5 ms·

I try to keep up with this stuff, but I wish to a layperson like me, the benefits of this was communicated more clearly. Even something like the JWT, I'm still

I try to keep up with this stuff, but I wish to a layperson like me, the benefits of this was communicated more clearly. Even something like the JWT, I'm still not seeing the benefit. It's really awesome, don't deny that at all! But I'd rather see more investment put into developing space-faring capabilities. Being able to transport lots of goods and people into space, and start manufacturing in space. I've heard it said that research into this stuff will inevitably benefit all manners of other sciences, but hoping for a byproduct isn't the same as direct investment. I'm just asking in earnest if priorities are aligned properly. I'm sure many of these experiments and projects would be more useful if they were actually built in space! Even for space agencies, it's all sorely disappointing. Their focus is on research and experimentation, which wouldn't be a problem if there were plans that were getting executed with some vision or goal of actual progress in capabilities. Their planning is also too long-term. Why did artemis take 3 years? is it just to boast about being able to go back to the moon? By now this should have taken 3 months after over half a century. My point is not to be dismissive of the complexities, but to say that the state of things is being accepted as-is from what I'm seeing. Is there any actual solid plan to reduce at least launch times that factor? It would be amazing if humans launched enough infrastructure into space, that there were would be foundries and factories entirely in space, reducing the dependence on transporting heavy things from earth into space.Spacecraft and space station components could largely be manufactured by mining raw materials and manufacturing with them without depending on earth's resources directly. That's probably not realistic, but what I'm decrying is not so much lack of action, but lack of vision (outside of scifi), planning, and focus. That said, I'm just hijacking this to bring up that point of discuss. This is private cash, and I'm glad someone is donating to CERN for this research. I wish all the stuff I said could be funded with tax dollars. lay people need to see a vision, a plan, even if it can't be achieved in our lifetime, political will comes afterwards.

