That's a valid response, and I think it gets at the core of why we do planetary science. There are no military or economic applications of knowing what Martian soil is made out of, or why it lost its atmosphere, or whether life evolved there too. So why do both the US and China fund these missions at all? And does it matter if China returns samples first?
First, I would say that in the process of answering these questions, we develop technologies that often have military or economic benefits (technology transfer). There's something about trying to solve problems humanity has not faced before that causes this. We talk a lot about solution spaces, but problem spaces are maybe more important!
Second, there are intangible benefits to answering these questions, which accrue to those who answer them, but also to all of humanity. Prestige, soft power, research expertise, for the one who answers them. And for all of humanity, we gain perspective, awe, wonder, togetherness, curiosity, joy, a whole suite of feelings.
If China discovers life on Mars first, which is absolutely a possibility, would we even bother with being second? I think it's too optimistic to assume it's inevitable that we will do a Mars sample return mission. And if we don't, we'd miss out on all the technology transfer benefits. Being in a race is very motivating.
Definitely haven't made a complete argument here, but those are my thoughts. I know there are more concrete, pressing issues out there. But we don't all have to save the world. We just have to do our part and be decent human beings.
> There are no military or economic applications of knowing what Martian soil is made out of, or why it lost its atmosphere, or whether life evolved there too.
That should start with, "There is no _known_..."
Unknown unknowns are why people who care about economics and power (governments) care about science.
Think of all of the science that goes into firing and controlling a precision guided missile. How much of that technology was created for military purposes.
One huge benefit that can't be overstated is the perception that we can still do great things as a society. Contrary to what many might think the program to put a man on the Moon wasn't particularly popular in the 60s. Yet when we landed on the Moon very near to 100% of households were watching the broadcast of it on television, and that achievement set the stage for what was possible - which was anything. And generally it's going to make you proud to be an American.
China in the current era is doing sample returns from the Moon, building horizontal skyscrapers, hosting a 'robotic olympics' where they're breaking all sorts of human records in quite impressive looking ways [1], and much more. And now just casually blowing by the US in space capability? To say nothing of it coming scarcely more than a decade after we banned them from the ISS [2] for fear they'd still all our super secret space sauce? That's going to do crazy good things for the morale, mindset, and broader unity of a society.
Basically a good reason to do cool things is to do cool things. I think one quantifiable result of this sort of stuff is that now we live in a society where most American kids want to be YouTubers, while most Chinese kids want to be astronauts. [3] It's not hard to see how that sort of upbringing is going to shape the future generations of a society.
That is literally the only reason anyone has invested in outer space. Even scientific missions are done with a dual national defense purpose. Think of it like PR whitewashing of the military and geopolitical reasons that motivate funding.
Notice how the US space interest rapidly dried up with the death of the Soviet Union. I’m not sure if China really motivates the same thing because it’s an authoritarian semi-capitalist society - it’s the communist “people owning the means of production” that gets capitalists really worried.
Not that I have a solution, but isn’t that kind of disappointing? Why don’t we just do it directly, rather than only as a side effect of needless conflicts?
People suffered under the totalitarian regime and corruption. The central planning was also a problem in terms of making sure that goods production could meet what people needed. China’s semi-capitalist system with the authoritarian government stepping in when the companies don’t cooperate is an attempt to adapt to retaining communism while letting go of central planning. And this system is acceptable by western capitalists. This is a criticism of the West and its adherence to capitalism rather than liberal ideas, not an endorsement of “communism”*
* most people use communism as short hand for central planning which IMHO was the major economic problem that caused economically slow growth and lack of goods. combined with the authoritarian repression that caused a different kind of suffering. But neither of those is required by a communist political movement.
There have been 20,000 voluntary communes in the US. They all failed. Communism doesn't work, whether it is forcible or voluntary. No commune or centrally planned economy has ever managed to feed itself. Hence the suffering.
In Israel about 74/270 are still communal with the rest having privatized, but they’re still communal living arrangements.
It’s important to remember that most movements and experiments fail, same reason countries and companies also fail. A lot of them failed due to mismanagement, idealogical disputes, children not sticking around (ie no new members) etc. building sustainable communities is hard and not a unique problem for communes.
btw these are all the same reasons open source projects fail yet we wouldn’t call open source a failure despite it having all the same problems and looking more like communism than capitalism.
Also you’re overstating the failure rate. Amana Society, Inc is a cooperative structure that evolved from a commune. REI is also a cooperative corporate structure although not quite like a commune. So clearly there’s a path to evolve to that’s sustainable and does work and looks quite a bit different from capitalism. And there’s a difference between communal living and cooperative commercial entity which is good to separate.
Not sure where this claim comes from. AFAIK Kibbutzes are financially independent from the state. Are you perhaps confusing the early days when they were getting set up vs the situation today? Or are you talking about the contentious settlements?
Twin Oaks Community in Virginia has been running for 60 years now and does income sharing between the residents.
The Bruderhof Communities have been running for a century now.
And my point regarding REI and Amana is not that they’re communes but that they’re non-capitalist organizations. If those models took any kind of serious hold at a government level, they’d be fought tooth and nail just like communes.
When the Kibbutzim lost their government subsidies, they became capitalists.
The Twin Oaks community has a population of 100 and annual turnover of 20%. That's pretty high. I suspect Twin Oaks' only success is being able to constantly recruit new members and get them to turn over their assets to the commune. Then they get disenchanted with communism and leave.
The Bruderhof communities average around 120 people. I couldn't find any statistics on how long people stay in them.
Congratulations, 2 communes out of 20,000 have survived! It still rounds to a 100% failure rate.
So what advantage, in the realm of all possibilities, would this give China that we should be seriously concerned about?
We have such bigger existential threats right now that my emotional response to the quoted text is an aggressive lack of concern.