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Comment by bediger4000 | Hacker News Reader

Why does "privately funded" make a difference?

Presumably because they would be opposed to tax money being used to fund a project that they consider pointless.

That seems short sighted. I live in Denver, CO. I consider it pointless to fund roads on the east coast. I'm never going to drive on them.

That's silly. Goods arriving at East coast ports travel via systems I have no clue about.

Cloned wooly mammoths aren't a public good like roads

Was landing on the Moon a public good?

Science often brings unexpected fruit. Cloning woolly mammoths may as well.

And so does blowing wind. You never know. Where do you put the limit? Pouring a trillion dollars into war sure has more benefits, like local hiring, finding out about microwaves, cheaper petrol, etc. But is pouring a trillion dollars into that, a good thing?

The moon landing was a propaganda stunt against the USSR. We have no need to revive literal mammoths.

The sense of pointlessness in this case isn't "I'll never take advantage of those roads", it's "this feels more like someone wanting to cosplay Jurassic Park than it does a serious effort to do something useful for biodiversity".

Pointless, and for a certain category of people (on all sides of the political spectrum), a "moral" issue. The right doesn't want people to play God (the same religious types who think IVF is a sin, or embryonic stem cells are murder). The left side of things, invoking nature as a god, using a similar argument (or fears of unknown results).

I don't know if it's pointless, and there's plenty of room for "pointless" research (because we learn so much in the process). But I do wonder if it's prudent. I think it's cool either way.

> Why does "privately funded" make a difference?

Because is not subject to political time of four years intervals. Politicians lie often about where the funds will arrive, or change their minds after a while. I you can afford it, is much safer this way.

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