On Fri, 26 Sep 2008 08:26:08 -0600, somebody wrote:
> 
> And the benefit to mankind of  "having the estimates of the ages of cratered
> worlds much futher away from the Moon" is what exactly? :) In your eagerness
> to counter my point, you are emphasizing it.

They do that to determine the history of those worlds, so that they'd be
able to compare those with Earth and each other to better understand the
history of our solar system, including that of Earth.

> They will have better technology than us. Let *them* lazy bums figure
> out things if they *need to* at that time. They will be able to do it
> much more efficiently. If knowing the "estimates of the ages of cratered
> worlds much futher away from the Moon" is of no practical benefit to our
> generation, it is crime to our contemporaries to waste present resources
> on such pursuits, when we could make a dent with those resources in the
> suffering of *already existing* people.
> 

For them to have better technology than us, we'd have to do our part of
the development or they'd have more work to do.

> You hopless romantics are completely missing the trees for the forest.
> While thinking about a future billion years from now (!??), you miss
> what we could be doing for ourselves and for our fellow people. Africa
> is at most 10 hours away, not a billion years. And I am sure there's
> suffering right at your doorstep too.
> 

We can think about what may go on a billion years from now because we're
not in Africa or the soup kitchen 24/7.

People who want to do comsology or high energy physics will still do it
and find the funding from somewhere because you don't control their minds
or all of the money in the world. It's also human nature to investigate
the nature of the world we live in.

Brendan

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