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A comment on MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion reactor. Parent comment

Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by rando289 on Sunday June 08, 2014 @02:37PM (#7865429)
> Name me one field of human endeavor

Tons of stuff. I'd rather politics axe "workings of the universe" than vaccinations and disease control.

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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by nitrogen on Sunday June 08, 2014 @04:28PM (#7865793)
I'd rather fund all of those things a thousand times over just by cutting a small fraction of funding to the world's militaries.
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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by rtpg on Sunday June 08, 2014 @09:26PM (#7866587)
You seem to underestimate the cost of a lot of science (not to mention that more money doesn't necessarily mean we'll get more results, maybe just the same result duplicated).

The ISS is the most expensive structure ever built, after all.

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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by tobinfricke on Sunday June 08, 2014 @09:40PM (#7866608)
The ISS is perhaps "the exception that proves the rule": its political value is vastly greater than its scientific value.
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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by wdr1 on Sunday June 08, 2014 @09:42PM (#7866614)
That's absurd. The majority of budget isn't the military.
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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by nitrogen on Monday June 09, 2014 @01:00AM (#7867106)
Welfare and social program expenditures could also be significantly reduced by reducing the cost of curing and preventing disease.
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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by maaku on Sunday June 08, 2014 @03:55PM (#7865678)
Vaccinations (medical science) and disease control / pandemic response are not as divorced from "workings of the universe" as I think you think they are...
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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by jacquesm on Sunday June 08, 2014 @05:30PM (#7865985)
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/11/cia-fake-vaccin...

Even vaccinations are used for other purposes than to keep people healthy. Clever, but likely to have a lot of adverse side-effects.

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Re:MIT at center of political power play over campus fusion ... by makomk on Sunday June 08, 2014 @06:39PM (#7866190)
At this point we can upgrade that from "likely" to "certain", because it has had a lot of adverse effects in terms of actually being able to vaccinate people in Pakistan.
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