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Space Vs. Poverty Debate In India
MarkWhittington writes "Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was obliged recently to defend his country's space program, which involves the spending of billions of rupees when India still has a large number of people living in abject poverty. The debate raging in India parallels a similar one that has simmered in the United States for decades."
The modern world is like a game of Civ III where everyone has the Great Library. Any important piece of research discovered somewhere will be usable by everyone at practically the same time. Oh, you might have to pay a little more for it than if you had discovered it yourself, or you might be 20 years behind everyone else, but you'll reap the benefits soon enough. Not everyone on the planet needs to be a creator for the system to work, I don't see why that shouldn't be true on a national level as well.
The mortality rate for astronauts is 7.736%. It is estimated that approximately 53,000 people travelled the Oregon trail between 1840 and 1860. Of those about 10% died along the way. So by those numbers being an astronaut is safer. However, that's not a very good comparison.
No astronaut has actually "settled" space since it has always been a relatively short-term stay. Valeri Polyakov only stayed in space 437 days and 18 hours. Most pioneers went out and stayed out and it would have been difficult to go out and come back in a single year. In addition, there were a number of epidemics that added to the problem (cholera, typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, malaria, yellow fever). These epidemics were not exclusive to the western expansion so should they be included? Many of these diseases actually killed more people than were being born. Often it was these diseases that drove people westward just as the American Civil War did since it was easier for some to rebuild in the West than in the devastated cities of the East (particularly in the South where Sherman's campaign raged). Popular myth holds that gunfights and Indian attacks decimated many pioneers, but that is truly myth. People were more likely to die from disease or accidents than from violence. The most common place to meet violence was along the Snake River plain in Idaho, but these were still relatively few and deaths were very few. Also, the people who went West were not all top-notch physical specimens like astronauts and were comparatively very poorly funded.
A better comparison might be to look at the Lewis & Clark expedition which left with 33 people and all, but one survived - 3% mortality rate. Apparently it's less dangerous going someplace where you don't have to worry about explosive decompression and running out of oxygen. I would also speculate that if you're going to get dysentery it's a whole lot less pleasant in an enclosed weightless environment... :-(
The more you provide for the poor, the bigger the poor class becomes. It is very unfortunate, and the simple statement of this observation comes dangerously close to suggesting that if we just let the poor starve to death then everyone would be better off (which isn't true for many reasons, the least of which being the inescapable crime wave that would result).
But whether we like them or not, the facts remain factual. Poverty is not created by an imbalance of government spending, and it will not be cured by a proper balance. The proper balance of providence is important, but in order to be a "balance," it must include spending on things that actually bring new technologies to mankind.
People who really want to help the poor beyond what the government can afford can spend their own money doing it. If they don't want to do this, then I question the authenticity of their demands that other people's tax money must be used for this purpose.
You are so full of s*$t it comes out of your fingers when you type. I have lived in India and you cannot compare the poor (rich by Indian standards) in America with the poor in India. As you point out in America you can make yourself better off. Even if not everyone does, it is possible through hard work to get out of poverty in America. This is simply not true in India. Social systems that have existed for thousands of years continue to keep the vast majority of Indians poor. If you are born to the wrong caste in the wrong part of the country then no matter how smart or hard working you are you will not rise above. God help you if you are an orphan or single woman. Those parts of society are simply beggars with no other prospects. Please keep your work hard and make good ideas limited to places where that is in fact true.
No sigs in BETA. Beta SUCKS.