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Is Science As Important As Football?

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Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#31

Post by kiba »

jacoblyles wrote: post #21
alexgartrell wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the point of view of the average taxpayer, deliverables on space missions are too few and far between. When you build an arena (even for non mainstream sport), you make money off of taxing the Franchise, but more substantially off of the local businesses that opened up to serve the fans of the team. Over priced beer, food, and jerseys can make a lot of money if there's a well-liked team behind it all. Plus, peop…

There is an eternal tension between elite opinion's love for democracy and its distaste for the tastes of the common man. (We, on the right side of the education and income bell curves, qualify as "elites").

I have a distaste for democracy but not for the common man. As far as I am concerned, democracy is mob rules at best and two wolves and one sheep deciding what to eat for dinner at worst.

As for the common man, I don't give a damn if joe sixpack watch football games rather than conduct scientific experiments.

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#32

Post by trominos »

noonespecial wrote: post #28
ajross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to spoil your rant by throwing numbers on it, but unfortunately that doesn't add up. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis is (I think) the newest stadium in the NFL. Wikipedia tells me that the cost to taxpayers was $620 million. Let's say that the average stadium lasts 20 years, and note that there are 4 major sports leagues in the US with about 30 teams each, so that an average of 6 such arenas that must…

I needled the stadiums because they were an easy target. Its more of a philosophic rant stemming from a disappointment in overall resource allocation. We spend so many trillions on entertainment like football. We use our land, our human capital, our tv transmitters, our precious time... on giant zero-sum distractions . Our heroes play games . Space flight is life . Will the last humans have to admit that we didn't ma…

"Distractions"?

Distractions from what?

You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of years to fill up with "distractions", and then you die.

You may not appreciate sports, but they bring joy to millions of people -- probably to many millions more than NASA does, and in a greater capacity. Denigrating that is extraordinarily narrow-minded.

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#33

Post by rms »

trominos wrote: post #32
noonespecial wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I needled the stadiums because they were an easy target. Its more of a philosophic rant stemming from a disappointment in overall resource allocation. We spend so many trillions on entertainment like football. We use our land, our human capital, our tv transmitters, our precious time... on giant zero-sum distractions . Our heroes play games . Space flight is life . Will the last humans have to admit that we didn't ma…

"Distractions"? Distractions from what? You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of years to fill up with "distractions", and then you die. You may not appreciate sports, but they bring joy to millions of people -- probably to many millions more than NASA does, and in…

>There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe.

I disagree. There are distinct levels: Type 0, 1, 2, 3 and beyond if we're not limited to the universe at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#34

Post by bokonist »

Retric wrote: post #10
crescendo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Football is a very important pastime to a lot of people. Just playing devil's advocate here: can you name one reason why those NASA programs are more important than the football arena, without making reference to your own subjective value system which would be at odds with that of the ardent football fan's?

Football can and would exist without subsidies. Spending public funds to support private industry is a bad economic decision. Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate. “debating gladiator reform while Rome burns…”

Funding space travel on the other hand is something that would not exist without public funds. So it's outside of the effecency debate.

If activity X is to matter in people's lives, it needs to be scalable. To be scalable it needs to be profitable. Since the U.S. government does not operate on a profit motive, the spending on the space program will have as little long term impact as the Zheng He fleets. You should read this article: http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-succeed-or-f...

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#35

Post by whughes »

noonespecial wrote: post #28
ajross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to spoil your rant by throwing numbers on it, but unfortunately that doesn't add up. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis is (I think) the newest stadium in the NFL. Wikipedia tells me that the cost to taxpayers was $620 million. Let's say that the average stadium lasts 20 years, and note that there are 4 major sports leagues in the US with about 30 teams each, so that an average of 6 such arenas that must…

I needled the stadiums because they were an easy target. Its more of a philosophic rant stemming from a disappointment in overall resource allocation. We spend so many trillions on entertainment like football. We use our land, our human capital, our tv transmitters, our precious time... on giant zero-sum distractions . Our heroes play games . Space flight is life . Will the last humans have to admit that we didn't ma…

Our heroes have always played games, but the games before were wars. It got us this far. You're not merely looking at a problem with our society and culture; you are looking at a universal aspect of human nature.

