Bitcoin Space Program?

[ElectricGoat]

You keep making Straw-Man rebuttals, but whatever. I'll deal...  

This is not a straw-man, I'm saying your analogy is too vague and can be applied to obviously wrong situations, therefore it is a bad analogy. A straw-man would be pretending that you actually defend those ridiculous positions.

Not many spend 80% of their salary helping NGO, because most people don't have that much disposable income.

Most of us have much more disposable income than what we spend on funding NGOs.

There is research how to grow more food or treat disease, and there is research into the atmosphere content of Uranus. Those have the same urgency, priority and societal value only when you benefit from them personally, and/or you don't pay any taxes...

The funding for space research is much lower than the funding for more pragmatic research; this does indicate some kind of priority choice at one point. You're saying that you believe that studying Uranus has 0 urgency until we fixed urgent problems on Earth, which is a bit different.

My point is that we can wait on donating for the Uranus research until the basic needs are easily met for everyone.

My point is that, by doing that, one ensure that we will never know anything about Uranus (is there a joke somewhere here ?) because we will never meet the basic needs for everyone.

A lot of things would never have been discovered if there was no fundamental research. The problem with research is that you can't know in advance what path will be fruitful. Space programs that you would never have approved gave us GPS, improvements in hydroponics farms, in aviation safety, in firefighters breathing systems, as well as a demining device, the cochloear implant, sonar body imaging, nuclear magnetic resonance and other medical imaging technologies. Was it worthless ?

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[kiba]

My point is that, by doing that, one ensure that we will never know anything about Uranus (is there a joke somewhere here ?) because we will never meet the basic needs for everyone.

The resource spent on establishing market societies is much different than the resources spent on space exploration.

Market societies don't need resources as so much as ideas. They certainty don't need engineers as much as badass commandos dedicated to enforcing the rule of law. Those engineers would be better spent on space exploration & colonization or some other technical concerns. You're not going to throw astronomers and physicists at problems outside of their expertise do you?

Beside, once a market society takes off, like in Signapore and South Korea, EVERYTHING will change within one generation. Poverty problem solved. Of course, it's not actually that easy.

In any case, this thread is about funding space exploration project VOLUNTARY. Not through taxes and theft, but through genuine donation from the heart. We're trying to find extraterrestial life, research options for long-term survival of humanity, and so on.

These projects are very long-term but they're also very important. At least some kind of funding goes into it, no?

[kiba]

Your English seems fine to me!

We already know though, how to produce clean water and food efficiently. Some areas just don't have the money to buy the equipment, or don't have political stability, or whatever...

That's where charity can be useful, not on some nebulous space research...

FOR THE LOVE OF ERIS, we already have those charities. But they aren't doing a damn thing about political instabilities and corruption. If they did, than the whole of Africa would be rising out of poverty within a generation.

(Actually they kinda are, with the advent of cheap smartphone and new technologies)

[em3rgentOrdr]

So, how many of you would donate bitcoin on a regular basis to sustain a space agency?

I'm guessing that this would be a very very very small space agency...possibly only serving mice or mini-robots/computers?    Keep in mind the entire value of all bitcoins in existence is only on the order of a million dollars.

[ElectricGoat]

If you even call rhetorical questions strawmen, this is my cue to stop debating. But I'm glad to see that you agree with the benefits of space research.

[kiba]

The internet and television, BTW, were not invented through research donations. And most medical research would choke, if it relied on donations. Most of that was and is done at taxpayer expense - both fundamental research and capstone research for corporate profit...

Yes, let coerce individuals at gunpoint to spend money on medical research projects for the GOOD of humanity. That sound nice doesn't it.

But of course, all those things ARE UNSEEN. We don't know what kind of technology might emerge if the US doesn't "invent" the internet, which by the way, required entrepreneurs to make the internet USEFUL.

Right you are, and we spend the rest of that on bigger and bigger SUV's, 100$ baseball tickets, wall-size plasma screens, etc.   My point in this thread is not that,  but rather that we should not send donations into outer space for some pie-in-the-sky reasons, when we can't even pay for the basic societal necessities today, right in the next neighborhood...

With all due respect, they spend their OWN MONEY. You might hate me for spending my money on manga, good science fiction shows, and so on. But so what? All I am arguing is that the space program needs some modicum of funding. This is not about some nebulous "researching Uranus" that have little impact on our lives.

This is about knowledge, the fate of humanity as a whole, and the ability to control our own destiny.

Asteroid impact resulting in extinction level event is a very low probability but it doesn't mean it won't happen. There WILL BE smaller asteroid that will cause devastating damage to cities. It may happen once in a century. It may happen once in a thousand years. But there will be TONS of lives lost ESPECIALLY if it hit a city.

Your basic needs are met, and so are those of millions, or even billions of others. Then needs off the rest can also be met, IF we don't squander our limited resources on constant war, standing armies, endless corporate welfare, space programs, the list goes on and on...

No, stop wasting money on government! Stop voting! And stop believing that you're not in control of your own government, because technically YOU ARE.

You can vote. You can throw out elected officials. You believe in this fairy tale called Democracy Make Good Government(TM).

[kiba]

No!    Not to me! I think it's voluntary corporate welfare. If corporations that profit from it all need fundamental research in a given area, let them do it themselves, not at taxpayer or charity expense...

If it's ok that we will never be able to meet the essential needs of everyone, then it's ok with me if we don't explore the outer space either...

This is about a charity operated space agency, not let secretly funnel money to some corporations charity.

And for the record, the research are meant to benefit humanity, not Keep the Benefit Away From EVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVIL Corporation motive.

[ElectricGoat]

Keep cool, kiba, he never said anything about forbidding your spending on space research, he just disapproved

[ElectricGoat]

I do benefit from every invention I mentionned, except the demining device. Therefore I do see an incentive to push for more research, even without taking into account my belief that space is worthy by itself.

(sorry for not answering fully, posting from a phone)

[kiba]

So, it has 0 priority for charity donations, imho, compared to issues that have no other funding sources...

No, that's absolutely a bunch of bull, as disproved by at least 100,000 members in the Planetary Society.

Some of us think space is important and we choose to say so with our money.

[ElectricGoat]

This went off topic but, kiba, do you have something specific in mind for funding a space program   with bitcoins ?

[kiba]

This went off topic but, kiba, do you have something specific in mind for funding a space program   with bitcoins ?

Not really. It was just a hypothetical question.

There are several programs that might be useful:

1. Figure out low-cost method of clearing space junks in LEO. If possible, this can be spinned off as a company ala Mozilla Corporation. The money it make from clearing LEO could be used to fund other space exploration & colonization projects.

2. Figure out how to build a self-replicating autonomous space station. This could paves the way for self-maintaining space colony.

3. Mass-produced space probes. Let face it, scientific missions should be made cheap.

[kiba]

If so, as you know, for-profit corporations are wealth-building instruments ONLY! From their historical beginnings and nature, they don't turn a cam "to benefit humanity." They are only concerned with the bottom line. That's their legal obligation to their investors...

Corporations ARE creature of the state. So they're made that "way". Doesn't mean it will operate the same for a bitcoin corporations or future corporations.

We want cheap method of exploration and colonization not corporation hogging on charities. If the charity needs to do so, one of their mission will be to create more cost-effective way of exploring space.

Otherwise corporations will be left to their own device in making it cost effective for us to explore and colonize space.

[Bitbird]

Very interesting! Space program should be open source for public.

[TheBitMan]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34922.0

 Space program is up!