3 ms·

Dollars are just a means to quantify value. To say one believes in benefits beyond a dollar value is to say one believes in benefits that cannot be quantified -

• scotty79 17y ago
  ... also often you don't know or even can't estimate how much dollars something can bring in in long term. If you are starting new unique venture you can't really estimate potential gains. But from history of man kind seems that investing in new things and even exotic research is in the long run extraordinarily beneficial. Gains from gathering resources and building ITER (or GPS, or orbital power plant) earlier not later can give humanity much greater benefit than it would gain from instantiating 5 mln startups with 1/5mlnth of the used resources. I'd even say that no value can be created by human activity (by means other than resource exploitation) if it does not involve inventing or applying new technology.
• CWuestefeld 17y ago
  I upvoted you, because you're generally correct, so much so that it's worth saying. However, it is an oversimplification. As stated, it doesn't account for externalized costs, that is, costs of the product that are not borne by the seller. For example, the energy industry has historically benefited because part of the cost of their product -- that is, the damage done by pollution -- is not paid for in the sale of the energy, but is borne by the public at large. Thus, the cost of pollution has gone into the coffers of the energy suppliers (and their stockholders). This is the inequity that legislation such as cap-and-trade try to alleviate (not that I'm a fan of this legislation by any means, the gov't is just as bad).