potamic 9mo ago
I suppose the question of how to prioritize scientific funding is itself a scientific problem, so we would first need to decide how much to allocate to the scientific funding sub-discipline so that all of scientific funding is as efficient as possible! In all seriousness, I don't know how science policy works but I expect it is more goal-oriented than objective-oriented. Science rarely starts with, "What are the biggest problems faced by humanity", and then tries to take them up. Rather what it's saying is, "I know this and this about something. Given this, I think I can figure out what is that", and then tries to figure out "that". There is no greater objective to figuring out "that", other than it is there to be found. You could perhaps say the ultimate objective of science is simply to know, and so you take whatever steps are in front of you that will help you know more. It might seem kinda wasteful on the outset, but 400 years back nobody would have dreamed that studying why these dots in the night sky move will help understand tides on earth, which in turn leads to understanding tidal currents, which in turn leads to understanding climate at a given place. 200 years back no one would have imagined that the key to health and diseases lie in finding invisible things moving around in the air. A mere 100 years back it would've been impossible to conceive studying why tiny flecks of dust jiggle about when floating on a drop of water, would lead to unlocking immense reserves of energy for civilization. Everything we are today, everything we can do, all the scientific and technological progress we have achieved is a result of this very process. It happened simply because many thousands of curious minds tried to take the next step in front of them. If some of them didn't because they were told it wasn't a worthwhile investment of resources, where would we be today?
- trueno 9mo ago
  the itch of curiosity can take someone to great heights... and glorious useless rabbit holes. us nerd programmers should be intimately familiar with this. i sort of do get a little irked at how a lot of the things discovered at the furthest reaches of our universe are just simply just trying to figure out that for the sake of figuring that out. don't get me wrong i'm a huge proponent of sciences in general im mostly just bewildered at the widespread collective belief that science can only be beneficial if you let it move at a glacial pace with lots of time and resources spent answering questions that should potentially be deprioritized. even writing software im constantly compelled to shake off the wild goose chases that are just me trying to find an answer to that and get back to doing something else, and i'm constantly hungry for ways to add my capacities to something that is beneficial for at least a handful of people. we tend to give sciences a huge sort of "let them cook" pass about many things even though sometimes it's just resources spent on some giga niche corner of science to get to an answer that settles a 25 year old argument or theory no one knows or cares about. i don't think it hurts to get back occasionally to "ok guys let's try to focus on something of importance" and acknowledging even a little bit that some of the goose chases have been utterly pointless. is there some kind of unspoken rule that scientific discovery should only come from one giant leaky bucket exercise but the bucket is never ending? aligned research goals with some outcomes that aren't some super autistic itch-scratch only one or two people on earth understand are.. not a bad thing. scientists of some levels sometimes terrify me. human, sure, but the relentless pursuit of finding that has throughout history caused many scientists and researchers to cross moral boundaries. sometimes i wonder if people looking the traces of hundred billion year old invisible invisible gamma stinky fart rays at the edge of our universe give any shits about the world and the people in it at all. its just harder now than ever to care about their laundry list of meaningless discoveries when we're in desperate need of here and now discoveries to solve problems we face today. in some respects staring at a scope into the edge of the universe is sometimes not any different than the kid who's just trying to escape the noise of life by throwing a video game on. i get it, i do. but i don't always wrap it in nobility because the sciences are filled with humans who are as imperfect as you and i, and sometimes they straight up aren't cooking much and seem a little directionless.
  - 8mo ago
Certhas 9mo ago
This is science for science sake. To advance knowledge. You argue for direct investment for building space faring capabilities, rather than for advancing knowledge, but then you should state why you want these space faring capabilities. Because they are cool? I think that's essentially the reasoning behind putting people on the Moon. If you believe there are valifld economic reasons for space, why do we need tax dollars? And also: I don't see it. Space is so hostile an environment to humans, that it's hard to understand why we should invest in capability to be there personally. People aren't even investing to harvest Greenland's resources, and they are infinitely more accessible.
- notepad0x90 9mo ago
  For starts for science itself. If transporting things to space wasn't so costly, so much more experimentation would better be done in space. Yes it's cool, but that isn't why. It's because of resources and human progress. I want mirrors in space that direct/magnify sun light to destinations on earth for example. So many of human problems today have to do with resource scarcity. The "old" world had this, and the discovery of the "new" world in the west solved lots of problems. Every tech we have to day, every advancement in medicine, industry,etc.. from steam engines to the internet and AI is a result of the discovery of the americas. the center of trade and commerce shifted to western europe, and western europeans used lots of means including conquest of the americas by force , enslaving africans,etc.. to get gold and riches from the americas back to europe. The improvement in the quality of life for western europeans meant they could focus less on subsistence and survival, and focus on science, industry and reformations. Space is extremely hostile to humans. You're not wrong about that, but it isn't beyond humans' capability to conquer it. Solving the obstacles in the way of space expansion requires solving things that have the ability to improve humans' lives greatly. It means we could also conquer the polar zones and tundras much more easily, and be more resilient to climate change. Like how western europe benefited from the Americas, and how they pillaged gold from the americans, so is there gold and riches in space to be pillaged and improve the lives of the world on earth. Back in the 1800s, the west was a hostile (no comparison to space of course) place people with no options went to, space could be that for a while. Humanity can't survive in a stagnant way. We will always need more space and more energy.

potamic 9mo ago

I suppose the question of how to prioritize scientific funding is itself a scientific problem, so we would first need to decide how much to allocate to the scientific funding sub-discipline so that all of scientific funding is as efficient as possible! In all seriousness, I don't know how science policy works but I expect it is more goal-oriented than objective-oriented. Science rarely starts with, "What are the biggest problems faced by humanity", and then tries to take them up. Rather what it's saying is, "I know this and this about something. Given this, I think I can figure out what is that", and then tries to figure out "that". There is no greater objective to figuring out "that", other than it is there to be found. You could perhaps say the ultimate objective of science is simply to know, and so you take whatever steps are in front of you that will help you know more. It might seem kinda wasteful on the outset, but 400 years back nobody would have dreamed that studying why these dots in the night sky move will help understand tides on earth, which in turn leads to understanding tidal currents, which in turn leads to understanding climate at a given place. 200 years back no one would have imagined that the key to health and diseases lie in finding invisible things moving around in the air. A mere 100 years back it would've been impossible to conceive studying why tiny flecks of dust jiggle about when floating on a drop of water, would lead to unlocking immense reserves of energy for civilization. Everything we are today, everything we can do, all the scientific and technological progress we have achieved is a result of this very process. It happened simply because many thousands of curious minds tried to take the next step in front of them. If some of them didn't because they were told it wasn't a worthwhile investment of resources, where would we be today?

