Comment by qoez

2 days ago

This kinda sucks but on the other hand, it's not like we won't figure this out eventually in humanitys history. There's no rush

6 comments

qoez

Reply
advisedwang  2 days ago

You know, we don't actually ever need to find out. We can just rest easy knowing that it's possible to find out in the future. That's basically as good as knowing.

ctoth  2 days ago

Frankly I don't care if we figure it out after I'm dead, and I'm not sure why you would either. I want to know now

  • toast0  2 days ago

    I's certainly an interesting question; but what will we do differently if we find that the rate of cosmic inflation has been changing?

    There's typically a lot of hidden value in exploring these kinds of things, and I get that, but there's not usually any particular urgency on any of them either.

    Also, from the last paragraph of the article, it sounds like this was already on a path towards not getting funded; IMHO, it's not a major shift to get a final letter ending the project when construction was not approved a year ago.

  • DaSHacka  1 day ago

    Then feel free to donate to organizations to fund it now, and the rest of us that don't care just won't.

dehrmann  1 day ago

These sorts of comments always get downvoted to hell because HN are true believers in science, especially space and NASA. The arguments for funding extremely time-insensitive research are usually de minimis (we spend so much more on X) or to beat the Russians/Chinese. Mass transit proponents have a similar relationship with opportunity cost. Yes, we can build California High Speed Rail, but would there be more net benefit by using the money to improve Bay Area and LA transit? You have to value these things against where the money would otherwise go.