>People realized that was idiotic?

This

>Don't celebrate that someone accidentally did something worthwhile for a terrible reason.

Doesn't track with this.

>Target your efforts at doing things that are worthwhile, not at doing things that are hard.

I think you're missing nuance.

I say, condemn those who lazily do the easiest jobs that don't interrupt their sleep at night.

Rather, we should all be trying to make the greatest positive impact within 40 hours of work a week. Those who do more are being taken advantage of one way or a dozen. Those who do less are taking advantage.

By setting a floor and a ceiling we limit abuses on both sides and,hopefully,better distribute labor.

Also,doing things that are hard for the sheer sake of it is not idiotic. It can be a positive characteristic, just like avoiding difficulty is a negative one.

Like others have said, I think you're missing the point. In the past we've done something specifically because it was hard (going to the moon) but it would be a controversial statement to say it was done accidentally or for a terrible reason. For example, the state of computer science wouldn't be nearly where it is if it wasn't for going to the moon specifically because it was hard.

> In the past we've done something specifically because it was hard (going to the moon) but it would be a controversial statement to say it was done accidentally or for a terrible reason.

I don't think it would be especially controversial to say it was done for a terrible reason. We didn't do that specifically because it was hard; those are just words from JFK's speech. We did that because the Soviet Union had beaten us to putting a man (and a satellite) in orbit, and we thought it was crucially important to beat them to something related.

And in the resulting flurry of science that came from JFK's speech, we got many amazing and good things. The easy thing to do is say "space doesn't matter" like many countries have chosen to do. We did it even knowing it was hard, because the benefits outweighed the difficulty.

What is "terrible" about advancing science and putting humans in space?

> What is "terrible" about advancing science and putting humans in space?

Neither of those was a reason for the project.

The real reason were not terrible either, neither were they accidental.

Yes, the real reason was in fact terrible. Doing something because you feel pressured to win a race against another country is a really bad reason to do that thing.