How can you people be so dishonest with yourselves and everyone else? Look at the fallacious arguments you put forward: - Nations have a long history of fundi

How can you people be so dishonest with yourselves and everyone else? Look at the fallacious arguments you put forward: - Nations have a long history of funding exploratory ventures. (appeal to tradition - doing something for a long time does not make it right to keep doing it) - it creates jobs (unseen consequences - it destroys more needed jobs that would have been created or maintained had this money been used by those who earned it) - there is a small chance that something practical could be discovered (citation needed; also, not a good enough reason to justify mass extortion) - it satisfies a basic human need to know more (at what price? how much money is it fair to steal from the population in order to indulge the curiosity of those who largely can't be bothered to finish a book?) - surely that's worth spending some money on? (no one is saying you can't spend your money on it. knock yourself out) - but a world without curiosity would be pretty sad (appeal to emotion and consequences - this is coming from someone not curious enough to know how money works and why public works projects are the same as the broken window fallacy) - Because it has huge benefits (citation needed) - one could argue that the money that was funneled into NASA during the moon landings gave tax payers much more bang for their buck than all kinds of other research, social programs, bank bailouts, etc. (please go ahead and make that argument) - These sorts of human achievement defining missions are really hundreds of thousands of hours of engineering dedicated to solving some of the hardest problems we can dream up. (Keynesian misattribution of value: "it takes a long time and a lot of effort so it has to be worth something!") - You are way too short sighted (ad hominem) - This opinion is short-sighted. (ad hominem) - There may be zero practical attributable scientific or engineering benefits, though I am sure there will be plentiful. ("trust me, I know more than you do") - However, such epic events are extremely inspiring! (appeal to emotion) - This may be a single trigger that will send many curious young guys and girls towards STEM professions. (anything mya be a trigger to anything until proven to be the case or not; if we're looking for triggers to sent guys and girls to STEM we should survey the alternatives and pick the most cost effective one; this is an improvised excuse for carrying on with public works projects) - I 'd dare you to specify what's more important where your money should be spent. (stolen money should not be spent in more or less important things, it should be returned to their rightful owner so they can choose what to do with what they've earned)