Good invention? Yes...was it so urgent the billions of tax dollars were spent on it? Oh heck no!

Let me ask you in this way: Is your society the ONLY society with pollution, famine, drought and disease? Or even this : Is your society's extent of these problems MUCH bigger than others? If yes, then I guess its not a research problem but you are not managing MOST of your resources well. Most likely, even if you were to stop sending in research your condition will not improve.
You are trying to fix what is not broken and forgetting what is broken. Look deep inside your society, something fundamentally is broken and that is NOT the research or science or technology. Most likely you government is broken, you have messed up laws or messed up implementations or messed up enforcement or messed up planning.

 

[GumNaam]

If no one ever tried to extract rubber and put it around wheels, you would never have vehicles that could move with less bumps or move fast enough. Someone had to take that chance.
future.

because an immediate need arose to have a smoother ride and some took the chance & reached it. What immediate need arose to go to the friggin moon except to show Russia down?
Actually it a question of proportion.

You have 1000 dollars. Will you spend ALL 1000s to make sure that your family is fully fed or will you spare 100 to plant seeds in the garden? Those 100 used to plant seed may grow into fruit bearing trees in 10-20 years. Even though you had to sleep few nights with only bread and salt as dinner.

Surely if you had spent ALL 1000s to plant trees, it would have been stupid. Or even 500.
But 100 out of 1000 is justifiable for a better
future.

Of course I'll plant a $100 worth of trees and stand $900 on family. But if I only had $100 and big family, bye bye trees!

 

[kris]

all that was achieved in the process of just sending satellites into orbit. I am talking about deep space travel, i.e. moon and beyond. what does it get us? NOTHING that you mentioned was EXCLUSIVELY achieved only by going to the moon, as if it was impossible otherwise. very ludicrous thinking.

Ever heard of space mining dear?
In future people will move in search of other planets for establishing human colonies..

While people like Elon musk are asking to nuke mats for making climate hospitable for humans many people are pessimistic

 

[GumNaam]

Let me ask you in this way: Is your society the ONLY society with pollution, famine, drought and disease? Or even this : Is your society's extent of these problems MUCH bigger than others? If yes, then I guess its not a research problem but you are not managing MOST of your resources well. Most likely, even if you were to stop sending in research your condition will not improve.
You are trying to fix what is not broken and forgetting what is broken. Look deep inside your society, something fundamentally is broken and that is NOT the research or science or technology. Most likely you government is broken, you have messed up laws or messed up implementations or messed up enforcement or messed up planning.

Global warming is increasing, over population with diminishing for resources most of which is artificially created, diseases & wars running rampant, massively disproportionate distribution of wealth and you are saying that it's not broken?

 

[kris]

really? "new frontiers"??? have you seen the butchery that our species has unleashed the existing frontiers? imagine that crap infesting the solar system for God's sakes...and it STILL does not get us anything. It is utterly illogical & ignorant to think (for example) that now that we've all but ruined planet earth, we'll some how go and OXYGENATE planet mars, grow plants their outta our own poop and then populate that planet with humans who will turn around and do the same damn thing to mars that they did to earth. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the easiest solution is TO TAKE CARE OF EARTH ITSELF! sheesh!

Again short sighted....
Few decades from now some of us wills conquering other planets and other solar systems. Who stays back are the losers

 

[BringHarmony]

Global warming is increasing, over population with diminishing for resources most of which is artificially created, diseases & wars running rampant, massively disproportionate distribution of wealth and you are saying that it's not broken?

All these problem will NOT go away even if we were to stop spending in sending people to Moon. Because sending a man to moon is NOT the cause of these problems.

 

[GumNaam]

Ever heard of space mining dear?
In future people will move in search of other planets for establishing human colonies..

While people like Elon musk are asking to nuke mats for making climate hospitable for humans many people are pessimistic

Nuke mars...hmm, okay. We have enough resources on this planet...but okay, nuke mars.

Again short sighted....
Few decades from now some of us wills conquering other planets and other solar systems. Who stays back are the losers

Ok man, good luck with that, and...nuking mars! FACEPALM

All these problem will NOT go away even if we were to stop spending in sending people to Moon. Because sending a man to moon is NOT the cause of these problems.

But why not let the need to fix these problems drive our innovation?