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> How much hubris do you need to think that you alone know how best to allocate not only the scarce resources of this planet but also the lives of every single

by EC1 11y ago

> How much hubris do you need to think that you alone know how best to allocate not only the scarce resources of this planet but also the lives of every single human being on this planet, and to sit in judgment of what work is worthy and what isn't? By looking at their merits? Giving a sandwich to a guy sleeping on the street does infinitely more for them than us reaching Mars. Are video games worthy? Anything consumer for the sake of consumption is arrogance in its purest most refined form. You must have grown up with a Mommy and Daddy that got along well and always provided for you, so you think space exploration is something noble, when in reality its a rich elitists nationalistic jerkoff game, where you engineers are the pawns fueled by childish and selfish ideals. Yes, you might discover something that helps elsewhere, but coincidence is hardly synonymous with intention. Repeat to yourself how silly it is to look for aliens. "I am looking for aliens." Repeat that 1000 times to yourself until you realize how stupid of a goal that actually is.

xenophonf 11y ago
I think that our fundamental point of disagreement has to do with investment. Given a field full of wheat, you want to eat it all. I think you have to reserve some of it, because even when the winter is bad and some people are starving, come springtime you have to be able to plant _something_ or else everybody will starve. This difference manifests in our approaches to social problems. You want to meet someone's immediate need, like adding oil to a car with leaky seals, while I want to address the underlying problem---fixing the broken engine, or even better, replacing the broken engine with something that works a thousand times better. That's OK, because in reality, we need both short-term (just feed the guy!) and long-term (fix the engine!) solutions to the problems that beset our world.

by EC1 11y ago

xenophonf 11y ago

I think that our fundamental point of disagreement has to do with investment. Given a field full of wheat, you want to eat it all. I think you have to reserve some of it, because even when the winter is bad and some people are starving, come springtime you have to be able to plant _something_ or else everybody will starve. This difference manifests in our approaches to social problems. You want to meet someone's immediate need, like adding oil to a car with leaky seals, while I want to address the underlying problem---fixing the broken engine, or even better, replacing the broken engine with something that works a thousand times better. That's OK, because in reality, we need both short-term (just feed the guy!) and long-term (fix the engine!) solutions to the problems that beset our world.