Re:Apollo 13 enhanced images reveal life on stricken spacecraft
by ben_w on Tuesday April 14, 2020 @05:35AM
(#22864112)
Entertainment is a public benefit.
Personally, I get nothing from spectator sports, “the great” artists, Shakespeare, opera, nor the majority [0] of musicians.
But public funding for soccer or baseball or the Olympics, renaissance art galleries, theatre, and music… these things make most people happy. I don’t empathise with the emotional responses of their respective audiences, but I can acknowledge that to the average Joe, a football is much more than a plastic substitute for an inflated pig bladder. I assume it’s exciting to them in the same way that seeing Chris Hadfield singing in actual space is to me.
I don’t get why government funds these things, at least not at a visceral gut level, but the fact that they fund these things indicates that the public has a decent level of support for public funding of entertainment.
Personally, I get nothing from spectator sports, “the great” artists, Shakespeare, opera, nor the majority [0] of musicians.
But public funding for soccer or baseball or the Olympics, renaissance art galleries, theatre, and music… these things make most people happy. I don’t empathise with the emotional responses of their respective audiences, but I can acknowledge that to the average Joe, a football is much more than a plastic substitute for an inflated pig bladder. I assume it’s exciting to them in the same way that seeing Chris Hadfield singing in actual space is to me.
I don’t get why government funds these things, at least not at a visceral gut level, but the fact that they fund these things indicates that the public has a decent level of support for public funding of entertainment.
[0] with the occasional exception.