Re:Stop building dumb stuff
by pbiggar on Sunday October 21, 2012 @04:51PM
(#4680790)
"If you want to build cheap rockets to space, do it"
This is a particularly good example. People have argued that money spent on a space program is essentially thrown away, when it could have been spent on fixing poverty. But the space program led to a huge number of advancement from telling us about the North Korean famine, to making little lasers that kill mosquitoes, to better refrigeration, to mobile phones currently providing communication in infrastructure-poor areas of Africa.
This is a particularly good example. People have argued that money spent on a space program is essentially thrown away, when it could have been spent on fixing poverty. But the space program led to a huge number of advancement from telling us about the North Korean famine, to making little lasers that kill mosquitoes, to better refrigeration, to mobile phones currently providing communication in infrastructure-poor areas of Africa.