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Well, sure, but I was comparing one project - the moon project - with another - the war in Afghanistan. For once, I didn't care one little bit about the morali

by Vivtek 16y ago

Well, sure, but I was comparing one project - the moon project - with another - the war in Afghanistan. For once, I didn't care one little bit about the morality of the project, all I wanted to do is to put the magnitudes of these projects into perspective. I mean, the ratio of this program's cost to the cost of the smaller war is nearly a factor of a hundred. The moon program is an accounting error in terms of the military budget for either war, and I was irked by the Times' mention of "$9 million a day", implying that this is an unGodly amount of money to be flowing down the drain, while not mentioning the far, far, far larger daily sums we toss away on other projects.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I don't care about the morality either. I'm telling you that things that involve national defense trump everything else in the budget. Everything. You picked an awful example. All it does is lead to an argument about the use of force, which has nothing to do with NASA. Pick subsidizing fruit growers, or the rural electrification commission, or studies of prostitutes in Hong Kong -- there are a zillion projects that you can pick which will provide that same WTF moment you want. Hell, just point out the freaking size of the federal budget in general and how it compares with NASA's budget. But the project you picked leads us off into another direction entirely. Another commenter made a great point -- the closer NASA was to being another arm of DoD, the more funding and budget goodies it got. Perhaps if we could find some reason to fear an attack from outer space, NASA would kick into high gear again (and I'm only being slightly facetious) With all the downvoting I'm getting, perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps most folks feel like the use of deadly force is more or less the same as any other expenditure: bomb an insurgent, watch some young kid die in an IED detonation, build a bridge, fund some research, build a space station, buy buses for a school system. I am not one of those people. And while I have strong moral feelings about this, it's not a question of morality. As a practical matter, the use of deadly force by the state should only be done in times of emergency, and in those cases funding for that use of force trumps everything else. Now we can argue whether or not Afghanistan holds up to that criteria, but that's a war discussion. You're dragging in another topic when there are plenty of examples of other funding that don't have the unique qualities of Afghanistan. Hell, entitlement spending alone counts for about 60% of current federal spending. http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/25/news-flash-entitlement-spendin http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/25/news-flash-entitlement-spe...
- Vivtek 16y ago
  I really don't want to get into a back-and-forth here, because clearly we both consider each other idiots, but your belief that national defense trumps everything (and the fact that it's shared by all too many people) is why we're in this situation in the first place. Does national defense trump food? Does national defense trump disaster preparedness or emergency response? Does it trump basic research? (Consider that last answer carefully.) Cost-benefit ratios apply to everything, even including national defense. And it all has to be managed together. The idea that we have to put it all on the line every time some guy in a cave sneezes is the panic mode that let us spend off-budget for years on national defense, and it's the reason why entitlement spending doesn't actually account for 60% of federal dollars. So this is the crux. National defense spending is considered holy, and yet it's an immense drain on our national resources that, if it were examined in any honest way, would be cut so fast your scissor fingers would be blistered. I could say the same for lots of things, but national defense is such a sacred cow you just can't say any other program comes even close in terms of the way it short-circuits discussion at every juncture. You're 100% right in your plan to refund NASA, though. If we could just get Fox News to believe in alien terrorists, we'd be on Mars next week.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    I will draw this to a conclusion because you don't seem to have the wherewithal to recognize when somebody is agreeing with you and trying to help point out the flaws in your argument. This thread is why NASA is not funded. Our discussion is an example of the political discourse at large. You're mad about DoD and war spending. So when NASA comes up, you're loaded and ready for bear to protest the war. Hell, you'll talk at length about spending priorities -- all inside the DoD. Look how stupidly we spent that money! But where's the emotion when it comes to NASA? Just a throw away war barb involving your feelings and that's it. I kept trying to bring it back to NASA pointing out how pointless this line of reasoning was. Next week it will be oil cleanup in the Gulf -- how can we spend $2 Billion on a bomber and not have solar power perfected? The week after it will be otters, or seals, or whatever. Whatever you want money to be spent on, it will be compared to Afghanistan and the waste going on there. It's a pattern of argument. Recognize the pattern. There's no positive commitment to NASA -- it's all negative feelings towards defense spending. And negative feelings take people to the polls, not positive ones. This means it is in politicians best interests for you to continue feel angry about something, not happy about something -- as long as you're mad at somebody besides them. So you'll continue ranting against the war, and continue voting, and politicians will continue to get elected, and NASA will continue not to be funded. Looking at it this way, it's in politicians best interests not to fund NASA, as they can always make the argument that war spending took the money NASA could have had. This lets them off the hook from making tough choices, keeps you mad both about NASA and DoD, and life goes on. All is good. After all, who are you going to vote out of office because NASA is not funded? NASA and all those four thousand other pet projects are just all so much background noise. Tomorrow you'll be bitching about some other expenditure -- and how the cost of a nuclear submarine would have paid for it long ago. And space exploration deserves better than that. I'm done here.