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#36

Post by whughes »

kiba wrote: post #31
jacoblyles wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an eternal tension between elite opinion's love for democracy and its distaste for the tastes of the common man. (We, on the right side of the education and income bell curves, qualify as "elites").

I have a distaste for democracy but not for the common man. As far as I am concerned, democracy is mob rules at best and two wolves and one sheep deciding what to eat for dinner at worst. As for the common man, I don't give a damn if joe sixpack watch football games rather than conduct scientific experiments.

The common man's opinions determine the elections, though. It's the common man's money that funds NASA and provides grants to researchers. Whether you care or not, the common man is a powerful force in determining the future.

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#37

Post by trominos »

rms wrote: post #33
trominos wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Distractions"? Distractions from what? You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of years to fill up with "distractions", and then you die. You may not appreciate sports, but they bring joy to millions of people -- probably to many millions more than NASA does, and in…

>There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. I disagree. There are distinct levels: Type 0, 1, 2, 3 and beyond if we're not limited to the universe at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

So you're saying that there is some fundamental, a priori reason for humanity to aspire to a higher level on this scale than it currently occupies?

What?

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#38

Post by pj »

trominos wrote: post #32
noonespecial wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I needled the stadiums because they were an easy target. Its more of a philosophic rant stemming from a disappointment in overall resource allocation. We spend so many trillions on entertainment like football. We use our land, our human capital, our tv transmitters, our precious time... on giant zero-sum distractions . Our heroes play games . Space flight is life . Will the last humans have to admit that we didn't ma…

"Distractions"? Distractions from what? You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of years to fill up with "distractions", and then you die. You may not appreciate sports, but they bring joy to millions of people -- probably to many millions more than NASA does, and in…

I think the goal would be to find a way to bring similar joy to millions that has a lasting positive effect, rather than two hours of entertainment.

I'm not denying that millions are entertained by sports, but it isn't "work" in the sense that work = force * distance. Distance in sports is zero, so it's a lot of force, but nothing comes of it. It doesn't go anywhere.

There are lots of joyful things, entertaining things, that actually move society and life in a positive direction. We need to spend more time celebrating those things and the heros of science and math for our kids.

If parents celebrated winners of the science olympiad as much as they celebrate michael phelps, then the world would be a very different place.

I think part of the difference is that with sports, you can see that it takes a lot of energy to train to win a swim match, but you can't see the energy expended to win a science competition. Intelligence is something we believe you either have or do not have regardless of the amount of training, but that's just not true.

It takes a lot of work and training and accomplishment to be a great scientist, just like it takes a lot of work and training and accomplishment to be a great athlete.

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#39

Post by pj »

jerf wrote: post #27
aaronblohowiak wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also added infrastructure cost, police cost and more. But you're right that the football budget is less than the Space budget. But why is ANY public money being spent on personal entertainment when it could be spent on progress? another 4 billion a year could pay for a lot of research and scholarships.

The government doesn't give all of its money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spends money on entertainment for the same reason you don't give all your money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spend some money (including time) on entertainment. The only way that could happen is if we, as a species, could somehow dedicate all of our time to "worthy pursuits", but we can't. We need downt…

According to The Brookings Institution, "a new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues.

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/9474/No_85_Sports...

Re: Is Science As Important As Football?

#40

Post by pj »

trominos wrote: post #37
rms wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. I disagree. There are distinct levels: Type 0, 1, 2, 3 and beyond if we're not limited to the universe at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

So you're saying that there is some fundamental, a priori reason for humanity to aspire to a higher level on this scale than it currently occupies? What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

In the old days, it was the quest to expand the U.S. from the atlantic to the pacific, but the pacific wasn't quite far enough. Now we must expand into the farthest reaches of space.

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