trueno 9mo ago
the itch of curiosity can take someone to great heights... and glorious useless rabbit holes. us nerd programmers should be intimately familiar with this. i sort of do get a little irked at how a lot of the things discovered at the furthest reaches of our universe are just simply just trying to figure out that for the sake of figuring that out. don't get me wrong i'm a huge proponent of sciences in general im mostly just bewildered at the widespread collective belief that science can only be beneficial if you let it move at a glacial pace with lots of time and resources spent answering questions that should potentially be deprioritized. even writing software im constantly compelled to shake off the wild goose chases that are just me trying to find an answer to that and get back to doing something else, and i'm constantly hungry for ways to add my capacities to something that is beneficial for at least a handful of people. we tend to give sciences a huge sort of "let them cook" pass about many things even though sometimes it's just resources spent on some giga niche corner of science to get to an answer that settles a 25 year old argument or theory no one knows or cares about. i don't think it hurts to get back occasionally to "ok guys let's try to focus on something of importance" and acknowledging even a little bit that some of the goose chases have been utterly pointless. is there some kind of unspoken rule that scientific discovery should only come from one giant leaky bucket exercise but the bucket is never ending? aligned research goals with some outcomes that aren't some super autistic itch-scratch only one or two people on earth understand are.. not a bad thing. scientists of some levels sometimes terrify me. human, sure, but the relentless pursuit of finding that has throughout history caused many scientists and researchers to cross moral boundaries. sometimes i wonder if people looking the traces of hundred billion year old invisible invisible gamma stinky fart rays at the edge of our universe give any shits about the world and the people in it at all. its just harder now than ever to care about their laundry list of meaningless discoveries when we're in desperate need of here and now discoveries to solve problems we face today. in some respects staring at a scope into the edge of the universe is sometimes not any different than the kid who's just trying to escape the noise of life by throwing a video game on. i get it, i do. but i don't always wrap it in nobility because the sciences are filled with humans who are as imperfect as you and i, and sometimes they straight up aren't cooking much and seem a little directionless.
- 8mo ago

Certhas 9mo ago

This is science for science sake. To advance knowledge. You argue for direct investment for building space faring capabilities, rather than for advancing knowledge, but then you should state why you want these space faring capabilities. Because they are cool? I think that's essentially the reasoning behind putting people on the Moon. If you believe there are valifld economic reasons for space, why do we need tax dollars? And also: I don't see it. Space is so hostile an environment to humans, that it's hard to understand why we should invest in capability to be there personally. People aren't even investing to harvest Greenland's resources, and they are infinitely more accessible.

notepad0x90 9mo ago
For starts for science itself. If transporting things to space wasn't so costly, so much more experimentation would better be done in space. Yes it's cool, but that isn't why. It's because of resources and human progress. I want mirrors in space that direct/magnify sun light to destinations on earth for example. So many of human problems today have to do with resource scarcity. The "old" world had this, and the discovery of the "new" world in the west solved lots of problems. Every tech we have to day, every advancement in medicine, industry,etc.. from steam engines to the internet and AI is a result of the discovery of the americas. the center of trade and commerce shifted to western europe, and western europeans used lots of means including conquest of the americas by force , enslaving africans,etc.. to get gold and riches from the americas back to europe. The improvement in the quality of life for western europeans meant they could focus less on subsistence and survival, and focus on science, industry and reformations. Space is extremely hostile to humans. You're not wrong about that, but it isn't beyond humans' capability to conquer it. Solving the obstacles in the way of space expansion requires solving things that have the ability to improve humans' lives greatly. It means we could also conquer the polar zones and tundras much more easily, and be more resilient to climate change. Like how western europe benefited from the Americas, and how they pillaged gold from the americans, so is there gold and riches in space to be pillaged and improve the lives of the world on earth. Back in the 1800s, the west was a hostile (no comparison to space of course) place people with no options went to, space could be that for a while. Humanity can't survive in a stagnant way. We will always need more space and more energy.