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CASSINI’S GRAND FINALE https://vimeo.com/210782375 https://vimeo.com/210782375 "Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take a
by rhodrid 9y ago
CASSINI’S GRAND FINALE
https://vimeo.com/210782375 https://vimeo.com/210782375
"Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defense each year, and instead spend it feeding, clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."
- oh_sigh 9y agoWhat happens if you spend all your self-defense money on 'feeding, clothing, and educating the poor', and then a despotic nation which was spending 25% of it's GDP on military rolls over you?
- riffraff 9y agoI'm pretty sure the "we" in the sentence is "humanity" not "my country". It is obviously a utopian message.
- oh_sigh 9y agoOkay....so humanity stops building weapons, and then a small group of people decide to build some weapons in secret, and can easily enslave humanity. That doesn't sound like a great system.
- rhodrid 9y agoThe Cassini mission reminded me of the line "we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace." and I thought I'd post the whole verse as it is as poignant today as it as ever has been. What we can accomplish together in peace is breathtaking.
- ak39 9y agoThe poor, uneducated and subjugated people of this "despotic nation" are the first folks we ought to feed, educate and look after. Despots are created and thrive on the backs of hungry and hopeless citizens.
- matwood 9y agoI agree with you, but do you think if we send a bunch of food to one of these despotic nations the people there would actually get fed? If you really want to feed and educate the world, you also have to police the world. I'm not saying the US currently does either (feeds or polices the world), but just pointing out that spending the military budget on food will not change much.
- oh_sigh 9y agoOkay, so we feed and educate some other nations people, so that nation can now afford to put 45% of it's GDP into weapons and military. I don't think that will accomplish what we want it to accomplish.
- colordrops 9y agoThe quote is about an ideal utopic society, and it would be humans as a whole, including that despotic nation, spending all the self-defense money.
- MrZongle2 9y agoI think you're supposed to hand them a Pepsi.
- Radim 9y agoHmm, why does this remind me of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"? The dangerously seductive, utopian naivety of such statements rubs me the wrong way. I wish all the kumbaya nature's-way-is-stupid-here's-my-brilliant-social-engineering-idea-instead people would collectively go and... try their social experiments elsewhere.
- throw_away 9y agoIt's a Bill Hicks quote: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/494647-the-world-is-like-a-ride-in-an-amusement-park http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/494647-the-world-is-like-a-r...
- TheOtherHobbes 9y agoThey've been tried elsewhere, and they usually work out pretty well. Countries that try them may not be utopias, but they do have consistently high citizen satisfaction scores. Perhaps a little more realism and a little less moralising would be helpful. To add: these science programs are good examples of collective action. Can anyone seriously imagine Facebook or Google paying for a project like Cassini?
- shrimp_emoji 9y ago>They've been tried elsewhere, and they usually work out pretty well. To which one are you referring, China or North Korea?
- mason240 9y agoOr maybe he's talking about the USSR, Cuba, or Venezuela. All bastions of progress and high standards of living.
- ue_ 9y agoI am a Communist, and I will say that a slogan is neither something to build your country upon, nor something to criticise a country on. No country has thus far managed to progress past capitalism, certainly not the ones you litsted nor the ones GP listed. Marx was referring to how life ought to be under Socialism, rather than an implementation of this principle under a capitalist system, which he believed was impossible.
- gambiting 9y agoThe problem seems to be that giving money does not solve problems all the time, and will not make everyone friendly towards you. US and EU have given billions if not trillions to Turkey, and it's still descending into dictatorship. It's regressing from a progressive society into a conservative one, probably more interested in religious laws than exploring space.
- tzakrajs 9y agoConsidering they are ready to invade Syria and/or Kurdistan at the drop of a hat, I can see why their priorities are a bit askew.