My sister says we shouldn't spend money on the space program that could be spent on economics and humanitarian stuff besides satellite-related activities. What are arguments I can use to prove her wrong?
you can't prove her wrong because that's an opinion
tell her that shes a fucking woman
Individual human lives don't matter. Especially poor people in poor countries who will never contribute to the betterment of the human race.
>>7979780
If you have an opinion about a fact, it can be wrong. If you have an opinion about an ideology, there's not really an absolute. She values a 'common good' in which fundamental knowledge isn't prioritized as highly as large-scale quality of living improvement. Who's to say that's right? What's important in both cases is seeing the other side. If all money were funneled into fundamental research and nothing to the economy/infrastructure, we'd be fucked. If it were all funneled into economy/infrastructure, we'd never progress.
>>7979733
If she doesn't think inspiring wonder and interest in science is important, I don't think there's a whole lot you could do to convince her otherwise, anon.
But perhaps explain to her how satellites are far from the most important thing we have.
>>7979733
You could explain to her that a lot of scientific breakthroughs come from NASA. Breakthroughs that could help feed everyone on the planet. Some medical examples are more advanced prosthetic limbs and smaller, less intrusive ventricuar assistance devices. Some other examples include better anti-icing technology and better fire resistant material (for everything from vehicles to firefighter suits). Finally, some technologies with the most relevance to her arguments (basically helping poor people in Africa) are better water purification technology (particularly devices that are smaller and more easily transported), better food safety concepts and procedures (known for preventing illness from food-borne toxins/pathogens instead of just figuring out where the health problems came from), and better solar technologies (more long term, but with less fossil fuels there will be less greenhouse gases, which means it'll be possible to slow or potentially even stop climate change, where the weather disproportionately typically affects poor regions of poor countries). Basically, the idea is that we could put this money towards humanitarian goals (I don't know what you mean by economics) or we could fund research at NASA which will develop and spin off technologies and procedures that could help 10x the number of people in the future (just pushing towards goals like hyper-efficient solar energy, desalinization to cheaply provide drinkable water, farming techniques/GMOs that will produce more food per area, advanced medical science, etc.). Not to mention that space exploration will probably be crucial for ensuring humanity doesn't go extinct somewhere down the line.
Also, the amount of funding NASA gets isn't really that high. It wouldn't go very far in humanitarian causes. Honestly, NASA is one of the last places you want to cut if your goal is humanitarian relief.
Show her this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbIZU8cQWXc
>>7979763
Her opinion can't be wrong, but if we assume that her ultimate goal is helping people (seems like a reasonable assessment) then we can show that cutting NASA funding and putting it towards humanitarian projects will result in helping less people.
>>7979733
1. A = 60 degrees. B = 30 degrees.
2. BC = 10sqrt(3)
In case anyone wanted to know.
>>7979733
is this a new meme?
Space program funding is the most important thing to spend on. The human race are going to make the planet uninhabitable within the next 120 years unless aliens come and tell us to stop animal agriculture and convert to renewable energy and all that otherwise they will abduct us all and kill us.
Yes, I do fucking hate humans.
>>7979765
gee
what a smart idea
because she has no idea if she's a woman
>>7979733
uniting humans towards a common goal of evolving civilization beyond earth? what a terrible humanitarian idea.
>>7979733
That retarded argument can be applied to any kind of research and development. We would still live in caves and use all our resources to find more tree larvae for our sick and elderly instead of being able to feed billions of people who live in comfy housing and have a live expectancy longer than 30 fucking years.
Show her this.
>>7979782
Why contribute to the betterment of the human race, if the human race doesn't matter?
>>7980117
>reading comprehension
>economics and humanitarian stuff
"economics" is a buzzword for "corporate welfare", and "humanitarian stuff" is a buzzphrase for "socially-beneficial programs". Decide for yourself, Anon.
>>7979880
If you assume anything without ensuring that's actually the case, you're no longer arguing against her opinion--you're constructing a straw man.
I remember a letter by a famous scientist on this exact issue, maybe it was Feynman.
Asteroids
