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I believe the Olympics every four years are more important for humanity than the existence of NASA. I also think we could be doing the Olympics for cheaper than
by adventured 8y ago
I believe the Olympics every four years are more important for humanity than the existence of NASA. I also think we could be doing the Olympics for cheaper than ~$20b every four years.
We're not leaving this planet for a long time yet. Even if we do, it's not desirable to abandon Earth, it's vastly superior to all other practical options we have. We're going to have to continue to try to co-exist and avoid any further world wars. $4b or $5b per year for a large gathering of the sort the Olympics represents, is dirt cheap if it lends even a tiny boost to global peace between nations.
Keeping in mind this isn't actually an either or situation. It's obviously not either NASA's budget, or putting on the Olympics at a $20b cost. We - humanity - can in fact afford to do both.
I'd vote for reducing NASA's annual budget by 19% (~$4b per year) to pay for the Olympics, if that was the only option. That's a very easy decision.
It's one of the few things that most of humanity does together. Over a billion people watch some part of the Olympics globally. It's a modest, important pillar of peaceful co-existence between nations and peoples broadly. We shoud do more things together in that spirit. Maintaining peace between the 195 nations is more important than NASA's continued operation, by several orders of magnitude.
For another example, the UN is also more important than NASA (the UN has a core budget comparable to an annualized cost of the Olympics). I'm not much of a fan of the UN, and I still recognize that it serves an important purpose of promoting cooperation and discussion between nations and would be almost entirely impossible to replace today.
Competitive sport is critically important to humanity and arguably always has been in some form or another. Sometimes people that don't love sport generally, entirely fail to understand what it accomplishes and how important it is.
If NASA goes away (and yes, it would obviously be a huge loss), a dozen other countries will continue with various space efforts. How many things do that many nations cooperate together on in an overwhelmingly positive spirit other than the Olympics?
- izzydata 8y agoI don't know that I personally believe sport competition is more important for humanity than NASA. To me sciences and space exploration could easily be 10 times as important as sport. I think the point is that there could be any number of better uses for our collective time and money than sport. Imagine what we could do as a species if we were actually committed to solving something at all costs whether that is curing cancer or stopping man made climate change.
- Consultant32452 8y agoCross cultural humanitarian bonding is more important than any medical or technological breakthrough. It might be nice if regular people bonded over rockets, but they don't. They bond through sports. Because of this, international sports competitions go a long way towards softening some of humanity's worst tendencies: racism, sexism, and xenophobia.
- moogly 8y agoIn my eyes, sports reinforce/exacerbate those things. Hooliganism, violent riots, murdering players making own goals, murdering referees doing the wrong (or right) call... I really don't think sports brings out the best in humanity. At best it's a replacement for jingoism. Rockets don't make people punch other people in the face. Sports really do.
- Consultant32452 8y agoRocket technology is a weapons delivery system. Rank and file people seeing the world come together and work towards a common goal, even on something as "trivial" as a game, humanizes those different people. And yes, it sometimes results in an occasional fight, but it's much better than the kinds of fights that occur which involve rockets.
- tastygreenapple 8y agoRank order these two by what would most benefit humanity: * two people of different ethnicities holding hands * cold fusion
- Consultant32452 8y agoI think creating a world in which humans are less inclined to kill one another is more important than increasing our energy supply. We're not exactly lacking in energy as it stands.
- 8y ago
- 908087 8y agoI participate in a number of sports. None of those require society to lay out tens of billions of dollars every few years. Your points would hold more water if NASA's entire mission was "moving humanity to a different planet", but it isn't. Much of what NASA does is focused on protecting the planet we live on right now.
- tastygreenapple 8y agoIF Nasa were able to dedicate the olympic's budget towards hitting the olympic KPIs, it'd be a much different organization. $20B would put an American on the moon and maybe even put an American on mars, surely that would get the world's attention. Want peace? Let's detonate a nuclear bomb in space and get people to recognize the destructive potential of our current arms. The olympics is designed to get people to tune in, NASA is set up to create knowledge. Judging both organizations by outcomes that only the olmpyics is concerned about is a great way to obfuscate NASA's contributions.
- gspetr 8y ago> We're not leaving this planet for a long time yet. IMO, that's an argument against Olympics, not for it. I'm far from calling myself an environmentalist, but consider all the waste and pollution produced by people flying in from all over the world. The negative impact is significant.