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Well, they need to be mutually exclusive when you can't even provide the minimum necessary for your citizens to live by. I can understand a poor - but not tota

Well, they need to be mutually exclusive when you can't even provide the minimum necessary for your citizens to live by. I can understand a poor - but not totally destitute - country to invest in advanced technology, but no, I can't understand why in a country where thousands every year die or are severely affected by hunger, is investing in space technology instead of helping the immediate needs of its citizens. It would be like a family in a household were you are about to die of hunger or of some disease by lack of treatment, made their priority to pay your university tuition fees instead.

arjie 10y ago
If you focus all the tooling and construction around your space program locally, it doesn't seem any different than the Public Works Administration in the New Deal. I don't know anything about Ethiopia, but if it's just a roundabout way to make work, then it may be more effective at stopping hunger than giving out food.
- int_19h 10y ago
  It's different in a sense that public works don't just create jobs, they also create public infrastructure that is then usable by, and materially beneficial to, everyone. A space program would obviously create jobs, but 1) does it create as many jobs as infrastructure work, per unit of currency spent, and 2) does the output that it produces materially benefit the public? Basically, it's not a question whether they should spend money on space program, or on handing out free food. It's a question of whether a space program is really the best bang for the buck in terms of creating jobs and other benefits. And you could argue that it might be, because the space program will produce important long-term benefits. But short-term benefits will produce "interest", so to speak (if you can get more people out of poverty today, you'll get more people who can become scientists tomorrow - and it might not even be the same people, but their kids). So such an argument cannot be a mere hand-wave - it must present the numbers.
FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
> It would be like a family in a household were you are about to die of hunger or of some disease by lack of treatment, made their priority to pay your university tuition fees instead. Perhaps you aren't aware, but this very scenario and others similar to it happen throughout the animal kingdom and in human species. In the wild, mothers often abandon their sickly or less fit children to focus all their energy on ensuring the survival of their most fit offspring. It is also possibly a reason why poorer people, especially farmers, tend to have more children than urbanites as a sort of morbid insurance. The more children you have, the greater the chance one has at surviving. Parents do often put more resources into the child that shows the most promise. It's a valid survival strategy. I'm just stating that what you think is crazy is actually pretty rational and is practiced. That said, if you don't have programs like these, then the best and brightest are simply going to leave and you'll experience brain drain, making it that much harder to endemic problems. There is more than enough food to feed the world, these destitute situations arise mostly because of corruption or government incompetence. 6 yr old me had no interest in solving corruption and/or economic development and I imagine I'm not alone.
- jbmorgado 10y ago
  Exactly how do you argue that aren't the ones dying of hunger/disease by lack of treatment that are the brightest and most suitable for the needed positions of high intellectual achievement needed to run a space program? In the "animal kingdom" both things are part of physical abilities, in here one of physical the other is intellectual. In any case, one would think than in the XXI century we would be more advanced than expecting a nation to prune the disabled/destitute part of their population by letting them die of hunger/disease while they launch rockets into space.
  - FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
    > Exactly how do you argue that aren't the ones dying of hunger/disease by lack of treatment that are the brightest and most suitable for the needed positions of high intellectual achievement needed to run a space program? I was in no way advocating for a culling. I was just pointing out how that wasn't the best analogy as it seemed you were trying to compare it to something ridiculous when in fact it is a common phenomenon, sadly. > In any case, one would think than in the XXI century we would be more advanced than expecting a nation to prune the disabled/destitute part of their population by letting them die of hunger/disease while they launch rockets into space. But we aren't. It's sad to say, but a cursory look at history finds that a significant amount of progress and technological development was fueled by human misery and suffering. American society still allows for perverse incentives like the opportunity to profit off of health care and incarceration when the moral hazard is so glaringly obvious. Welcome to profound disappointment. I believed in the promise of the Internet to create a more informed, compassionate, open, and enlightened society. Look how that turned out. What I've realized is that people haven't changed. We're still the same species we were 70,000 years ago. Our collective knowledge and institutions have evolved, but we haven't.

arjie 10y ago

If you focus all the tooling and construction around your space program locally, it doesn't seem any different than the Public Works Administration in the New Deal. I don't know anything about Ethiopia, but if it's just a roundabout way to make work, then it may be more effective at stopping hunger than giving out food.

int_19h 10y ago
It's different in a sense that public works don't just create jobs, they also create public infrastructure that is then usable by, and materially beneficial to, everyone. A space program would obviously create jobs, but 1) does it create as many jobs as infrastructure work, per unit of currency spent, and 2) does the output that it produces materially benefit the public? Basically, it's not a question whether they should spend money on space program, or on handing out free food. It's a question of whether a space program is really the best bang for the buck in terms of creating jobs and other benefits. And you could argue that it might be, because the space program will produce important long-term benefits. But short-term benefits will produce "interest", so to speak (if you can get more people out of poverty today, you'll get more people who can become scientists tomorrow - and it might not even be the same people, but their kids). So such an argument cannot be a mere hand-wave - it must present the numbers.

FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago

> It would be like a family in a household were you are about to die of hunger or of some disease by lack of treatment, made their priority to pay your university tuition fees instead. Perhaps you aren't aware, but this very scenario and others similar to it happen throughout the animal kingdom and in human species. In the wild, mothers often abandon their sickly or less fit children to focus all their energy on ensuring the survival of their most fit offspring. It is also possibly a reason why poorer people, especially farmers, tend to have more children than urbanites as a sort of morbid insurance. The more children you have, the greater the chance one has at surviving. Parents do often put more resources into the child that shows the most promise. It's a valid survival strategy. I'm just stating that what you think is crazy is actually pretty rational and is practiced. That said, if you don't have programs like these, then the best and brightest are simply going to leave and you'll experience brain drain, making it that much harder to endemic problems. There is more than enough food to feed the world, these destitute situations arise mostly because of corruption or government incompetence. 6 yr old me had no interest in solving corruption and/or economic development and I imagine I'm not alone.

jbmorgado 10y ago
Exactly how do you argue that aren't the ones dying of hunger/disease by lack of treatment that are the brightest and most suitable for the needed positions of high intellectual achievement needed to run a space program? In the "animal kingdom" both things are part of physical abilities, in here one of physical the other is intellectual. In any case, one would think than in the XXI century we would be more advanced than expecting a nation to prune the disabled/destitute part of their population by letting them die of hunger/disease while they launch rockets into space.
- FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  > Exactly how do you argue that aren't the ones dying of hunger/disease by lack of treatment that are the brightest and most suitable for the needed positions of high intellectual achievement needed to run a space program? I was in no way advocating for a culling. I was just pointing out how that wasn't the best analogy as it seemed you were trying to compare it to something ridiculous when in fact it is a common phenomenon, sadly. > In any case, one would think than in the XXI century we would be more advanced than expecting a nation to prune the disabled/destitute part of their population by letting them die of hunger/disease while they launch rockets into space. But we aren't. It's sad to say, but a cursory look at history finds that a significant amount of progress and technological development was fueled by human misery and suffering. American society still allows for perverse incentives like the opportunity to profit off of health care and incarceration when the moral hazard is so glaringly obvious. Welcome to profound disappointment. I believed in the promise of the Internet to create a more informed, compassionate, open, and enlightened society. Look how that turned out. What I've realized is that people haven't changed. We're still the same species we were 70,000 years ago. Our collective knowledge and institutions have evolved, but we haven't.