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We live in a big universe that's greatly unexplored both at the macro- and the micro- level, both in the physical and the spiritual realms (since you allude to

We live in a big universe that's greatly unexplored both at the macro- and the micro- level, both in the physical and the spiritual realms (since you allude to less material motives in your reply). Anything we do (even large-scale, government-sponsored meditation) has the potential to "yield dividents in ways we probably can not even think of today". That's why you need economic calculation (and a firm grounding) to quantify that potential and decide which of the infinite projects that individuals, governments, or humanity can undertake makes the more sense. Colombus voyage actually made perfect sense from that perspective as it was all about economic calculation.

jacquesm 11y ago
You seem to be stuck on economy so I'll limit to that. The Potential of successful colonization of another planet is a total unknown, just like the potential of colonizing another continent is a total unknown. At least we know the other planet exist, whereas America was a bit of a surprise for Columbus. Letting economic calculations guide you in the day-to-day running of a business is fine. But we as humanity can afford a little bit of money set aside for things that have no immediate value. Art and culture are amongst our most valuable possessions, but their value seems to be appreciating with time relative to the time when they were created. Much of our scientific knowledge had no immediate value at the time of discovery. Columbus voyage may have made 'perfect sense' from an economic perspective in hindsight because it worked, but there was no guarantee that it would and plenty of people were arguing this was a waste of resources at the time. I'm just as proud or more so of what humanity has achieved when economic gain wasn't the immediate focus as I am of the things we've achieved when economic gain was at the forefront of our thoughts guiding us to make our decisions. There is room for both of those.
arethuza 11y ago
"That's why you need economic calculation (and a firm grounding) to quantify that potential and decide which of the infinite projects that individuals, governments, or humanity can undertake makes the more sense." Well, my experience of large scale EU funding programmes was that all the efforts to predict the economic yield of research projects was, at best, complete nonsense. After all, who thought that by funding a nuclear research organisation (CERN) we'd get something like the Web? Has anyone got an economic model that could have predicted that?

jacquesm 11y ago

You seem to be stuck on economy so I'll limit to that. The Potential of successful colonization of another planet is a total unknown, just like the potential of colonizing another continent is a total unknown. At least we know the other planet exist, whereas America was a bit of a surprise for Columbus. Letting economic calculations guide you in the day-to-day running of a business is fine. But we as humanity can afford a little bit of money set aside for things that have no immediate value. Art and culture are amongst our most valuable possessions, but their value seems to be appreciating with time relative to the time when they were created. Much of our scientific knowledge had no immediate value at the time of discovery. Columbus voyage may have made 'perfect sense' from an economic perspective in hindsight because it worked, but there was no guarantee that it would and plenty of people were arguing this was a waste of resources at the time. I'm just as proud or more so of what humanity has achieved when economic gain wasn't the immediate focus as I am of the things we've achieved when economic gain was at the forefront of our thoughts guiding us to make our decisions. There is room for both of those.

arethuza 11y ago

"That's why you need economic calculation (and a firm grounding) to quantify that potential and decide which of the infinite projects that individuals, governments, or humanity can undertake makes the more sense." Well, my experience of large scale EU funding programmes was that all the efforts to predict the economic yield of research projects was, at best, complete nonsense. After all, who thought that by funding a nuclear research organisation (CERN) we'd get something like the Web? Has anyone got an economic model that could have predicted that?