The space launchings aren't putting food on your table.

[BADecker]

Fact is, if the moon landings were faked, then that means that the whole Space Race and the Cold War were both elaborate hoaxes. And that means in turn, that every aggressive action by both the USA and Russia against each other was also a hoax. The shit just gets exponentially more unlikely with every logical step, to the point that it becomes utterly ridiculous.

The more complicated things get, the more difficult it is to maintain them. For example, a bicycle is quite simple when compared with a car. Bicycle upkeep is a lot cheaper than a car, even if you can do a lot of things with a car that you can't with a bicycle.

The point? It is the same with math. One + 1 = 2... or does it? In real life it never does. Why not? Because there are no two things that are exactly the same. So, 1 + 1 is always 1 + 1. Now 1 + 1 = 2 flawed math works very well in simple things. But the more complex that things get, the harder it is to make the flawed math work in real life. The hoaxes get greater and greater, just like the complex machinery gets more difficult to maintain. But both of them break down.

Yeah - it's all a big conspiracy. No one went to the moon, in space, on the ISS.
It's all Photoshop. Those guys make a lot of money, that's for sure.

Suuuurrrreeee.  It was all Photoshop.  In 1968...

LOL....

Of course. It's common knowledge. Everybody knows Photoshop was invented in 1967. Jeez. Do I have to explain everything to you guys?

Everyone knows that Photoshop was invented sometime in the 1990s. NASA took Photoshop and re-did their space and moon photos with Photoshop so that everyone would think that the shots were fake. Why did they do this? 'Cause they figured that all the new generation kids would feel a lot more excited about the new moon-shot project if they thought it had never been done before.

 

[Spendulus]

...
Everyone knows that Photoshop was invented sometime in the 1990s. NASA took Photoshop and re-did their space and moon photos with Photoshop so that everyone would think that the shots were fake. Why did they do this? 'Cause they figured that all the new generation kids would feel a lot more excited about the new moon-shot project if they thought it had never been done before.

 

Even for you that's a new low.

[BADecker]

...
Everyone knows that Photoshop was invented sometime in the 1990s. NASA took Photoshop and re-did their space and moon photos with Photoshop so that everyone would think that the shots were fake. Why did they do this? 'Cause they figured that all the new generation kids would feel a lot more excited about the new moon-shot project if they thought it had never been done before.

 

Even for you that's a new low.

Well, you didn't laugh. Do you think, then, that this is plausible?

[TheGr33k]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

[Spendulus]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Let me vary your comment a bit.

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do medical research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do laser research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do semiconductor research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve automobile safety.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve crop yields.

Please explain WHY you should get to choose which of these your tax money is spent on - Please assume, for purposes of this discussion, that each of these options is impossible for you (or me) to understand without several years of training in the field.

[BADecker]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Let me vary your comment a bit.

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do medical research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do laser research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do semiconductor research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve automobile safety.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve crop yields.

Please explain WHY you should get to choose which of these your tax money is spent on - Please assume, for purposes of this discussion, that each of these options is impossible for you (or me) to understand without several years of training in the field.

Please explain why there should be tax money for anything.

When the country was a fledgling country back in the late 1700s or early 1800s, something like taxes might have been necessary. The only thing taxes do now is to let government people squander our labor.

Make all that stuff to be donations so that government learns to work within some kind of constraints - like a budget - like any other business has to.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Are you this egotistical and self-centered with this girlfriend that you're proposing to? 

To the person who said we don't need taxes anymore:  Do you pay for your own road repair?  Do you fund your own police force?  Your own fire department?  No, I didn't think so.  Your taxes pay for all of that and your view is very childish and naive.

[commandrix]

If you work for NASA, any of its contractors, or just make a living reporting on space/science stuff or running a space themed blog, guess what. It is putting food on the table. Which is why I don't buy that we should gut NASA or science programs when the U.S. military gets a vastly larger budget and their business lately is basically to kill the people that our politicians have decided are our enemy. For the price of ten F-35 planes, we could probably feed and house every homeless American for a year and we wouldn't really miss those 10 F-35s even when you argue that we need a decent military to defend ourselves against genuine foreign enemies (and yes, they do exist).

One thing I equally gripe about is the advertising industry. Some corporations have a $1 billion-plus marketing budget to tell you that you aren't pretty enough, that you don't have enough stuff, that you can look sexy while eating this sandwich. When it gets down to it, I started this Youtube channel almost strictly for the purpose of sucking some of that money away from those marketing causes and steering it into causes I support.

[Chinatsu]

Yap it leads to more questions and more expeditions.

[TheGr33k]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Let me vary your comment a bit.

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do medical research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do laser research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do semiconductor research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve automobile safety.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve crop yields.

Please explain WHY you should get to choose which of these your tax money is spent on - Please assume, for purposes of this discussion, that each of these options is impossible for you (or me) to understand without several years of training in the field.

Aren't you into Bitcoin because you don't want people taxing you? I don't mind my money being used to fund schools, help model citizens and so on but taking from me to fund nonsense is ridiculous to me.

[TheGr33k]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Are you this egotistical and self-centered with this girlfriend that you're proposing to?  

To the person who said we don't need taxes anymore:  Do you pay for your own road repair?  Do you fund your own police force?  Your own fire department?  No, I didn't think so.  Your taxes pay for all of that and your view is very childish and naive.

As if getting into the last legal form of slavery would make any man egotistical. The morning hassles, the midday arguments, the occasional digs, the cooking lessons I'm forced to take with her, the salon treatments I'm coaxed into paying for, and the thirsty annoying friends I'm suppose to "like and respect". Yes, it's definitely something to brag about. How cute of you to think this.