by Vivtek 16y ago

DanielBMarkham 16y ago

I don't care about the morality either. I'm telling you that things that involve national defense trump everything else in the budget. Everything. You picked an awful example. All it does is lead to an argument about the use of force, which has nothing to do with NASA. Pick subsidizing fruit growers, or the rural electrification commission, or studies of prostitutes in Hong Kong -- there are a zillion projects that you can pick which will provide that same WTF moment you want. Hell, just point out the freaking size of the federal budget in general and how it compares with NASA's budget. But the project you picked leads us off into another direction entirely. Another commenter made a great point -- the closer NASA was to being another arm of DoD, the more funding and budget goodies it got. Perhaps if we could find some reason to fear an attack from outer space, NASA would kick into high gear again (and I'm only being slightly facetious) With all the downvoting I'm getting, perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps most folks feel like the use of deadly force is more or less the same as any other expenditure: bomb an insurgent, watch some young kid die in an IED detonation, build a bridge, fund some research, build a space station, buy buses for a school system. I am not one of those people. And while I have strong moral feelings about this, it's not a question of morality. As a practical matter, the use of deadly force by the state should only be done in times of emergency, and in those cases funding for that use of force trumps everything else. Now we can argue whether or not Afghanistan holds up to that criteria, but that's a war discussion. You're dragging in another topic when there are plenty of examples of other funding that don't have the unique qualities of Afghanistan. Hell, entitlement spending alone counts for about 60% of current federal spending. http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/25/news-flash-entitlement-spendin http://reason.com/blog/2010/01/25/news-flash-entitlement-spe...

Vivtek 16y ago
I really don't want to get into a back-and-forth here, because clearly we both consider each other idiots, but your belief that national defense trumps everything (and the fact that it's shared by all too many people) is why we're in this situation in the first place. Does national defense trump food? Does national defense trump disaster preparedness or emergency response? Does it trump basic research? (Consider that last answer carefully.) Cost-benefit ratios apply to everything, even including national defense. And it all has to be managed together. The idea that we have to put it all on the line every time some guy in a cave sneezes is the panic mode that let us spend off-budget for years on national defense, and it's the reason why entitlement spending doesn't actually account for 60% of federal dollars. So this is the crux. National defense spending is considered holy, and yet it's an immense drain on our national resources that, if it were examined in any honest way, would be cut so fast your scissor fingers would be blistered. I could say the same for lots of things, but national defense is such a sacred cow you just can't say any other program comes even close in terms of the way it short-circuits discussion at every juncture. You're 100% right in your plan to refund NASA, though. If we could just get Fox News to believe in alien terrorists, we'd be on Mars next week.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I will draw this to a conclusion because you don't seem to have the wherewithal to recognize when somebody is agreeing with you and trying to help point out the flaws in your argument. This thread is why NASA is not funded. Our discussion is an example of the political discourse at large. You're mad about DoD and war spending. So when NASA comes up, you're loaded and ready for bear to protest the war. Hell, you'll talk at length about spending priorities -- all inside the DoD. Look how stupidly we spent that money! But where's the emotion when it comes to NASA? Just a throw away war barb involving your feelings and that's it. I kept trying to bring it back to NASA pointing out how pointless this line of reasoning was. Next week it will be oil cleanup in the Gulf -- how can we spend $2 Billion on a bomber and not have solar power perfected? The week after it will be otters, or seals, or whatever. Whatever you want money to be spent on, it will be compared to Afghanistan and the waste going on there. It's a pattern of argument. Recognize the pattern. There's no positive commitment to NASA -- it's all negative feelings towards defense spending. And negative feelings take people to the polls, not positive ones. This means it is in politicians best interests for you to continue feel angry about something, not happy about something -- as long as you're mad at somebody besides them. So you'll continue ranting against the war, and continue voting, and politicians will continue to get elected, and NASA will continue not to be funded. Looking at it this way, it's in politicians best interests not to fund NASA, as they can always make the argument that war spending took the money NASA could have had. This lets them off the hook from making tough choices, keeps you mad both about NASA and DoD, and life goes on. All is good. After all, who are you going to vote out of office because NASA is not funded? NASA and all those four thousand other pet projects are just all so much background noise. Tomorrow you'll be bitching about some other expenditure -- and how the cost of a nuclear submarine would have paid for it long ago. And space exploration deserves better than that. I'm done here.