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comment by AlderaanDuran
AlderaanDuran  ·  3450 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Philae has landed! (We landed on a comet. +1 for humans)

    Call it priorities.

This came from the ESA (European Space Agency) budget and has nothing to do with Japan. Are you honestly suggesting that a decade ago the EU should have put this money aside knowing that they should just give it to Japan 8 years in the future to help clean up a nuclear disaster that hadn't happened yet? Is that honestly the priority you are implying should have taken precedence?

    I'm less impressed with the fact people were and still are starving from hunger

So by your logic of being mad other countries are spending money on things you think would be better spent on fighting hunger in other countries you should be selling your laptop/computer you are typing this comment on to feed some people. Again, by your logic, "while I'm impressed you can type ignorant comments from a computer and post them online, I'm less impressed with the fact people were and still are starving from hunger, dirty drinkingwater, poor nutrition etc, even as far back as 2004." How much money and how much time did you donate to fighting those issues over the last 10 years? Or is this one of those things where you just sit back in your arm chair and gripe that OTHER people aren't doing things you care about? You know what I did earlier this year? I pledged a financial contribution to purchase 100 Life Straws that were sent to Africa. Not a huge contribution, but I'd bet my house it's more than you've ever done. I'm also one of the biggest space exploration supporters you'll ever meet. We can do both.

Also, you know the US and the EU send BILLIONS to Africa every year, right? You know we have the DoD over their setting up Ebola treatment facilities right? You know that even though we throw billions at the issue that sometimes bad things still happen, right?

    But hey, who cares? We landed on a comet. Yay!

But hey, who cares I have a computer and laptop and and can post comments from my ivory tower online while doing nothing myself. Yay!





Lintel  ·  3450 days ago  ·  link  ·  

See comment below. What have you been doing to make this a better planet?

Money? About 1% of my income, which, since I made less than minimum for the most time of the last decade, wasn't that much, I grant you that. Please, don't thump your chest like that. You can at least try to give arguments in a reasonable fashion instead of stating you've done more than I have. I have no way of veryfying, neither have you. So a statement like that looks silly. Time? Last 2.5 years I'm full-time trying to improve the situation. You? THe fact that you did both makes already a difference. You can do that, I do this, the only problem is politicians find it far more profitable to invest in other things than in saving lives.

Btw, I already gave away my stuff. I need nothing more than what I can carry on my back. The comp I'm on right now belongs to the lady whose mom's dying right now, and for whose animals and house I've been taking care this last couple of weeks. Cost me a couple of thousand in seasonal-work, but there's things more importat than just colored pieces of paper. So yes, you're absolutely right: if you want to speak about improving the world, lead by example. That's what I'm doing. You?