Re: the value of science

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

> At 10:01 AM -0800 3/2/00, Jim Green wrote:
>
> > I don't know about the Laboratories -- There appears to be mixed reviews --
> > But no one else has the power to take our money and spend it on the likes
> > of the Hubble Telescope --a project of great interest for astronomers and
> > cosmologists but of absolutely no value to the people who provided the
> > money.  I wish I had my money back.  Let the feds solicit donations.  OR to
> > spend the money on nuclear weapon research.  This was good -- sort of.
>
> While I doubt that three people on this list would agree with you, I will
> offer to send you an amount equivalent to your share in the Hubble Space
> Telescope. How much are you into it for? Many people would consider it
> worthwhile for entertainment value alone (and noble entertainment it is,
> in my opinion). HST is certainly worth a few E tickets, even setting aside
> the tremendous scientific value of this once uniquely capable facility.
>
> One of our sons will soon move to Los Alamos National Laboratory where he
> will be engaged in pure science. I hope it gives you some comfort that
> this laboratory also does weapons research. For my part I would love to
> have back all the money I paid the US Government for DOD waste. I expect
> that is of a different order of magnitude than the HST bill. Describing
> weapons reasearch in a time of relative security as "good -- sort of" is,
> in my opinion, slightly monstrous.
>
> You really gored my herd that time, Jim.
>
> Leigh

I'm with you on this one, Leigh (at least about HST) If Jim will tell
us what his share of HST is, I'll split the cost of reimbursing him
with you. And I'll bet it comes to less than US$20 each.

Of course, Jim's whole premise in this thread is totally contrary to
the way any government must be run. If we all could pick and choose
the programs we sent our tax dollars to, the end result is that
nothing would be done. Lots of my tax dollars are spent on things I
abhor (big business subsidies, for instance, or S&L bailouts that got
some of the Bush shrubs out of a bit of hot water), but other things
that I support. Clearly the things I support and the things Jim
supports don't have a very big overlap. If we want the government to
only spend on the things we approve of, we have to elect
representatives who will follow those wishes. Since we are diverse
(pair of) nations, it is unlikely that we will ever get a budget that
only has items in it that everyone supports. But we must pay our
taxes to cover them all, whether we like them all or not. The
alternative is chaos.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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