🚀 go-pugleaf

In <D9CHos.GG7@watserv3.uwaterloo.ca> ascott@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Alan
Scott) writes: 

>The majority of society values it.   Otherwise the government wouldn't
>be funding it.  That's one of the better uses of democracy. 

This might be true in a pure democracy, but we have one of the
representative variety, in which many of the benefits are concentrated
among small minorities with noisy lobbies, while the costs are diffused
over an uncomprehending electorate.  I don't think that a majority of
society values mohair subsidies or the helium reserve, but they get
funded nonetheless.  The current space program direction is much more
driven by the needs and desires of the aerospace industry than by the
public, which remains largely ignorant of how much we spend on it or
what it does.
-- 
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