[xoac]

> We can either hold ourselves back an an endless and futile journey on solving the human condition of poverty and inequality, or we can explore the stars. It's an easy choice.

Wait... Are you suggesting that "exploring the stars" is less of an endless and futile journey than dealing with poverty and inequality?

[foxglacier]

Solving poverty and inequality is for the short term - they'll come back and need solving again no matter how many times you already solved them. But once the stars are explored, they stay explored forever. So yea, that's moving forwards and the other isn't.

[westmeal]

The closest stars are way too far to reach on any reasonable timescale. That's not even mentioning the fact that moving forwards is a vague goal. Moving forwards towards what exactly? And if the US government got off of it's ass to... Oh I don't know, maybe fix the bullshit healthcare system we have and help people with tax money instead of bombing people for Israel things would improve quite a bit in a very short time. That's assuming we don't bomb each other over terroritorial squabbles first. In any case I don't really understand your defeatism when it comes to inequality but when it's something as difficult as interstellar space travel you seem to be optimistic.

[foxglacier]

It's not optimism and defeatism, it's recognizing that one of them lasts and the other doesn't. Political changes like you listed can easily be reversed in future, but if we discover something in space, we'll keep that discovery forever even if we stop exploring.

[moogly]

> they'll come back and need solving again

So like "whitey going to the moon" again on Artemis II?

[Shocka1]

Only 75%

[remarkEon]

No, not at all.

I am saying that there we never be a world in which poverty and inequality do not exist, unless we are all dead. Maybe it's because I'm an American, but this perspective that grand adventure and exploration is pointless or not worth it is totally foreign to me.

[rexpop]

I'm an American, too, and justice-for-all is my watchword—not this "grand adventure" costume for self-aggrandizement.

[remarkEon]

Sorry, how is it a costume? It literally is a grand adventure.

[rexpop]

It's a disguise for self-aggrandizement.

"Grand" and "adventure" are subjective terms.