Do NOT beam me up, thanks.
It’s no secret among friends that I think Space is unnecessary and overrated.
I get using the stars for horoscopes and celestial navigation, both very practical uses for gigantic balls of fire a gazillion light years away… but really? How is space affecting my life? Answer? It’s not.
It’s time to face the facts people, our imagination minds are much bigger than our science minds and just because we hope and wish and dream of flying cars and moon vacations, does not, at all, mean they’re going to happen. Remember the last (and only) time we went to the moon? Of course you don’t because nobody reading this was born before 1966 (because you’d have to be at least 3 to have any actual memories of the 1969 landing). And remember how since then we’ve been going back every couple of years building condos and command stations where LL Cool J makes omelets and everyone kind of ignores how awkward it is not to have all that gravity? No! Because nobody has EVER been back! And then there are the people who like to talk about how the computers used to get the the moon were less powerful than today’s desktops!! Well then why haven’t we been back?*
I’ll tell you why! Because it’s expensive. You know what’s similarly expensive?
The Large Hadron Collider… After the jump I discuss why we should be spending our money elsewhere…
HALT!
AS I WAS WRITING THIS!
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/18/hadron.collider.transformer.breaks.ap/index.html
According to CNN part of the Hadron Collider is BROKEN! Already! So once they fix this new problem and spend another howevermany billions of dollars THEN they’ll finally get around to conducting their experiments and finding out that when you smash an atom a billion billion times and punch it in the face and kick it once, THEN it kind of creates a dust that when done another gazillion times MAY have been how the earth was created!! But they they’re not really sure, and they have to do more experiments and in 100 years maybe they’ll be ONE step closer to figuring everything out…
But not really, and we’ll never really know. I don’t mean to knock science or snuff out any dreams of saving the planet Ender style, but there are more important things happening here, in our city, in America, on the planet.
There are people starving, there’s a huge global AIDS crisis, millions of lives could be saved in Africa a year just by buying mosquito nets to prevent Malaria, I bet they don’t cost 6.4 billion euros, not to mention that the earth is literally melting under our feet…
I just think that maybe living in a peaceful society being blissfully ignorant to the secrets of a universe that we’re never going to figure out ever… that sounds ok to me! Feed the children, use science to cure diseases and grow more corn, but hate to burst your bubble, Leroy Jetson, you’re never going to going back to the moon.
http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com
*did we really go? discuss.
Points of Order:
1) “nobody reading this was born before 1972 (because you’d have to be at least 3 to have any actual memories of the 1969 landing)”
I am pretty sure you got your math backwards here.
2) “command stations where LL Cool J makes omelets”
Dr. Klien, you and I both know that LL Cool J was never in space, and that you are probably referring to his memorable turn in Deep Blue Sea, which illustrated one point we can all agree on: Science should never make a smarter shark.
Other than that, I applaud you for kneeing science (and Outer Space!) in the balls. But keep in mind, Europe is the one forking 90% of the bill for the LHC, so I say let ‘em keep doing their thing while they are (relatively) super-rich. And sure, theoretical physics should not be our top priority right now, but compared to the military budget, $6.5 billion is a pitance.
Points of Order:
1) “nobody reading this was born before 1972 (because you’d have to be at least 3 to have any actual memories of the 1969 landing)”
I am pretty sure you got your math backwards here.
2) “command stations where LL Cool J makes omelets”
Dr. Klien, you and I both know that LL Cool J was never in space, and that you are probably referring to his memorable turn in Deep Blue Sea, which illustrated one point we can all agree on: Science should never make a smarter shark.
Other than that, I applaud you for kneeing science (and Outer Space!) in the balls. But keep in mind, Europe is the one forking 90% of the bill for the LHC, so I say let ‘em keep doing their thing while they are (relatively) super-rich. And sure, theoretical physics should not be our top priority right now, but compared to the military budget, $6.5 billion is a pitance.
1. ok ok I fixed the math!
2. it’s my space fantasy! If I want LL Cool J making me breakfast I can have it!
1. ok ok I fixed the math!
2. it’s my space fantasy! If I want LL Cool J making me breakfast I can have it!
I agree, science is stupid. What useful advances has pure science ever produced?
Take, for example, the phenomenon of nuclear radiation. What possible use could there be in knowing that certain metals spit out itty bitty beams of deadly whatchamacallits? None whatsoever, that’s what!
That is, of course, unless you count lifesaving cancer treatments as useful (pfft!).
And really, do we need to know *why* fire appears after lightning strikes trees? I mean, it burns down forests and grasslands, what use is there in being able to understand something like fire?