spending billions

Posted by Joe on: 09.09.2008 /

If you had $10 billion, how would you spend it?  Would you spend it on a giant physics experiment?

If I was to tell you that this is approximately the same as the US spending on breakfast cereal every year, would that make any difference?

[edit: link should work now]

5 Responses to "spending billions"

  • Comment by: Staci

    1 09/9/08 4:37 PM | Comment Link |

    Deciding between priorities is never easy. And it is hard to choose to spend large sums of money on scientific research (with unknown outcomes) when there are so many very real, very known things that the funding could go toward. Often scientists don’t even know what they will learn. But sometimes the things discovered in such research can have an impact on the more practical needs. This is how most medicines, vaccines, etc. were discovered. I think we’ll need to make very significant investments in research to find alternative energy sources, for example.

    (And I can believe it about the breakfast cereal - which in most households I know about is not just eaten at breakfast.)

  • Comment by: Helen

    2 09/10/08 7:33 AM | Comment Link |

    If I’d collected $10 billion from people on the understanding that I was going to use it to fund a giant physics experiment then it would be unethical for me to do anything else with it.

    As Staci said, people do benefit in practical ways from scientific research and it doesn’t seem so self-serving or pointless as many other things people spend money on so it’s not at the top of my list of money that should have been directed elsewhere.

  • Comment by: joe

    3 09/10/08 10:09 AM | Comment Link |

    I don’t recall the funding for this project being discussed once at the last election. Actually, I think it is a rather unethical way to do any science project - it costs the same as starting a large European university from scratch every year.

    I’m not saying it is the biggest pot of money in existence, but is certainly symptomatic of the West’s priorities in a world of hunger.

  • Comment by: Helen

    4 09/10/08 12:34 PM | Comment Link |

    Where did the money come from? I’m thinking CERN has been working on this for a while and so they might have raised much? all? of it a while ago. BICBW.

  • Comment by: joe

    5 09/10/08 1:33 PM | Comment Link |

    At least $60 million a year comes from British taxation. I assume the rest comes from other European taxpayers.