You're into Bitcoin because you don't want the government involved in your money. You implied it yourself in my last thread. Oh, and if it's so childish and naive, why don't you just ignore me? Mature people don't pay alleged immaturity this much attention, as they have more important tasks to attend to. You're sitting behind your PC judging random people when you could just erase them from your thoughts and just focus on something more important like paying your rent or turning your lights on. No matter what you say, people are going to be who they are. Get it together. Do something productive with your life.

Now that I've said that, I could care less if you respond as your response would be a waste of your time and mine so I'm not going to read it. I have a shit ton of paperwork I have to do so you have a great day.

[eon89]

Yeah. Some taxes are good, but not ridiculous taxes for breathing air or electrical pole space rent tax.

[eon89]

...
Everyone knows that Photoshop was invented sometime in the 1990s. NASA took Photoshop and re-did their space and moon photos with Photoshop so that everyone would think that the shots were fake. Why did they do this? 'Cause they figured that all the new generation kids would feel a lot more excited about the new moon-shot project if they thought it had never been done before.

 

Even for you that's a new low.

LOL! I almost spilled my food reading this!  Dude! If we'll ever meet you have a beer from me!

[TheGr33k]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Let me vary your comment a bit.

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do medical research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do laser research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go do semiconductor research.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve automobile safety.
I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go improve crop yields.

Please explain WHY you should get to choose which of these your tax money is spent on - Please assume, for purposes of this discussion, that each of these options is impossible for you (or me) to understand without several years of training in the field.

Please explain why there should be tax money for anything.

When the country was a fledgling country back in the late 1700s or early 1800s, something like taxes might have been necessary. The only thing taxes do now is to let government people squander our labor.

Make all that stuff to be donations so that government learns to work within some kind of constraints - like a budget - like any other business has to.

This. Thank you. Why should we kneel down to these people? They're like any other business. Surely we're not advanced like them but that doesn't mean our money should be taken away from us. We have businesses too which happen to be more practical and useful than random people shooting into space to go find "rocks", but we're not begging or stealing for our money. We're working for it. I support the wonderful things NASA has done, but this space nonsense has got to stop. Prioritize earthly issues first, and then when there's nothing left to advance or assist, you can try finding a way to live in space.

[Balthazar]

World's largest employers (workforce #)

• Dept of Defense: 3.2m
• People’s Liberation Army: 2.3m
• Walmart: 2.1m
• McDonald’s: 1.9m
• UK NHS: 1.7m

[Biomech]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

You're not involved in it. Taxation is not voluntary. It is armed robbery, period. You've no more moral responsibility for what those assholes do with it than if some crackhead jacked your car and ran somebody down. Democracy is a sick joke.

Me, I'd rather they spend it on space exploration and other sciences than on blowing up brown people who didn't care about us before the US decided it was a good idea to blow them up. There's at least a potential benefit to me from them using the loot in the sciences. In the particular instance that you're railing against, the gains are actual, real, and you're reading this on one of them.

Most of what they spend "my" taxes on is egregious, and even when it's not, it's of little or no benefit to me, nor will they consult me in how they ought to run their Empire. You are in exactly the same position, unless you're one of the less than ten thousand people who actually have a say in it.

[BADecker]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

Are you this egotistical and self-centered with this girlfriend that you're proposing to?  

To the person who said we don't need taxes anymore:  Do you pay for your own road repair?  Do you fund your own police force?  Your own fire department?  No, I didn't think so.  Your taxes pay for all of that and your view is very childish and naive.

Never heard of toll roads? Usually they are maintained far better than government tax roads.

If we want government, let's pay for government in the same way we do for everything else. And let us get a receipt for that which we paid for, so we can see what it is that we are paying for.

[BADecker]

Yeah. Some taxes are good, but not ridiculous taxes for breathing air or electrical pole space rent tax.

Taxation = fraud against us. Rather, let us buy what we need from government, all of it, with receipts to show what we paid for and got, so that we can go elsewhere for our purchases if government doesn't provide quality. Let's make government efficient through competition, while cutting out the unnecessary things.

[TheGr33k]

I just don't feel like funding random people I don't know or care about to go fly in space. That's all I'm saying. If you wanna fund that nonsense, go right ahead. Just don't involve me. Is that too much to ask, or...

You're not involved in it. Taxation is not voluntary. It is armed robbery, period. You've no more moral responsibility for what those assholes do with it than if some crackhead jacked your car and ran somebody down. Democracy is a sick joke.

Me, I'd rather they spend it on space exploration and other sciences than on blowing up brown people who didn't care about us before the US decided it was a good idea to blow them up. There's at least a potential benefit to me from them using the loot in the sciences. In the particular instance that you're railing against, the gains are actual, real, and you're reading this on one of them.

Most of what they spend "my" taxes on is egregious, and even when it's not, it's of little or no benefit to me, nor will they consult me in how they ought to run their Empire. You are in exactly the same position, unless you're one of the less than ten thousand people who actually have a say in it.

To be honest, I am fine with the government taxing my earnings to take care of wordly issues like famine, war, illness, etc. It's specific things they fund with our money is what I can't stand. For example, I give $20-$100 monthly to the American Red Cross, and that was completely voluntary. The money I give depends on how well I'm doing in my work but I still give money monthly. I also volunteer weekly at a soup kitchen. Some weeks I don't. Depends on if I have other plans but I still do what I can. I feel as though I and many others should be exempt from taxation if we have proven to actually support noble social causes. They claim that's why they tax people, but I'm sure it's just so they can fund their fabulous care-free lifestyles. Just like how they claim prostitution and selling marijuana is illegal because they don't want people getting STD's or getting addicted to pot. No. It's really illegal because they can't tax those practices.

[galdur]

Well, here´s a very useful idea for NASA to work on. This could change the world forever and nothing would be the same again