NASA should steal the Pentagon's budget

The $600 billion per year budget of the US military could be better spent by NASA.  They could use it to both create new space hardware (which would incidentally still require significant aerospace manufacturing, so not detracting too much from the industrial part of the military-industrial complex) and fund new R&D projects that would eventually give rise to new technology and economic opportunities.  Look at how many of the modern technologies that we take for granted come from science related spending; that NASA is so comparatively underfunded is terrible. 

The military is itself a good source of new R&D and it has its own use in defence of the nation.  It would not be necessary to cut out the military budget – that would be equally stupid – but gradually phase it into balance with NASA’s.  For comparison NASA’s budget is around $20 billion per year.  A program could start that aims to make the budgets balance to $310 billion per year for each – still plenty for the military!  NASA would then have a budget of over 15x the amount it currently has.

 Think of all the advancements and achievements that NASA has had a part to play in: the moon landing, satellite construction, the International Space Station and exploring the solar system.   Now imagine that with 15x the funding they could complete projects 15 x faster, or at least complete 15x as many projects at once (a little optimistic but logical).  NASA was created in 1958.  Think about squeezing all of their scientific progress over the last just under 60 years, and doing it all in just 4.

Always under-promise!

You should always under-promise when discussing a commitment or project.  Being ambitious starts with wanting to achieve a new state.  How to get to that state and the path and time needed to get there will always be more complicated than you initially expect.  You move from being optimistic and venture into the land of the naive to expect it to be easier than you anticipate.  I have always found that you manage expectations better this way.   The negativity that you get from missing on delivering something in line with expectations is large.  It is also equal to the gain you get when you can over-deliver with the same outcome but when the initial expectation was lower than the final result.  

This is not a challenge to be lazy or ignore work; the effort put into the task should always be the same: 100%.  But more realistic planning and promises will lead to more of your hard work looking like a success rather than a near miss, and more of your colleagues and friends seeing you as capable rather than unreliable.  Of course you will find those people that are never satisfied and have unrealistic expectations no matter how much you try to show them what is actually possible.  Not sure how to help those people.  But definitely don't be brow beaten into committing to something that you can't complete; that is only going to end up bad for you. 

So it's real, huh?

Yes it's real.  It'f funny, isn't it, that even knowing something intellectually it still takes direct proof, such as seeing it, to make it really stick - to resonate in the brain and really believe it.  Maybe it is a throwback to our lizard brain and the seat of emotion and consciousness in the limbic system.  Abstractly understating something just isn't really enough.  For something new to really penetrate us as beings we must grapple with it on an emotional and sensual level, below the cerebral.  For a new idea, fact or event to sink in it takes real-life proof, whatever form appropriate to the subject this proof takes.  

That is why examples used in learning are powerful; I find them particularly useful to help understand new ideas and to internalize what that idea means - it's repercussions, boundaries and how I will ultimately react to it, practically or emotionally.  While we are busy using our intellect for good, we should look for real world examples and use our emotional intelligence as well.

Democracy and the Asylum

There is more information available to us than ever before.  We moved from oral story traditions to the printed word, then to widely available media and education and now to the internet being in everyone's pocket.  The access and volume of information available to us is increasing exponentially.  At the same time, people's capacity to interpret information is not increasing.  We are as smart as we have ever been (perhaps even a little less so).  With busier lives we have less time to analyse that information; overall our capacity is probably diminishing. 

Depending on your point of view, we may be drowning in information.  There must have been a knowledge inflection point in history, perhaps sometime in the 19th or 20th century, when the available information matched our ability to absorb and analyse it.  Before that people were ignorant, knowledge blocked to them.  During this inflection point, people were not perfect, but they were able to understand the world around them and attempt to act on it in an informed way.  The gap between their knowledge level and reality closed.  After this point, we are not necessarily worse off, but we are at risk of being overwhelmed.  We have to consume and analyse so much to stay informed of our environment and we may not be able to keep up.  As a crutch, we may rely on authorities, experts or snap decisions.  They can all lead us astray - intentionally if they are another person, or from ignorance if its a decision based on missing information. 

Democracy is decisions.  Specifically, who makes them; the deimos or the government.  We always face a risk that we may make bad decisions.  But now, because we may not have the time to properly analyse the choices available to us the risk may be higher than expected.  If we do decide to trust voices of authority, we are back at square one, since we have to analyse them and decide if they are trustworthy.  They may be biased or have hidden agendas.  Finally, making snap decisions, often based on prejudices, while expedient, can also lead to errors. 

The cynic might say that; life is a farce, and that democracy is little more than the lunatics running the asylum.  How true that statement is depends on a few things.  When in history are you looking? What is the governing system?  How well informed were the people; was it around the time of the knowledge inflection point?  Most western countries are representative republics, not full democracies.  For a full democracy you would need proportional representation, ideally with a referendum on every decision and law proposed by the government.  Is it a problem that we don't have full democracies?  No.  At the same time, we should not take for granted the voting process in electing representatives that align to our values (for example MPs in the UK).

We need to keep one thing in mind.  There is a gap between the knowledge of the overall population and the reality of any situation (as best as we can understand it).  That knowledge gap can be on anything; for which party to vote for, climate change or how to balance the economy.  And this gap is a variable.  If the gap is getting wider, people will find it harder to figure out what the right choices are.  How close we become to the metaphorical lunatics becomes uncomfortably relevant.  I don't have an easy answer - AI perhaps but that isn't an answer.  Be mindful, critical, take the time to analyse things and don't be suckered in by any person or group.  The last place we want to end up living in, is the asylum.