Nasa

[Thorne]

Perhaps I feel the marginal utility of getting internet access is very high, while the marginal utility of money spent on the space program is very low. I might also feel that many charities have better marginal utility than the space program. So its certainly consistent for someone to have internet and not support expensive space programs because they have other priorities for the money.

This is my point exactly. You, and others, feel one way about this, I feel a different way. Neither of us is necessarily right or wrong. The only thing that would be wrong is for one group to force the others to follow their agenda. So if a group wishes to give money to charity, they should be free to do so, and if another group prefers to give money to space exploration, they should be accorded the same freedom.

I think this is awfully close to a personal attack. Someone can't advocate having charities get money over space programs without being told they personally shouldn't buy internet and should instead donate the money to charity? Or being told by implication they don't care about the human race?

It was not meant as a personal attack, and I do apologize if anyone took it as such. It just bothers me when people try to tell me that I'm not doing something right because I want to spend my own money, or use my own resources, as I see fit. If anything, I was berating that kind of personality, without meaning to point any fingers.

A similar vein would be suggesting you think its a good thing to let the starving children in Africa die because you'd rather spend money on the space program than feeding them. I haven't brought this up before because I don't think its constructive, and its not the type of argument I'd normally make. However, you are making the equivalent argument in the opposite direction so now it becomes relevant.

I see your point, I honestly do, I just reject the logic of it. There have been starving children all over the world throughout history, and no amount of charity or breast-beating has done a bit of good in the end. It's just that I believe all of the off-shoots of the space program, such as medical advances, communications advances, etc., have done more to ameliorate the suffering in the world than all the charities in the world combined. Charities, for the most part, only remedy the symptoms of poverty and disease: science fights the causes, or at least the physical causes. The political causes are more endemic and entrenched, and harder still to overcome. But ultimately, throwing money at them is not the answer.

For example, suppose we could develop a sustainable habitat on a planet as hostile as Mars. Don't you think that would have a significant impact on survival at the fringes of the Sahara? And, once the initial habitat has been constructed, the resources to sustain it would come from Mars itself, or from the asteroids. There would not need to be a constant drain of resources, and in all likelihood those initial expenditures would be recovered a hundredfold, or more, once the habitat became established.