5 ms·

For comparison, the budget of the Department of Defen(ding US interests) is $721.5 billion, which is to say one could instead do something useful with all those

For comparison, the budget of the Department of Defen(ding US interests) is $721.5 billion, which is to say one could instead do something useful with all those billions instead of spending them killing people who made the mistake of being born near natural resources.

bufferoverflow 6y ago
$721.5 billion per year, to be more specific. While the collider cost is one-time.
- dekhn 6y ago
  The operating budget for LHC is $1B/year.
- ssully 6y ago
  While I still agree on wanting to direct money from military to science, it isn't a one time cost. In 2012, the yearly budget for the LHC was 1 billion [1]. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/#3d629aac3948 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-d...
  - lgl 6y ago
    That's still pocket change and pretty irrelevant in context since merely half of 1 year's budget of the US military would still be able to power the LHC for over 350 years.
- UweSchmidt 6y ago
  The military budget is practically not available for redistribution without a complete political overhaul. Many people could be fed and many nice projects could be financed with that money. As it is, the supercollider money comes from the limited science budget, and buying the one thing means we can't have the other.
  - spekcular 6y ago
    I don't think there's a substitution effect for these one-off mega-projects in practice. When the US collider was canceled, that money was transferred to other projects. It just wasn't spent on science at all.
rpiguy 6y ago
The return we gave gotten out of the military industrial complex is enormous. Without it there would have been no Silicon Valley, no Fairchild, no Intel, etc. It has been money well spent, but I agree with you and President Trump that we should be bringing the troops home not wasting money and lives on endless wars overseas.
- fwip 6y ago
  The return is big, but what is it compared to the investment? Many of the key advancements were made with military funding, but: A) the fact that the military did it first doesn't mean that somebody else wouldn't have done it a year or ten later. B) how much did we waste on our main goal of murdering people, compared to the amount of funding necessary for helpful scientific advancements? If we threw $700 billion a year at anything, we'd see major scientific advancements happening almost by accident. We could have invested it in agriculture, or infrastructure, health, or ending poverty. All of those would produce major first order benefits in addition to the advancement of science and technologies.
  - noir_lord 6y ago
    Space, Imagine double peak apollo spending (8% of GDP so still less than the military (if you add the historical share of GDP for the military to nasa's peak share) for the last 50 years. The technologies we got out of the space program are vast and while there was always a military aspect (there couldn't really not be given that the technology to put a satellite is basically an ICBM) a lot of the technology had civilian applications.
    - fwip 6y ago
      Sure yeah, fund the space program if you think that's important. Much better than throwing the money at the military, whose purpose is to destroy.
  - leephillips 6y ago
    I’m not so sure. Money does not create innovation (but the need for money can). Nothing quite concentrates the mind like a struggle for you and your society’s very survival.
sdinsn 6y ago
> instead do something useful Can you present an argument for how a new super-collider is actually useful?
- jefflombardjr 6y ago
  Can you prove that you will come across new theoretical breakthroughs with this research budget? While I agree this is a huge expense, I do question the slippery slope of attacking research budgets. I wish more nations chalked this up as the 'cost of doing business'. Cutting research funding works well for election cycles, but doesn't do much for the folks down the road.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    > I wish more nations chalked this up as the 'cost of doing business'. That makes sense, but you must also have a framework that tells you when something is just too much. It looks like you are comfortable with €21 BN, would €210 BN be also ok, or €2.1 TN or €21 TN? Which level does not justify the knowledge gain? Fundamental knowledge is valuable, but in a world with finite resources you must always be able to compare with other valuable alternatives. Should we, the humankind, invest a few tens of billions into chasing hypothetical superpartner particles? Or we should invest in the ARC fusion reactor [1], that might help us cut down our greenhouse gas emissions in 20 years? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  There will surely be several interesting engineering spinoffs and such. I'm thinking material science, magnet design etc that could benefit the health sector or other areas in society. One could perhaps get those benefits through more direct means for less, but if not then it would make the collider technically useful.
  - sdinsn 6y ago
    > There will surely be several interesting engineering spinoffs and such. Just like military R&D. So what's the point of the comparison?
SiempreViernes 6y ago
The cost for the nuclear modernization that is the backbone of the nuclear arms race Trump is starting has been estimated to $1 Trillion[1], that's a better comparison since it's also the cost of a multi year project. [1] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernizatio...
fsloth 6y ago
To my understanding the US defence budget is mostly not intended for killing people but to enable taxes to be diverted to the military industrial complex (a form of state subsidy and employment scheme). It enables large scale force projections but I think that's only a nice bonus.
eloff 6y ago
I'm not sure if a new particle collider is a good use of that money. But imagine you could put it towards science, innovation (like incentives for starting and running startups or businesses), and social programs (like healthcare, education). Where would the US be after twenty years of that instead of spending it on military? People think this idea is crazy, but if I were in charge, I'd keep a small but efficient force that can be scaled up and down quickly for dealing with Iraq or Iran scale enemies, and rely solely on nuclear weapons for defending against hostile superpowers - which is how any superpower conflict is likely to end anyway. Yeah, you can't play the imperialism game like that, but it doesn't seem worth the cost anyway.
- DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
  Given what has played out in the last 6 months, I would say a hefty chunk of money should go towards studying emerging infectious diseases, vaccine development and anti-viral drugs.
  - jupp0r 6y ago
    Climate change, meteor strike avoidance, nuclear proliferation, ...
    - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
      Detecting all Near-Earth Objects larger than several meters would be pretty cheap, but it just hasn't been funded. All it takes is one small space telescope sitting at L1.
nickik 6y ago
While I agree. I'm seriously getting annoyed with every single expensive thing being compared to the US military budget (that is 1 trillion if you include the stuff hidden in the other parts of the budget). Things need to stand on their own if they are worth. Removing the military is not politically viable, so we can come up with 1000s of fantasy project we could finance. However, the problem remains the same, what is the alternative use for those 21 billion. No matter if you can use the military budget, in that case you also need to evaluate alternative uses for those 21 billions.

