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Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

latimes.com

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Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#341

Post by Ajedi32 »

neaden wrote: post #330
Ajedi32 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. That's not remotely how this works. By this logic, wars are actually free since the money spent goes to defense contractors who use it to buy things and hire employees. We can have an unlimited military budget with no negative repercussions! As the sibling commenter pointed out, you…

The broken windows parable is about causing destruction and then repairing it, which thankfully isn't what NASA is doing. If you read your Wikipedia link you would see that this was never meant to apply to all government spending. To help you avoid this in the future, read the links before you try to correct people.

The fallacy is thinking all money spent "goes right back into the economy" and ignoring opportunity costs. If you pay people to break windows and then repair them, that money "goes right back into the economy" but it's still a net negative.

Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI, since the money they spend is obtained by force, not by voluntary transactions.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#342

Post by leptons »

Loughla wrote: post #334
leptons wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I literally didn't say any of that. Don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying they're all old. Their incentives are wildly different than mine because they're older than I am.

[flagged]

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#343

Post by marcusverus »

angrysaki wrote: post #340
marcusverus wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chicago spent $300 Million on freebies for migrants.[0] The mayor of NYC saying that the migrant crisis "will destroy New York City".[1] 1/3 of polled schools said that the influx of ESL migrant children had had a "significant" impact on their school districts, taking resources and attention away from American schoolkids.[2] 77% of Americans considered the border situation to be either a "Crisis" or a "Major Problem"…

So apart from some 300 million number, it's just all vibes? Here I was expecting data about how all these illegal immigrants are causing crimes everywhere at higher rates than americans, or how many cats and dogs they've eaten but I guess there's no actual evidence of a crisis.

[flagged]

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#344

Post by hackyhacky »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #333
biophysboy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very long and expensive path from basic research IP to a profitable drug. Private pharma companies already bear the risk of the drug development pipeline, which has a very low probability of success and takes many years. Adding fundamental research to that pipeline would make these companies a riskier investment.

This article is about NASA, and the existence of a large and successful pharmaceutical company industry proves that when there is a public good to be achieved, there is private funding for the research. The OP asked for an answer, and the fallacy I’m trying to point out is this assumption that “all” research is generally worthwhile. And I don’t mean just that there are exceptions, but swaths of topics and institution…

No one said that all research is of value. The problem with basic research is that you don't know whether it will be of value untill you do the research. All research is potentially of value. The risk of such research is why the government has historically supported it and why so many world-changing ideas come out of gov research programs.

Private investment is risk-averse: they will support reliable short term gains over dubious long term breakthroughs. That's fine, but history has shown it's not the best way.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#345

Post by bryanlarsen »

deadbabe wrote: post #331
bryanlarsen wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a good summary of the Trump administration -- fund the high profile, low bang for buck projects and cut the boring high bang for buck projects.

Putting people on a moon isn’t low bang for the buck IMO.

> $200B to put a man on the moon vs < $100M to put a robot on the moon.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#346

Post by biophysboy »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #333
biophysboy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very long and expensive path from basic research IP to a profitable drug. Private pharma companies already bear the risk of the drug development pipeline, which has a very low probability of success and takes many years. Adding fundamental research to that pipeline would make these companies a riskier investment.

This article is about NASA, and the existence of a large and successful pharmaceutical company industry proves that when there is a public good to be achieved, there is private funding for the research. The OP asked for an answer, and the fallacy I’m trying to point out is this assumption that “all” research is generally worthwhile. And I don’t mean just that there are exceptions, but swaths of topics and institution…

Apologies for the tangents away from NASA - I was just replying to one of the parent comments that mentioned medical research

I don't think all research is worthwhile; I think grant proposals should get shot down if the lab/idea isn't up to snuff.

I'm happy for companies to do R&D! There's lot of examples over the years (Bell labs, Google, etc). I just don't think it makes sense in high risk situations with long reward lag times. The exceptions will be the really, really big companies flush with cash, which has its own issues.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#347

Post by trust_bt_verify »

rockemsockem wrote: post #335
trust_bt_verify wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So private contractors are unreliable for a variety of reasons? We should get all of this private bloat out of the government.

What are things the government has actually built themselves without private contracts?

What are some private contracts which do not contain the bloat of private profit?

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#348

Post by bumby »

rockemsockem wrote: post #339
bumby wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, not so much. They have reviews, but it is a much more hands off approach. * There were instances where NASA engineers brought up issues with designs and were told it wasn’t their role to drive the design. The concept of CCP was they were buying a ride, not a rocket. Just like you don’t tell Airbus what engine they should use when you buy a plane ticket. * IMO the goal of CCP was to find a mechanism to informally…

Right, reviews, where important design concerns can be raised. IDK what specific design concerns you're referring to, but just because an issue is raised doesn't mean it's a real issue. Again, you don't want two different organizations trying to design one thing.

You missed the part where NASA engineers were told to pipe down about concerns because it wasn’t their place to drive the design. There were numerous, the ones I’m familiar with involved touch screens in cockpits and the amount of reliability needed in safety critical hardware.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#349

Post by supplied_demand »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #327
neaden wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. Even money to pay down debt isn't removed from the economy since the majority of that debt is held by US citizens who use that money to buy things.

> Tax money isn't drained out of the economy. The money used for NASA goes right back into the economy, since they use it to buy things. That's not remotely how this works. By this logic, wars are actually free since the money spent goes to defense contractors who use it to buy things and hire employees. We can have an unlimited military budget with no negative repercussions! As the sibling commenter pointed out, you…

The broken windows fallacy isn’t about government spending. The parable never mentions governments or taxes, you have added that piece. Voluntary economic transactions don’t have a positive ROI by virtue of being voluntary. People and companies engage in negative ROI activities all the time.

Re: Trump's NASA cuts would destroy decades of science and wipe out its future

#350

Post by supplied_demand »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #341
neaden wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The broken windows parable is about causing destruction and then repairing it, which thankfully isn't what NASA is doing. If you read your Wikipedia link you would see that this was never meant to apply to all government spending. To help you avoid this in the future, read the links before you try to correct people.

The fallacy is thinking all money spent "goes right back into the economy" and ignoring opportunity costs. If you pay people to break windows and then repair them, that money "goes right back into the economy" but it's still a net negative. Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI, since the money they spend is obtained by force, not by voluntary transactions.

==Government has no mechanism to ensure the money it spends is on things that have a positive ROI==

Sure they do, elections.

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