[ExI] kiwis keeping it real

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2020 at 4:52 AM John Clark via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> 25 years ago some physicist publicly testified before Congress and said
> the US shouldn't build the Superconducting Super Collider because the money
> could be spent in other ways that would advanced physics research more;
> they were right but that turned out to be the correct answer to a question
> that was never asked, the politicians just wanted to get reelected and if
> the SSC couldn't help with that they lost interest.
> So the SSC ended up being canceled, but that didn't help science because
> the money was not spent on other science projects, it wasn't spent on
> anything.
>

Generally, "but we could better spend the money on X" is an invalid
argument when discussing how something like Congress spends its money.

The proposal is always and only whether to spend the money on the
particular thing being discussed.  There is no specific alternative that
the money can controllably be routed to as part of the current discussion.
If it is desired to fund an alternative, that alternative must be submitted
and considered entirely on its own merits, without regard to it being an
alternative.

It's like people think the money is tagged to only be spent on science (or
whatever domain).  It never is.
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