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Comment by rs23296008n1 | Hacker News Reader

The US hasn't even stabilised its environment, healthcare and any number of other important areas of basic human needs. Money for finding extra-terrestrial life would be better spent on earth fixing the mess.

Or use it to get us to mars. At least that fits with a "plan B" since humans existing "only on earth" is still a bad idea. Same goes for moon exploration / asteroid mining. Good ideas. Raw resources shouldn't be so rare as they currently are.

But sending a message to aliens? We've already done this. For decades. More than a century. Ever since we started transmitting Tv/radio.

They either know we're here or they will. Or we're off limits. Or we're too far away. Or we're too scary. "They live in what kind of atmosphere?"

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If this were the bar for doing pure research, we'd never do any pure research ever.

The average quality of life in the US has never been higher.

I'm not convinced looking for aliens is basic research. Its more like applied science. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_research

Life expectancy for the US is dropping. Multiple modern issues of maladjustment are likely causes. Spending searching-for-aliens money on schools, education etc instead would be actually beneficial. Schools have active shooter drills now. That is NOT an indicator of increasing quality of life. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/us-life-expectancy-has-been-...

Plenty of cracks in society. Pure research might actually help. We actually know far less about nutrition than we could - thats just one example.

We're much better off going to the moon, mining asteroids and living in space rather than searching for aliens. Plenty of the tech, knowledge and experience from even attempting to live in space has already had tangible benefits for those on earth.

Why not try all of the above? The mess you mention is unfixable. Mars is very very far away, but worthwhile. The SETI and other research is worthwhile as well. Even if it is a null result, you learn something. R&D itself makes us learn somethings.

If you won't do this stuff until other important problems X & Y are solved, you will never do the interesting things and progress will stall for the species.

Lack of nuance. Any criticism is seen as maximal opposition to everything. No. Wrong.

So weird. I've stated quite clearly in that post in favor of space travel. Yet that apparently means I'm against anything interesting and you assert that I suggest we must wait. Nonsense. I just think we should spend money on plenty of other things before searching for aliens. Eg space travel!

And the mess is fixable. Yes, the mess of healthcare, environment etc. Fixable.

I still suspect that the average dollar expended by the US government has way lower return in expected improvement of human utility than basic scientific research, even with all its imperfections. As long as that’s true, the case for funding that research seems strong to me.

Fund other research. Why not fund space travel instead?

Yecch. HN is toxic. I'm out for awhile.

>>The US hasn't even stabilised its environment, healthcare and any number of other important areas of basic human needs. Money for finding extra-terrestrial life would be better spent on earth fixing the mess.

USA spends more on healthcare than (prob) anyone else. Basic needs will never be solved, as the yardstick will also move.

>>Money for finding extra-terrestrial life would be better spent on earth fixing the mess.

Let's say that USA decides to spend $100-$500 Million a year on extra-terrestrial stuff...that's a rounding error in a $4.746 trillion budget.

> USA spends more on healthcare than (prob) anyone else. Basic needs will never be solved, as the yardstick will also move.

Agree, in a privatised healthcare system the fee-for-service problem will indeed prevent basic needs from ever being met.

You missed the point entirely. if USA already spends a lot of money (albeit in the wrong direction...maybe) in healthcare, how will the healthcare problem be solved if it spends another, say $200M ? You can argue reform, not that it needs a few more hundred million to "solve the problem"

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