In about 4 hours the most ambitious mission yet will attempt to land on Mars. The amount of technical, mathematical, engineering, and other kinds of knowledge necessary for that is almost staggering. And the coordinated work of thousands of people. It makes some of us kinda misty, hoping for a safe landing for Curiosity. Ray Kurzweil has correctly pointed out that billions of people now have smart phones...they are so cheap and powerful that a bushman in the Congo has nearly the collected knowledge of humanity, literally in his hand. Even many of the literally starving people in the world have such phones....
But they can’t eat them. Does it help them get any food, clean water, medicine, sanitary toilets? Where’s the “profit” in helping such people? Where is the motivation for tens of thousands of people to work together for the sole purpose of providing the basic necessities of life for so many destitute people? It just ain’t there. There is perceived to be no profit in it. God, my species is sick.
TRB
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