bufferoverflow 6y ago

$721.5 billion per year, to be more specific. While the collider cost is one-time.

dekhn 6y ago
The operating budget for LHC is $1B/year.
ssully 6y ago
While I still agree on wanting to direct money from military to science, it isn't a one time cost. In 2012, the yearly budget for the LHC was 1 billion [1]. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-does-it-cost-to-find-a-higgs-boson/#3d629aac3948 https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2012/07/05/how-much-d...
- lgl 6y ago
  That's still pocket change and pretty irrelevant in context since merely half of 1 year's budget of the US military would still be able to power the LHC for over 350 years.
UweSchmidt 6y ago
The military budget is practically not available for redistribution without a complete political overhaul. Many people could be fed and many nice projects could be financed with that money. As it is, the supercollider money comes from the limited science budget, and buying the one thing means we can't have the other.
- spekcular 6y ago
  I don't think there's a substitution effect for these one-off mega-projects in practice. When the US collider was canceled, that money was transferred to other projects. It just wasn't spent on science at all.

rpiguy 6y ago

The return we gave gotten out of the military industrial complex is enormous. Without it there would have been no Silicon Valley, no Fairchild, no Intel, etc. It has been money well spent, but I agree with you and President Trump that we should be bringing the troops home not wasting money and lives on endless wars overseas.

fwip 6y ago
The return is big, but what is it compared to the investment? Many of the key advancements were made with military funding, but: A) the fact that the military did it first doesn't mean that somebody else wouldn't have done it a year or ten later. B) how much did we waste on our main goal of murdering people, compared to the amount of funding necessary for helpful scientific advancements? If we threw $700 billion a year at anything, we'd see major scientific advancements happening almost by accident. We could have invested it in agriculture, or infrastructure, health, or ending poverty. All of those would produce major first order benefits in addition to the advancement of science and technologies.
- noir_lord 6y ago
  Space, Imagine double peak apollo spending (8% of GDP so still less than the military (if you add the historical share of GDP for the military to nasa's peak share) for the last 50 years. The technologies we got out of the space program are vast and while there was always a military aspect (there couldn't really not be given that the technology to put a satellite is basically an ICBM) a lot of the technology had civilian applications.
  - fwip 6y ago
    Sure yeah, fund the space program if you think that's important. Much better than throwing the money at the military, whose purpose is to destroy.
- leephillips 6y ago
  I’m not so sure. Money does not create innovation (but the need for money can). Nothing quite concentrates the mind like a struggle for you and your society’s very survival.

