Re: spinoffs +- competing hypotheses

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

At 01:58 PM 2/22/01 -0400, Tim O'Donnell wrote:
> it seems to me that on "big"
> projects there have been a lot of spin-offs
> that benefit a lot of people.

That argument is over-simplified.  Let's not even ask whether that
statement is true or false, because that would be the wrong question.

Recall our discussion of "cause and effect" a while back.  One cannot
meaningfully discuss policy issues (big projects being the hypothetical
cause and spinoffs being the hypothetical result) without carefully
considering the competing hypotheses.

Even the obvious "null hypothesis" -- just don't spend the money --
requires scrutiny, because the unspent money would have resulted in lower
taxes and/or lower deficits, plus whatever results those produced in turn.

Quite a few hypotheses must be considered, such as taking 20 billion
dollars from the Apollo project and spending it on
 -- better roads and bridges
 -- biology research
 -- semiconductor research
 -- aircraft (not spacecraft) R&D
 -- unmanned space exploration
 -- and/or quite a number of other things.

If you want to make a spinoff argument, go ahead -- but please make a
correct, honest spinoff argument, weighing each of the plausible hypotheses.

=====================

If you make the spinoff argument carefully, I suspect that you will
conclude that the Apollo project was _not_ justifiable in terms of spinoffs.

To understand why the Apollo project was funded ahead of other, more
utilitarian endeavors, I suspect you will have to account for "national
prestige".  That may seem silly in retrospect, and some people thought it
was silly at the time, but a lot of people didn't.

When a gorilla hoots and beats his chest, he doesn't bother to justify it
in terms of spinoffs.  He does it to intimidate the rival gorillas.  That
may not be the world's most noble reason, but it is a perfectly real and
understandable reason.