LHC: Multimillion God's Particle Chase & Earth's Extinction Rate

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the financial and ethical implications of funding scientific research, particularly the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), in the context of global issues such as famine and extinction rates. Participants explore the balance between scientific advancement and addressing urgent humanitarian needs.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Meta-discussion

Main Points Raised

  • One participant questions the allocation of resources to the LHC while children in developing countries suffer from famine, suggesting a need for more intelligent questions regarding the theory of everything and extinction rates.
  • Another participant asserts that intelligent answers require intelligent questions and challenges the initial poster to provide a more reasoned argument against funding scientific pursuits.
  • A participant draws an analogy to traffic engineering, arguing that increasing food supply through scientific advancements does not necessarily alleviate hunger due to population growth, suggesting that improving quality of life is a more effective solution.
  • There is a suggestion that the owners of the LHC may expect to generate revenue from its operation, raising questions about the financial motivations behind such large-scale scientific endeavors.
  • One participant reflects on historical perspectives regarding resource allocation, referencing a quote about the perceived waste of money on automobiles during the Great Depression compared to the needs of farmers.
  • A humorous remark is made about mailing unfinished food to those in need, highlighting the absurdity of simplistic solutions to complex issues.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express differing views on the value of funding scientific research versus addressing humanitarian issues. There is no consensus on the appropriateness of resource allocation between these areas, and the discussion remains unresolved.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference various assumptions about the relationship between scientific advancement and societal needs, as well as the complexities of population dynamics and resource distribution. These points are not fully explored or resolved within the discussion.

Hippasos
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Can someone provide intelligent answers to these questions?

The meaning of LHC

http://www.all-acronyms.com/cat/1/LHC

Multimillion God's particle chase:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/God-039-s-Particle-Costs-29-Million-in-Repairs-to-the-LHC-99431.shtml

While the children in developing countries suffer from famine?

How much more money and intelligent resources is needed to answer intelligent questions like theory of everything?

What will happen to "earth lungs" meanwhile?

Multimillion Martians hunt aka (please let one bacteria or bacteria fossil of it be found):

http://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/life/

What is the exact extinction rate at planet Earth today - do we even know?

What is the theory (if there is any - please point me to it) predicting - how long can we maintain this kind of progress?
 
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How many seas must a white dove sail before it can sleep in the sand?None of your questions have answers.
 
Intelligent answers require intelligent questions.

It appears you have a problem with the money being spent on the pursuit of science...care to actually provide an intelligent argument in support of your position regarding this issue...?
 
A side question, do the owners of the LHC expect to generate money by running it?
 
Whenever someone poses a question of this form -- why are we spending so much money on scientific research when people are dying of hunger? -- I am reminded of a well-known fact about traffic engineering.

The fact is: if you incrementally increase the capacity of a roadway, the traffic congestion on that roadway actually gets worse.

The same thing happens in all resource-consumer systems, including the food supply. The amount of food that can be grown per acre of land has gone up enormously over the past 100 years, mostly because of scientific research into pesticides and genetics. In the same period of time, the population has also exploded, making those advancements in food science moot.

Just like in road congestion, every incremental improvement in our food supply will result in an incremental increase in the world's population. There will -- very unfortunately -- always be hungry people, no matter what resources we devote to increasing the food supply. Taking money out of the LHC budget and throwing it into food production will not solve anything in the long term.

So, why do people keep having so many kids? The population is declining in many first-world countries, including Japan and most of Europe, but is exploding in most third-world countries like India. It turns out that the only way for families to survive in places with high rates of infant and child mortality, high rates of debilitating disease, is to have many children. In the first world, where virtually every child lives to adulthood, we have the luxury of deciding to have just two children. We don't need to throw more food at third-world countries; we need to get their quality of life up to the point at which having children is no longer a survival mechanism. Scientific research in all forms has been responsible for dramatically improving the quality of life in western countries, so why would you want to stifle it now?

Besides, look at all the money we already spend on increasing the food supply! Genetically-engineered crops are one of the hottest fields of scientific research in existence. And... look at all the opposition to it, particularly from lucky, wealthy people who can afford the luxury of turning their noses up at nutritious food because of some high-brow moral objection.

- Warren
 
chroot said:
Whenever someone poses a question of this form -- why are we spending so much money on scientific research when people are dying of hunger? -- I am reminded of a well-known fact about traffic engineering.

- Warren

All in all in guess this type of question would not be good idea to present in an iq-test...
 
Hippasos said:
While the children in developing countries suffer from famine?
About 4Bn of them are alive because of a 19century German chemist, but it would obviously have been better for his education to have been spent on the poor.

There is a quote somewhere from an Amercan politican n the depression about the waste of money on these new fangled automobiles when what the farmers needed was better horses.
 
If I don't finish all of my sandwich should I toss it into a paper envelope and mail it to Africa ?