sdinsn 6y ago

> instead do something useful Can you present an argument for how a new super-collider is actually useful?

jefflombardjr 6y ago
Can you prove that you will come across new theoretical breakthroughs with this research budget? While I agree this is a huge expense, I do question the slippery slope of attacking research budgets. I wish more nations chalked this up as the 'cost of doing business'. Cutting research funding works well for election cycles, but doesn't do much for the folks down the road.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  > I wish more nations chalked this up as the 'cost of doing business'. That makes sense, but you must also have a framework that tells you when something is just too much. It looks like you are comfortable with €21 BN, would €210 BN be also ok, or €2.1 TN or €21 TN? Which level does not justify the knowledge gain? Fundamental knowledge is valuable, but in a world with finite resources you must always be able to compare with other valuable alternatives. Should we, the humankind, invest a few tens of billions into chasing hypothetical superpartner particles? Or we should invest in the ARC fusion reactor [1], that might help us cut down our greenhouse gas emissions in 20 years? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARC_fusion_reactor
magicalhippo 6y ago
There will surely be several interesting engineering spinoffs and such. I'm thinking material science, magnet design etc that could benefit the health sector or other areas in society. One could perhaps get those benefits through more direct means for less, but if not then it would make the collider technically useful.
- sdinsn 6y ago
  > There will surely be several interesting engineering spinoffs and such. Just like military R&D. So what's the point of the comparison?

SiempreViernes 6y ago

The cost for the nuclear modernization that is the backbone of the nuclear arms race Trump is starting has been estimated to $1 Trillion[1], that's a better comparison since it's also the cost of a multi year project. [1] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernization https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/USNuclearModernizatio...

fsloth 6y ago

To my understanding the US defence budget is mostly not intended for killing people but to enable taxes to be diverted to the military industrial complex (a form of state subsidy and employment scheme). It enables large scale force projections but I think that's only a nice bonus.

eloff 6y ago

I'm not sure if a new particle collider is a good use of that money. But imagine you could put it towards science, innovation (like incentives for starting and running startups or businesses), and social programs (like healthcare, education). Where would the US be after twenty years of that instead of spending it on military? People think this idea is crazy, but if I were in charge, I'd keep a small but efficient force that can be scaled up and down quickly for dealing with Iraq or Iran scale enemies, and rely solely on nuclear weapons for defending against hostile superpowers - which is how any superpower conflict is likely to end anyway. Yeah, you can't play the imperialism game like that, but it doesn't seem worth the cost anyway.

DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
Given what has played out in the last 6 months, I would say a hefty chunk of money should go towards studying emerging infectious diseases, vaccine development and anti-viral drugs.
- jupp0r 6y ago
  Climate change, meteor strike avoidance, nuclear proliferation, ...
  - DiogenesKynikos 6y ago
    Detecting all Near-Earth Objects larger than several meters would be pretty cheap, but it just hasn't been funded. All it takes is one small space telescope sitting at L1.

nickik 6y ago

While I agree. I'm seriously getting annoyed with every single expensive thing being compared to the US military budget (that is 1 trillion if you include the stuff hidden in the other parts of the budget). Things need to stand on their own if they are worth. Removing the military is not politically viable, so we can come up with 1000s of fantasy project we could finance. However, the problem remains the same, what is the alternative use for those 21 billion. No matter if you can use the military budget, in that case you also need to evaluate alternative uses for those 21 billions.