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What If Aliens Came To Save the Galaxy From Mankind?
astroengine writes with an amusing piece in Discovery. From the article: "In a study carried out by NASA and Pennsylvania State University scientists, several intelligent extraterrestrial encounter scenarios are examined. One of the scenarios is a sci-fi favorite: what if we encounter an alien race hellbent on destroying us? However, there's a twist. This isn't mindless thuggery on behalf of the aliens, and they're not killing us to get at our natural resources; they have a cause. They want to exterminate us for the greater good of the Milky Way."
At our technological level, we pose no danger to anything off this planet.
It would be like saying you'll sterilize a grain of sand to protect the planet.
Such a silly scenario...
If we ever develop interstellar travel that is fast, cheap and practical, maybe then this scenario starts to have legs.
For less than 3% of the current US defense budget, you could FULLY FUND NASA!!
Why the HELL is NASA always the FIRST thing talked about when cutting, and Defense always the LAST.
Or Defense budget is OBSCENE.
I refuse to acknowledge anyone who is "fiscally conservative" who's first priority is not cutting the Defense budget.
I'm looking at you tea party!!
Actually first on the block should be foreign aid. Then I would agree with cutting defense as well as any and every other program out there with NO exceptions.
As good as it feels to hate farm subsidies, they do serve a halfway useful purpose -- they basically eliminate famine and domestic shortage in exchange for higher total costs the other 95% of the time. Seriously... when's the last time you *ever* heard the word "famine" used in the context of "United States" or "Post-WWII non-Soviet-Bloc Europe"? If farmers operated purely without subsidy in a profit-maximizing way, they'd simply risk a bad food-free year every 10-20 years in exchange for .73% higher profits the next quarter. If one or two farmers did it, nobody would notice. If the American Agribusiness Industry acted like California's power-generation and transmission industry, we'd have a domestic crisis every time locusts descended upon Arkansas or Kansas (or at least poorer countries would, because the US would buy up most of their food).
Subsidizing dead industries is a bad thing, but there's a lot to be said for year-to-year stability as well. Would anybody who's sane *really* choose to save 1.9% per year in the long (25+ year horizon) run on groceries if it meant that prices at the store could soar overnight without warning, even if it meant that next year the same goods might be selling for pennies on the dollar? People have better things to do than spend their days researching prices and plan their purchase strategies for things they use daily at spot-market prices.
The reason for subsidies is simple -- it encourages farmers to plant enough to guarantee abundance under nearly any likely scenario, without leaving them trying to sell those same crops during a "good" year for less than they would have made by simply investing the season's crop capital in 6-month CDs and going on vacation somewhere. Gratuitous waste sucks, but shortage & famine is much, much worse.