"Patrick Elliott" <sel### [at] npgcablecom> wrote in message
news:48dfc635@news.povray.org...
> somebody wrote:
> > "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> > news:48def574@news.povray.org...

> >> You bought a computer - you use
> >> it for posting to online forums.  You pay Shaw Cable, what, $22/month
> >> maybe for 'net connectivity?  Or do you bundle and get basic cable
> >> (another $32.95/month), or add phone service for another $20.95/month?
> >>
> >> That's an awful lot of money you spend on something as frivolous as
> >> entertainment.  Seems to me that money would be better spent by
donating
> >> it (let's assume you bundle the first two lowest-cost services and
spend
> >> only about $55 before taxes per month) - that's $660/year you could be
> >> donating to cancer research.

> > Thank you for your very helpful calculations. I'll be sure to go offline
and
> > save my money. In a little over 15 million years, I will have thus saved
> > enough money to donate an equal sum to medical research what LHC is
costing.
> >
> > You are joking, right? Contrary to what you might have been led to
believe,
> > one man doesn't make a difference. Not that way anyway. Be sure to share
> > your other bright schemes, however.

> Well, see. I presumed that you expected everyone else to be good
> Samaritans and follow suit..

You presumed wrong. It's precisely because everybody else *will not*
voluntarily donate $660 (or whatever amount you can come up with) for
medical research that funds need to be allocated by organizations or
government. Think of it this way; do you think LHC had a snowball's chance
in hell if it relied on individual donations to raise $10 billion?

> Lets see 300,000,000 people * $660...
> $198,000,000,000? See, if everyone just sat on a couch and stared at
> walls, instead of "doing", anything, they would make up the cost of the
> entire LHC project in one year! Mind, that isn't including the probably
> trillions more spent on trips, gas, boats and other recreational
> vehicles, etc. Its ingenious. We just figure that if you care so much
> about this, *you* should be the one leading the charge. ;) lol

No. When I say research funding should be prioritized with applied sciences
on top and theoretical sciences with no practical applications dead last, I
am not proposing an alternate method of collecting allocating those funds
such as going grassroots or voluntary. Volunterism doesn't work (*).
Arguments based on *if everybody* (""if everybody inflated their tires an
extra PSI, we would save billions in gas!"") don't work. Governments and
institutions should still handle the process, but more intelligently.

(*) Unless it's a useless but geeky endavours like Mersenne prime search or
SETI, and there's a prize involved.

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