IIRC Carl Sagan saw a spacecraft which had a potentially long life had it not run out of fuel. If he knew it was a Mercedes-level of money in advance, he would have raised it out of pocket.
Yeah, as non American, only indirect way I can contribute to NASA is to buy some official merch, but I would not mind throwing some $ to sustain/extend some ongoing programs operation costs.
Throwing money at government agencies is an exercise in futility. Trust us Americans, we do it every year in the form of taxes, and things aren't getting better.
It's not just a Republican talking point. The hem and haw of taxes from left to right, (just enough to keep the same two parties taking turns every election) for the past 50 years leaves both parties complicit.
Cutting taxes on a broken tax system that disproportionately taxes poor and middle class citizens does absolutely nothing positive for the vast majority of the electorate in the long term. Neither does the reciprocal raising of taxes once the other side jumps in the drivers seat.
Also, please refrain from suggesting posters are "parroting" arguments. It's an argument that doesn't really contribute anything to the discussion, and isn't in the spirit of HN guidelines.
> focus on feeding and housing our fellow countrymen, shouldn't have our money diverted to such things
This has to be parody. JWST isn’t being cut to feed and house anyone. It’s being cut to give folks like me a tax break, so I can finish renovating my deck and buying artwork, and my neighbour so he can build a ski villa in Selkirk.
That's completely and utterly irrelevant. Two wrongs don't make a right. The fact remains that it is the prevailing attitude that leads to all this spending. It's really sick how many people are happy to suck at the tit of government when it leaves so many other people in the gutter. It's sickening.
Please don't comment like this on HN. If it's an important topic, it's important to get your point across without all that rage and bile. Please take a moment to read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future, especially these ones:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Eschew flamebait.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
This is the core of the problem. Political posts should be prohibited on here, because each one of these discussions turns into political battle. It wasn't nearly this bad a decade ago. Now there is just no seeing eye to eye with anyone. It's full on "my tribe vs their tribe. My tribe better!". This place would be a lot better for everyone with a "computers or GTFO" rule.
We can't prohibit political posts here as nobody can agree where the line is between political and non-political. We tried having a politics-free week once and it led to a meltdown, and that is perhaps a lesson that the more you try and suppress something, the more it finds a way to resurge.
It's fine for political stories to be discussed here when they really do contain "significant new information" and provide a foundation for people to converse curiously. But that requires people to come here with a sincere intention to be curious and respectful and to observe the guidelines. Of course many don't, and our role as moderators is to remind people of the expectations. But as long as enough people do bring the right spirit, HN can still be a better place than elsewhere for discussing difficult topics.
Ideally yes. But if you're going to have a government with forced taxation, it should at least take care of the fucking people before it starts spending billions of dollars on non-essential activities.
> it should at least take care of the fucking people before it starts spending billions of dollars on non-essential activities
Let’s put aside that none of the current cuts have anything to do with helping the needy.
Societies that focus on subsistence subsist. Societies that focus on thriving thrive. ROI is a real thing. Just taking care of people, paradoxically, short changes those folks in the long run. The most productive thing a government can do is long-term investments. JWST—and the skilled labour that goes into it—is one such investment.
(Another is education, which unfortunately is required to understand how investing for the long run works.)
