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Comment by ajross | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to spoil your rant by throwing numbers on it, but unfortunately that doesn't add up. Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis is (I think) the newest stadium in the NFL. Wikipedia tells me that the cost to taxpayers was $620 million. Let's say that the average stadium lasts 20 years, and note that there are 4 major sports leagues in the US with about 30 teams each, so that an average of 6 such arenas that must be built every year, at a total taxpayer cost of $3.7 billion each year.

NASA's budget for 2009 is $17.6 billion. And obviously that's just a fraction of total federal science spending, much of which lives under DoD, DoE, NIH, etc...

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I needled the stadiums because they were an easy target. Its more of a philosophic rant stemming from a disappointment in overall resource allocation. We spend so many trillions on entertainment like football. We use our land, our human capital, our tv transmitters, our precious time... on giant zero-sum distractions. Our heroes play games.

Space flight is life. Will the last humans have to admit that we didn't make it off the planet in time to save our species because we were too busy watching football and getting drunk?

Even if we never "make it to the stars", there are countless worlds of resources just floating around in asteroid fields in our own solar system. We just have to go get them. I'm not advocating we go "all work and no play" here, I just can't help but think we should be trying a little bit harder.

"Distractions"?

Distractions from what?

You're idealizing life. There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe. You get a certain number of years to fill up with "distractions", and then you die.

You may not appreciate sports, but they bring joy to millions of people -- probably to many millions more than NASA does, and in a greater capacity. Denigrating that is extraordinarily narrow-minded.

I think the goal would be to find a way to bring similar joy to millions that has a lasting positive effect, rather than two hours of entertainment.

I'm not denying that millions are entertained by sports, but it isn't "work" in the sense that work = force * distance. Distance in sports is zero, so it's a lot of force, but nothing comes of it. It doesn't go anywhere.

There are lots of joyful things, entertaining things, that actually move society and life in a positive direction. We need to spend more time celebrating those things and the heros of science and math for our kids.

If parents celebrated winners of the science olympiad as much as they celebrate michael phelps, then the world would be a very different place.

I think part of the difference is that with sports, you can see that it takes a lot of energy to train to win a swim match, but you can't see the energy expended to win a science competition. Intelligence is something we believe you either have or do not have regardless of the amount of training, but that's just not true.

It takes a lot of work and training and accomplishment to be a great scientist, just like it takes a lot of work and training and accomplishment to be a great athlete.

>There's no goal; we don't get points for making it to outer space or for reaching a singularity or for uncovering the secrets of the universe.

I disagree. There are distinct levels: Type 0, 1, 2, 3 and beyond if we're not limited to the universe at hand. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

So you're saying that there is some fundamental, a priori reason for humanity to aspire to a higher level on this scale than it currently occupies?

What?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_Destiny

In the old days, it was the quest to expand the U.S. from the atlantic to the pacific, but the pacific wasn't quite far enough. Now we must expand into the farthest reaches of space.

Our heroes have always played games, but the games before were wars. It got us this far. You're not merely looking at a problem with our society and culture; you are looking at a universal aspect of human nature.

Your numbers are essentially right. Most hockey teams share the basketball stadium, though, and almost all soccer stadiums are shared. But stadium costs are rising: both the new Yankee Stadium and the new Cowboys Stadium cost over $1 billion.

However, what makes your numbers very conservative (in terms of overestimating public costs) is that few stadia are fully funded by the public. Most of them are partially funded by the team or the league.

(Amusing notes: Montreal's stadium, built for the Olympics and used by the Expos, cost 1.4 billion dollars, but .9 billion was in interest. The world's most expensive stadium, the new Wembley, cost 1.5 billion.)

There is also added infrastructure cost, police cost and more. But you're right that the football budget is less than the Space budget. But why is ANY public money being spent on personal entertainment when it could be spent on progress? another 4 billion a year could pay for a lot of research and scholarships.

The government doesn't give all of its money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spends money on entertainment for the same reason you don't give all your money to space exploration (or other worthy causes) and spend some money (including time) on entertainment.

The only way that could happen is if we, as a species, could somehow dedicate all of our time to "worthy pursuits", but we can't. We need downtime and entertainment, and by "need", I mean, need.

My first paragraph is not sarcastic. It really is the same reason, just writ large.

(This argument is one layer of "why?" beyond the more obvious, but less interesting, point that these stadiums get built because they pull enough in tax revenues in to justify it, or at least so the municipalities assume.)

According to The Brookings Institution, "a new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment. No recent facility appears to have earned anything approaching a reasonable return on investment. No recent facility has been self-financing in terms of its impact on net tax revenues.

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/results/9474/No_85_Sports...

Sure. However, Political Will is the deciding factor here. And, many people want sports stadiums in their cities and won't abandon their politicians for agreeing to build them. I am critical of our cultural perceptions of the role of government, not of the government as such.

Have you ever heard of "bread and circuses?"

Wow... I'd never heard of it. It's like nothing ever changes... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

Of course we have heard of the comparison between gladiators and football players, but I never realized people back then were as vehemently opposed to that sort of thing as they are now.

I thought it was a growing consciousness, but really it is just me becoming more aware of people who agree with me... But people like me have lived forever and if it's been 5000 years without any change, why should I expect anything will change through the course of my life?

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