After reading this article, I turned to a friend of mine knowledgeable in physics for a conversation about this article and he answered me with this video:
DISCLAIMER: this video is 59 minutes long, feel free to finish reading this post before clicking play.
It raises a number of questions in my mind such as:
- How much could we know about the universe if we gathered the military (so-called defense) bugdget and flushed it into science and research such as this one going on at CERN?
- How much more efficient would be science research if all the countries were to work together such as it is done at CERN?
- Can the world survive and move forward without geeks? And a sister question to that, is the law of the strongest still up to date?
So here are my opinions:
First of all, according to this Wikipedia page about Military Expenditures in 2011 (argue the validity of these numbers if you wish), the worldwide spendings on military in 2011 was...
wait for it...
US$1562.3 (MF) BILLIONS. And yes! MF stands for Mother Fricking. Don't you think we could have at least 1 colony on some planet or another by now with that kind of budget? Not necessarily a big colony, I'm flexible, just enough for a couple of ficus and maybe a chimpanze and a human being to live in; and not even a planet, how about the moon? Because let me remind you, this is the 2011 budget: one (MF) year.
EDIT: The original article refered to the worldwide debt but the numbers used were wrong and therefore were edited out.
Now, to be fair, I'm sure a lot of the technology used in research around the world probably comes from the military BUT it does so because they have the budget for it.
Secondly, there is a great deal of competition going on and it seems very motivating for all scientific groups and institutions. However, I do believe that scientists are self motivated individuals who can do research without the competition. For that one, I do rely on your opinions as I don't have a clear enough view to give an opinion myself on that (anti)matter (geek joke, yes? no?).
Finally, I'm always impressed at the work scientists do and how passionate they are about it. I, myself, would have loved to work for CERN or such places if it was not for lack of care for studying, laziness and, well, partying. Also, the world moves forward, thanks to those who choose the hard path of studying, not only high school or university but also the lonely road of masters and PHDs. I surely would want now to be part of this group of courageous people but more for the romanticised discovery part of it than the crazy non sense (to me) path of equations that scientists must all take and that I care enough to avoid.
To conclude, on the sister question, why is the modern world built on models where the strongest survive and the weakest dies? Do these models ignore the work of Albert Einstein? How about Stephen Hawking?
Should we rethink these models while we are on the bridge of ground-breaking discoveries?
My new tag line: DISCUSS.
Here are more infos about the documentary on the BBC website. Thanks to my friend Arthur Michalak for always being a reliable source of cultural exchange.
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