World is Falling Apart Thread (Locked forever)

[Tanooki]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-research

Pretty appropriate for the thread's original title. Inb4 media bias.

This is pretty damn terrible if you are a scientist, what it may spell for the EPA, scientific research, and allowing room for the Scientific Method to be influenced by private industry.

Terrible. Shameful and terrible. I don't even have words for the disgust and rage this brings up in me.

I think it's fantastic. Pissing research on that while many other private institutions and countries do as well is a senseless waste of time and resources.

NASA has had its bones picked clean for decades by disgusting penny pinching politicians. The budget now isn't even like one tenth of one percent of the yearly budget... asinine government waste alone, not even getting into bloated social programs dwarf it so bad it doesn't even register a blip on the radar.

They had a vision in the 70s to go to the moon, eventually set up a base, and then grow the technology to go beyond. Instead we ended up with shitty skylab, the useful but grossly cost overrun and long in the tooth shuttle program, and now we're commuter flight passengers on russian rockets all in low earth orbit. That's the real crime.

Stephen Hawking put it very well days ago. We have a limited time on this rock, no more than likely a 1000 years but it could be even tomorrow. Eventually some horrid disaster from beyond the stars (gamma ray burst, rogue star hoses our orbit, life killing asteroid hit, ozone layer gets sheered off by massive coronal mass ejection, etc, or even something like a super volcano like at yosemite could blow wiping out damn near if not every last shred of humanity being earth bound.

NASA needs to be put back on proper track, more funding dropped into it, and get better science going, better hands on science as a life insurance policy against extinction.

[J T]

I have no problem with his plans to better fund the space exploration. My problem is that he wants to cut the funding for Earth-based studies and climate change research. If Trump is so against crony capitalism, then he should stop being a crony capitalist for the oil and coal industries.

We're not going to find another planet like Earth any time soon that has all of the exact specifications to support human life, so we can't go making escape plans already. We have to focus on the planet we have that we know supports human life (it just can't support human life at its current level of growth and resource usage). In otherwords, we have to get to the tough business of changing our reproduction and consumption, and not rely on some hail mary pass into outerspace for a more bountiful planet.

[CRTGAMER]

Why do you dislike free birth control pills?! That's a fantastic program. The world is way too overpopulated as it is. Overpopulation is one of the biggest problems we face today. The world population is almost double what it was when I was born. We don't need more women having babies they don't really want, especially when they come from dead beat "dads" who skip town as soon as she misses a period. Then you just have more welfare expenses down the line. You should just be glad that you don't have to be the one swallowing the pills.

That would be up to the RESPONSIBLE couple, why should tax money be used to support their sex acts? The Welfare excuse is as lame as government sponsored passing out syringes so drug users won't share needles at which they do anyways. How about hold the individuals accountable to for their actions? You want kids, be sure you can support them in a positive environment without relying on a free handout.

There is too much waste in Obama Care, the reason why premiums keep going up. Go back to the root principle of Health Care; take care of the sick. How many are cutoff from Health Care due to expense for say Cancer on a premium runs out? Yet Birth Control Pills, Viagra and Weight Loss Surgery is allowed in the budget!

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-research

Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by Nasa as part of a crackdown on “politicized science”, his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said. This would mean the elimination of Nasa’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena. Nasa’s network of satellites provide a wealth of information on climate change, with the Earth science division’s budget set to grow to $2 billion next year. By comparison, space exploration has been scaled back somewhat, with a proposed budget of $2.8bn in 2017.

Bob Walker, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said there was no need for Nasa to do what he has previously described as “politically correct environmental monitoring”. “We see Nasa in an exploration role, in deep space research,” Walker told the Guardian. “Earth-centric science is better placed at other agencies where it is their prime mission.

I think it's fantastic. Pissing research on that while many other private institutions and countries do as well is a senseless waste of time and resources.

Stephen Hawking put it very well days ago. We have a limited time on this rock, no more than likely a 1000 years but it could be even tomorrow. Eventually some horrid disaster from beyond the stars (gamma ray burst, rogue star hoses our orbit, life killing asteroid hit, ozone layer gets sheered off by massive coronal mass ejection, etc, or even something like a super volcano like at Yosemite could blow wiping out damn near if not every last shred of humanity being earth bound.

