Government Priorities

[boedicca]

Connecting the dots on a few recent news stories:

- The Ebola break out

- The near miss of an asteroid

- A prediction that we are headed for a mass extinction event similar to the dinosaurs

- The border crisis

Our government spends an ungodly amount of money on surveillance of law abiding citizens and micro managing private aspects of our daily lives and business.

It seems to me we would be better off concentrating resources on

- Securing our borders
- Developing vaccines and treatments for viral and biological threats
- Surveillance and detection of Major Asteroids
- Systems to destroy said Asteroids

Futurists often predict that humanity will be wiped out by epidemics or an asteroid, so why spend our resources on nanny stating people about what they eat and drink and on collecting up their emails?

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Humanity was born doomed, very Biblical actually, but life goes on until then. And this "ungodly" amount isn't anything like as much as you think. As for looking for killer rocks, we spend almost nothing but there's really almost nothing we can do about them either, just pour yourself a stiff drink and kiss your ass goodbye.

You can add Gamma Ray Burst to your list of worries. If that hits us we'll all be dead before we knew what hit us...

 

[boedicca]

Well, considering your "personal qualities", I can see why you would want to just give up in a fatalistic existential fugue state. If left up to you, we'd still be living in caves.

But for those of us who are cognitive beings, humankind is innovative and inventive. We can't guarantee 100% success, but that is no reason for not trying to protect ourselves.

 

[Siete]

why would anyone sweat the near miss of an asteroid ?


lets prepare for NOT being killed ? ...... allrightie then, I'm good !! I've been planning on not being killed by a giant flying rock all of my life.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Well, considering your "personal qualities", I can see why you would want to just give up in a fatalistic existential fugue state. If left up to you, we'd still be living in caves.

But for those of us who are cognitive beings, humankind is innovative and inventive. We can't guarantee 100% success, but that is no reason for not trying to protect ourselves.

Nature doesn't care about the humans. You are welcome to play little gods, that's what we do here, but nature will win in the end, she always does.

And if left up to me, based upon our actions towards other species and each other, I would have killed us all off as soon as we came out of the caves.

 

[boedicca]

Nature gave some of us brains, cognition, and the ability to "make tools".

You can squat in your cave and beat a drum. I'd rather see innovation to solve our problems.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Nature gave some of us brains, cognition, and the ability to "make tools".

You can squat in your cave and beat a drum. I'd rather see innovation to solve our problems.

So would I but the biggest problem is too many humans. We should use our innovation to fix that first. All other problems then become that much easier to fix.