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Hey Earth, guess how your scientists learned about the risk that CFCs posed to your ozone layer, just in time to solve it before it was totally destroyed? - Yo

Hey Earth, guess how your scientists learned about the risk that CFCs posed to your ozone layer, just in time to solve it before it was totally destroyed? - Your friends, Mars and Venus.

Ge0l 6y ago
Hey passo-aggro pseudo-friends Mars and Venus, mind your own fucking business please, k? - Earth
weare138 6y ago
We didn't need to live on either of those planets to figure that out, not that you would live for very long on Venus or Mars.
- antisol 6y ago
  That's true, but the argument "why bother going there" is exactly the same argument as "why bother making a (telescope|space probe|satellite|rover|deep space network|apollo program|radio telescope|neutrino telescope|particle accelerator|submarine|etc etc etc etc etc ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC)". When Galileo built his telescope, he didn't do it because he was looking for greenhouse gases on Venus. That's what a lot of people don't seem to get: that science and discovery is not linear or predictable. Advances in one area have unexpected uses in other areas, and it's all cumulative and feeds back on itself. You build a telescope to look up at the sky because it's pretty, and hey presto! Next thing you know you've got a heliocentric model and a theory of universal gravitation. You build a radio telescope because you're interested in long-range communications, and wham! Cosmic Microwave Background and deep insight into the origin of the universe. You decide to study the distances to a bunch of galaxies, and pow! Looks like we'll have to throw out that steady state theory. There are so many examples.
  - nikonyrh 6y ago
    According to Neil deGrasse Tyson Galileo got funding for his project due to its high utility in the context of war. This puts telescopes to the same category as airplanes, rockets, satellites, nuclear powerplants, submarines and lots of other tech which has found its civilian usage as well. Isn't metallurgy in this category as well, you can either make stronger swords or plows. But I strongly agree with you that what new tech you'll discover from fundamental research.

Hey Earth, guess how your scientists learned about the risk that CFCs posed to your ozone layer, just in time to solve it before it was totally destroyed? - Your friends, Mars and Venus.

Ge0l 6y ago

Hey passo-aggro pseudo-friends Mars and Venus, mind your own fucking business please, k? - Earth

weare138 6y ago

We didn't need to live on either of those planets to figure that out, not that you would live for very long on Venus or Mars.

antisol 6y ago
That's true, but the argument "why bother going there" is exactly the same argument as "why bother making a (telescope|space probe|satellite|rover|deep space network|apollo program|radio telescope|neutrino telescope|particle accelerator|submarine|etc etc etc etc etc ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC ETC)". When Galileo built his telescope, he didn't do it because he was looking for greenhouse gases on Venus. That's what a lot of people don't seem to get: that science and discovery is not linear or predictable. Advances in one area have unexpected uses in other areas, and it's all cumulative and feeds back on itself. You build a telescope to look up at the sky because it's pretty, and hey presto! Next thing you know you've got a heliocentric model and a theory of universal gravitation. You build a radio telescope because you're interested in long-range communications, and wham! Cosmic Microwave Background and deep insight into the origin of the universe. You decide to study the distances to a bunch of galaxies, and pow! Looks like we'll have to throw out that steady state theory. There are so many examples.
- nikonyrh 6y ago
  According to Neil deGrasse Tyson Galileo got funding for his project due to its high utility in the context of war. This puts telescopes to the same category as airplanes, rockets, satellites, nuclear powerplants, submarines and lots of other tech which has found its civilian usage as well. Isn't metallurgy in this category as well, you can either make stronger swords or plows. But I strongly agree with you that what new tech you'll discover from fundamental research.