[fny]

It's sad we're resorting to philanthropy to solve problems like this. $500M is chump change.

NASA spent something like $300B in today's money on the Apollo program, and Artemis has exceeded $90B already.

I'm much more keen on never getting sick than prepping for Mars.

[sarchertech]

The Iran war is going to cost us at least $200 billion dollars and you’re over here complaining about NASA spending?

[LazyGooze]

just keep reminding yourself who was on those files... in case you forget it over the war

[kakacik]

Don't forget but don't hold it too dearly, clearly US society as a whole doesn't give a f*ck about pedophiles, thats the message I see consistently now. Still not comprehending how can any sane half-decent parent think and act like that (or just any decent human for that matter), but here we are and these are facts.

[simianwords]

Files? You mean Epstein? You have the wrong target there and you are playing into your enemy’s game.

[fragmede]

Iran? An immigrant might get free healthcare, or a trans person might not have a horrible day today. Have you ever considered that?

[qingcharles]

And you're talking about the spending of a single country, but the success of a plan like this improves the lives of everyone globally. So if drugs were developed by a world-wide fund where every country chips in a percentage of their GDP or whatever, then it would be even more affordable.

[veunes]

It's strange how much we've normalized everyone being sick for weeks every year, even though the total cost is enormous

[rebuilder]

What makes you think they will succeed?

[jcattle]

Yep. I don't see 500 million being even close to enough to develop broad-spectrum preventatives that would be easy enough and safe enough to administer, to get over 67% of the population to take them.

[SideQuark]

It’s 500m spend without guaranteed success.

[MitziMoto]

Yeah, so was building moon rockets.

[Groxx]

I don't think anyone (not insane) actually doubted we could reach the moon, they were just unsure how much money it'd take per launch, and if it'd ever be worth it. Because we had already reached orbit, "add more fuel" is essentially a guaranteed success, if infinite money is allowed - at worst you do it in multiple launches and join up the parts in space. 2, 10, 1000, it'll eventually succeed, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't.

Reaching another star? Definitely more expensive, but entirely feasible if we all got our shit together and decided it was going to happen.

Medical stuff though? Humans are complicated, and there are practically no guaranteed routes, regardless of money (currently).

[m4rtink]

Well, don't forget the Soviets gave up in the end with their N1 rocket.

[kakacik]

Yet the chance of saving human lives en masse and permanently advancing knowledge of our own bodies should be more important than ticking a checkbox of walking on the moon and then shelving whole thing for good (that comes from person who loves astronomy etc but there are simply way more important matters in society).

We iteratively succeeded against AIDS ffs, that looked like impossible mission in 80s and 90s, we just threw more science and research on the problem. Your arguments are not that good

[simoncion]

Looking at how Blue Origin is doing, it seems that that's still true.

[9dev]

remind me how successful the Iran war was

[s1artibartfast]

Everything should be voluntary philantrhopy! It seems like the ideal state if people are willing to do the pro-social thing by their own volition.

Is it better if your child does their homework because they freely choose to, or is it better that they do it because you will beat them with a belt?

[anhyz]

I'm sure if we just cut taxes a little more, our modern-day robber barons will choose to use their money to fix things on their own instead of building doomsday bunkers and buying superyachts.

[9dev]

it will start to trickle down any moment now!

[riffraff]

But people are not voluntarily philanthropists.

There's a reason we had to introduce work regulations so you don't have children working 13 hours shifts in coal mines.

It's way better if my children study by themselves, but if left to their own devises they'll just watch cartoons all day.

(Not advocating for belting kids, just saying there's a gap between utopia and reality)

[WalterBright]

> There's a reason we had to introduce work regulations so you don't have children working 13 hours shifts in coal mines.

Coincidentally, the regulations appeared when it was no longer profitable to employ children. If you don't believe that, just imagine what jobs kids could do in your workplace. I can't think of any.

Coal mining today is done with industrial machines.

[gregoryl]

People who are voluntary philanthropists tend not to amass fortunes.