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Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#141

Post by vl »

XorNot wrote: post #137
vl wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think about it, then it’s clear that in free society healthcare will capture all excess money. Essentially you can spend unlimited money on life extension, and people are genetically pre-disposed to fear death. There are some nuances, but essentially healthcare is only going to grow and will continue to be and become overly-dominant sector of US economy. Ironically, if it’s de-regulated, it will capture excess…

And this children is why you should go bankrupt if you get appendicitis... Every other developed country on Earth gets more down while spending half as much per person. Your system is just corrupt garbage.

To your first point: it’s not true in US healthcare.

To your second point: US has very low interest rates, money are cheap, nobody wants to work, thus services are expensive.

To your third point: system is not corrupt, but over-regulated garbage.

To your general sentiment: my point is not related to the actual cost of services.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#142

Post by wastedhours »

_8j50 wrote: post #78
alex_young wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly because it’s not a zero sum game. Yes it’s more achievable to build a pod on the antarctic (we’ve done that) or the ocean floor, but we should also see what we can do outside of our bubble. I personally think Venus cloud stations are a better target, but why not try them all? We learn great things and enable wonderful tech like the internet and GPS when we do huge projects like this, so why not?

Why not? Because trillions and trillions of dollars. Even $2T is barely enough to feed america for a few months and it is barely afforded. My point also ws that it's not zero-sum. As in, "we" don't need to colonize mars,but I see no problem in doing so as long as it isn't done by sacrificing people's lives on earth.

But there's also a difference between $2T dollars invested over a long time horizon, dripping out of the collective budget of (hopefully) more than one country and spending it in one chunk across the whole of society.

Again, a lot of it is forward planning - extra resources, hedging against future threats etc. I'd rather they start active planning in case we have to, rather than waiting until it's almost too late (like we have with some issues on Earth as it stands).

Balancing investment at the expense of present day spending is a standard knife-edge for governments around the world. It's a sucky balance to have to strike though.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#143

Post by XorNot »

vl wrote: post #141
XorNot wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this children is why you should go bankrupt if you get appendicitis... Every other developed country on Earth gets more down while spending half as much per person. Your system is just corrupt garbage.

To your first point: it’s not true in US healthcare. To your second point: US has very low interest rates, money are cheap, nobody wants to work, thus services are expensive. To your third point: system is not corrupt, but over-regulated garbage. To your general sentiment: my point is not related to the actual cost of services.

Your point is being made as though it's relevant to a healthcare system that exists today anywhere on the planet. It isn't.

It especially isn't related to the US healthcare system, which again, costs the US government - not the US consumer who pays astronomically more then any other developed nation - about twice as much per capita as other developed nations, while providing less services to the public.

Whether or not healthcare might consume all the remaining spending is irrelevant when your system manages to be twice as expensive per capita while excluding tens of millions of people from any coverage at all.

An emergency appendectomy - life saving surgery - costs $15,000[1] unless you manage to find a surgeon who's in your healthcare network, available right then, and you also don't get unlucky enough that anyone in that operating theatre while you're unconscious is also in your healthcare network.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-health-care-indu...

Your system is corrupt garbage.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#144

Post by TeMPOraL »

RobertoG wrote: post #140
TeMPOraL wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this take, I'd still prefer the Empire to the Rebels. Star Wars tells its story through the lens of the Rebel propaganda.

I think the GP is talking about Dune instead of Star Wars. We all know what 'the spice' is.

The poster above literally mentioned the Death Star, so unless there's something like this in Dune I don't know about...

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#145

Post by wrboyce »

waheoo wrote: post #55
russli1993 wrote: post #53

all the money on military, and not in investing in healthcare, improve public health responses, increasing financial reward for the front line workers that are sacrificing themselves for the greater society. In my opinion, this is sad. I would rather have this money being written as a check to every nurses and doctors served in COVID19.

I dont disagree that we spend too much on defense but the idea that we should stop all spending on science to help out some nurses is super strange. Its akin to saying we should stop funding nasa be ause who needs space travel. Also please stop glorifying a set profession as some kind of ulturistic calling. Theyre in it for the money and prestige, and frankly, wouldnt be there otherwise. If you want to thank someone,…

Many of my in-laws are medical professionals: GPs, surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, nurses, the list goes on.

Not a single one of them has done it for financial gain or prestige, and for the most part the driving force really does seem to be a genuine desire to help people. (I’m based in the UK, going into medicine for money or prestige would be a fool’s errand.)

Please don’t make assumptions about things with which you are clearly unfamiliar, and if you must do so please do not assert them as facts.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#146

Post by iso1631 »

eecc wrote: post #119
justinator wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess, but ISIS still seems to be a thing. Or in geek-speak. We have the Death Star, as we are the Empire. The Empire still lost.

Yup, and it’s so ironic that the Rebel heroes are a ragtag collection of desert-dwellers led by warrior priests of a religious sect.

Don't forget the brainwashing of a teenager they send on a suicide mission against the authorities

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#147

Post by buckminstrix »

zipwitch wrote: post #89
noch wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] military supremacy and having the best weapons in the world is a huge part of why the dollar is THE global currency. However, in "How the United States Could Lose a Great-Power War" (RAND, 2019)[0], we read: > [...] For now, U.S. forces appear poorly postured to meet these challenges. That's because both Russia and China have developed formidable networks of missiles, radars, electronic warfare systems, and t…

This is a farce. The United States is done fighting Great Power wars. No one talks about it publicly at all because doing so would shatter America's self-image as the Lone Superpower. The military the United States has now is quite capable of wrecking any nation that is not another Great Power. I say wrecking and not defeating, because as should be obvious from the last three decades, the United States has zero inter…

Maybe the money is going to the secret space program. And one of the duties of the regular public military and security industry is to be a front.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#148

Post by buckminstrix »

kristopolous wrote: post #139
shockinglytrue wrote: post #3

The press around the X-37B continues to perplex, it's particularly disappointing to see this "super secret but let's talk about it constantly" article using the word "very" 3 times. I think it was drilled into me by the age of 12 to avoid "very" in written English in order not to obviously oversell, and yet here it is from a professional writer working for the BBC

I always assumed there's a chosen public facing secret plane with some PR management to represent the secret program in general and there's numerous other behind the scenes secret crafts without the PR. I also assumed many of the silly rumors of antigravity or whatever planes are intentionally manufactured as part of the PR so if some information of an actual plane leaks it'll be buried with the noise. This way, the…

This is how disinformation could work. Also, disinformation existing does not prove that UFOs/antigravity craft are just silly rumours.

Re: Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches

#150

Post by iso1631 »

groby_b wrote: post #91
jseliger wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Schools hold bake sales to buy supplies https://www.epi.org/publication/books_wheremoneygone/ : "With appropriate inflation adjustment, it appears that total real education spending per pupil increased by 61% from 1967 to 1991." And that's from 1995. Real expenditures have grown enormously in the last four decades, and the results are to be left as an exercise to the reader.

Spending since then has only increased ~20%, though. [1] That is not adjusted for inflation, which since 1996 was an impressive 67.58%. [1] https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending

AS a portion of GDP, US K-12 education spending

  2000: 3.7%
  2005: 3.8%
  2009: 4.0%
  2012: 3.6%
  2015: 3.5%
https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/education-spending.htm

France and UK spend more in the G7, Canada, Germany, Italy and Japan spend less.

US defense spending

  2000: 3.0%
  2005: 3.9%
  2009: 4.6%
  2012: 4.2%
  2015: 3.3%
https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm

I was surprised to be honest. US spending on defense is way down on most of the 70s and 80s (6%ish, lowest was 78 with 4.9%)

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