NASA needs to be put back on proper track, more funding dropped into it, and get better science going, better hands on science as a life insurance policy against extinction.

Climate change is real, but high budget monitoring is not the fix. Agree that whenever Government gets involved, less gets done, takes longer for results and at a much higher cost. Leave it to Universities and Scientists not directly involved in yet another Government Division. The NASA Climate monitoring is already monitored thru Meteorologists and the Media, no need for the duplicate waste.

Pretty pathetic that man reached the moon in the 70s and only robots have reached Mars almost half a century later! No, we will not find another Planet close enough to populate; but we must continue to explore. For now man's only "immortality" are just a five unmanned spacecraft that have left the Solar System; all but one also dated back from the 70s.

[Tanooki]

No we need to focus on both. You're right, we don't have a light speed drive or anything near the type of tech. Moving us to Mars, Titan, and beyond in the system is the way to go, people will have stronger encouragement to advance tech the farther you go as it takes longer. You want to narrow the gap, expand speed, safety, structure, design, all related sciences for space and non-friendly (Mars) planetary inhabitation for long term permanent settlement.

Sure we can't get to Alpha Centauri, but what if in a 100 years we could have a colony of a million people there like Elon Musk wants with his Space X Mars program? Big ass rock hits Earth, a million people live...100s of times more genetic diversity right there to keep things thriving. Only looking inwards will buy more time, until that eventual demise, which was Hawkings point and he's right. Space is no hail mary. We would have had boots on Mars or at least its moons by now had those morons not decimated the budget in the late 70s and more in the 80s outside of shuttle development.

[marurun]

Analysis after analysis has shown that healthcare costs would have risen even faster if it were not for the affordable care act. Besides, society usually bears the cost of unwanted children just as much as the individuals that have them. The whole problem with "holding people responsible for their actions" is that many of their circumstances are not necessarily the result of their actions so much as cruel turns of fate. And again, society often ends up paying more in the end then if we just keep these programs in place.

[J T]

Syringe replacement programs reduce costs in cost-benefit analysis. So much disease gets spread from dirty needles, which then can infect third parties too. Yes, it would be better if people didn't abuse heroin or share dirty needles, but they do. Yes it would be (arguably) better if people had responsible sex, but they don't. And for some of these people it really is a financial barrier preventing them from making better choices. These programs (free birth control, syringe replacement) are low cost high return programs. You just have to think further down the line than the immediate cost. Free birth control prevents abortions, single parent households, children born into poverty and neglect, resource usage from another human, etc. Syringe replacement programs help reduce ER visits, spread of Hepatitis, spread of HIV, etc. Is it annoying that the tax payer has to pay for something that a responsible and financially stable person would have just done on their own? Yes. But you can pay the small price now, or the big price later. No amount of saying "those people should have been more responsible" is going to change that.

[MrPopo]

Why do you dislike free birth control pills?! That's a fantastic program. The world is way too overpopulated as it is. Overpopulation is one of the biggest problems we face today. The world population is almost double what it was when I was born. We don't need more women having babies they don't really want, especially when they come from dead beat "dads" who skip town as soon as she misses a period. Then you just have more welfare expenses down the line. You should just be glad that you don't have to be the one swallowing the pills.

That would be up to the RESPONSIBLE couple, why should tax money be used to support their sex acts? The Welfare excuse is as lame as government sponsored passing out syringes so drug users won't share needles at which they do anyways. How about hold the individuals accountable to for their actions? You want kids, be sure you can support them in a positive environment without relying on a free handout.

That's the point, the birth control is for people who DON'T want kids, and hormonal contraceptives are the single best method for preventing pregnancy that isn't abstinence. It's already been demonstrated that abstinence education doesn't work. So if you want to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy, deadbeat dads, and abortion then you should be supporting birth control for everyone.

[Tanooki]

Something we can totally agree on there (post above.) Not bothering, pulling out, or getting the tubes (either persons) tied off just isn't as affordable or that good of an idea unless medically necessary(the last one.)

[marurun]

If only the male hormone pills hadn't had their testing pulled because men couldn't take the same side effects women have been dealing with for decades.

[MrPopo]

I'd argue that the female hormone pill would still be the primary mechanism, because she's the one that actually gestates the fetus.