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I wish the US government wasn't the worst steward of capital on the planet. If objectives actually mattered instead of a combo of jobs programs and bribery/infl
by wand3r 3y ago
I wish the US government wasn't the worst steward of capital on the planet. If objectives actually mattered instead of a combo of jobs programs and bribery/influence laundering so much could get done. Im all for science funding but its looking increasingly likely you could just pay spaceX to do this research while they are literally on the planet.
Further, you could basically solve homelessness in CA or build a vast network of public light rail for $10B. Obviously you couldn't do any of that because you need 1-3 layers of consultants and 10 layers of subcontractors to do anything.
These stories frustrate me. Heres a link to Patrick Collison's blog section fast[1] so we can review what it was like when we could build things and do science in this country.
[1] https://patrickcollison.com/fast https://patrickcollison.com/fast
- mozman 3y agoI'd much rather have my tax dollars go to science and space exploration rather than giving away free stuff to people.
- rscho 3y agoI'd much rather give free stuff to people. Given those people are citizens and it allows their reinsertion into society. Space exploration supposed benefits are far more remote and as of now, not very useful.
- nunobrito 3y agoI'd rather invest in space to live there one day than staying on this floating rock with people that give stuff for free. I
- ddingus 3y agoNone of us alive today will be living in space one day. All of us alive today can benefit from assistance given to the least of us. I want the space future too. However, I also want my time here to be better. I won't see the space future. Sadly. I could easily see a cleaner, more harmonious world. Being human can suck. These discussions are one of the ways it does.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- barbazoo 3y agoIgnoring the "free stuff" straw man but it's fascinating how someone can be so cruel to not want society to solve the homelessness problem. If this becomes a "mainstream" opinion, we've truly failed as homo sapiens.
- randallsquared 3y agoAdding more money to "the homelessness problem" seems unlikely to actually solve the problem. It's (politically) difficult to address the underlying root causes, but easy to show how compassionate we are while subsidizing homelessness, and you get more of what you pay for, so.
- barbazoo 3y agoYou might not be able to solve the crisis with money alone but you need lots of money to solve it is my gut feeling.
- djaychela 3y agoGiving free stuff to people will in many cases free up resources that are currently being wasted on solving the same problem. Then there actually would be more money available for science and technology.
- anonymouskimmer 3y agoSpending money on third party development of tools to get to space is giving away free stuff to people (notably the part of the spend that is the profits of those third parties).
- localplume 3y agodepends on the type of job program TBH. if its a job program of consultants and subcontractors and its corruption all the way down, its terrible. But NASA programs are an absolutely massive jobs program throughout the country for a variety of skills and industries. "for science" is nice and all, but jobs programs are equally as important for the economy and country as a whole. contrary to what many say, space exploration is pretty useless. the most barren, remote part of earth is more interesting biologically, geographically, scientifically, and historically than any part of our solar system or the nearest solar systems. even if 99% of life on earth was wiped out by a catastrophic event, it would still be more livable than any planet or moon in our solar system. there are no novel elements or materials on other moons or planets that earth doesn't already have in abundance, and if a civilization was established on mars it would take at least a century, more like 2, for it to have any exports; it would be purely an import economy 100% reliant on earth. its a great jobs program and its pretty cool, but it isn't even close to helpful for pretty much anybody on earth except a few dozen. that being said, agree 100%. so many things could be solved easily if things were streamlined, which is a good thing about authoritarianism. FDR pushed through the new deal and so much because he had supreme power over the executive branch, dems controlled both houses, and he packed the courts in his favor to prevent opposition. the most authoritarian president by a mile, but ushured in incredible change that was absolutely required to get past the great depression. obviously this was supported by the new deal coalition which would be difficult to construct nowadays because both sides disenfranchise large parts of the other. unity is required, but neither party wants it, so its split and nothing gets done. eventually something will break the camel's back and it'll shift, but until then everything will kinda suck
- alsodumb 3y agoCan you provide any evidence that $10 billion can solve homelessness in CA or build a vast network of public light rail? I think you’re off by at least a zero.
- andrepd 3y agoI don't know about homelessness (which is a much more difficult issue which can't be solved by just throwing money at it), but most developed countries built high speed rail lines and/or urban light rail transit systems for much less than 10,000,000,000$.
- ryaniscool 3y agoAgree 100%. I worked at Kennedy Space Center for a government contractor in the early 2000's. While I was there, NASA cancelled a software re-write of the launch control system. By then, they had already spent something like $800M and had nothing to show for it. I can't think of a single piece of software that exists in the world today that couldn't be rewritten with $800M in capital.
- TheBigSalad 3y ago10 billion can't do any of those things. If it could, we'd have them. California's gdp is 3,000 billion. They make that every year. This is 10 billion over a decade.
- barbazoo 3y ago> 10 billion can't do any of those things Has CA actually spent that money on those problems and shown that it couldn't solve them? If not I don't think that statement is true?
- manwe150 3y ago$10 billion is roughly $6 per homeless person per year in California. How much are you expecting this one free cup of coffee per quarter to accomplish?
- Filligree 3y agoThey have a billion homeless people?
- sdenton4 3y agoAre you saying that there are 42 million homeless people in California? (10B / $6 / 4 quarters / 10 years) Edit: fwiw, assuming 115k homeless in California (which incidentally is 1/3 of the US total), we get $2,170/person per quarter over ten years. Which does sound like enough to make a real difference in people's lives if you just handed it out.
- manwe150 3y agoOops, yeah, that was a calculator fail. It should have been about $6k/year, but I dropped a factor of 1k. Which is still not much, but a bit more sensible.
- boeingUH60 3y agoWow, there are 1.7 billion homeless people in California?!
- munchler 3y ago> Starting in 1942, 1,700 miles of military roadway were built over the course of 234 days, connecting eastern British Columbia with Fairbanks, Alaska. Color me dubious on this one. 1700 miles / 234 days = 7.26 miles/day = 0.444 feet/second, every second of every day for about 8 months straight. Even if you had 10 teams working in parallel the entire time, that’s a lot of road.
- rvense 3y agoYou might be right that NASA and other government agencies have inefficient cultures, but so does IBM. I think it's hugely problematic to privatize space research. As far as I know, every photo NASA has ever taken is in the public domain. Who would own what SpaceX learn on Mars?
- dotnet00 3y agoThat's not such a big issue, if NASA pays them, they can have stipulations about ownership of the resulting data. If NASA doesn't pay them and they do it on their own dime, then they get to do whatever they want with the data.