Why the Hadron Collider Instead of the Starving?

It depends on how you do the math but I figure we could have saved the 11 million people who starved to death this year with the funds that were used to build the Large Hadron Collider. But hey, at least the world will be a much better place in the near future because we may now know if the god partial exists.

This is how I did the math.

The LHC is costing about 8.63 billion USD. Source
11 million people starve to death each year Source
$8.63 billion divided between 11 million starving men, women, and children is $784.55

That is $2.15 USD per day, per starving person for a year.

Now I'm a sciencey kind of guy who likes wizzy, shiny, technical stuff like rockets, and lasers etc, but as far as I can see the LHC is about as useless as that cheap imported shiny thing at Walmart that you just gotta have and is gonna break in a week (or worst is poisonous).
Right now the planet does not need to know if there are a few more exotic partials in the universe and the world as a whole is not going to be any happier with that information (if it is even produced) either.

So my questions is, what is the mechanism that makes us all sit around and do nothing while these types of projects are being funded (by moneys produced by you and me) and more importantly how do we defeat it?

[edit on 14-4-2009 by dainoyfb]

Ok I want you to imagine Bevis and Butthead for a minute. Ok you have that image in your mind. Now...

You called it the HARDON Collider... hehe-hehe-

Is this just a fancy machine for cock fighting.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by justsomeboreddude]

Now for a more serious post. I dont think money is the issue for most starving people in the world. It is very hard to feed starving people when their governments steal the food aid you send them to feed their army's or to sell to buy more weapons.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by justsomeboreddude]

Dang, I thought I corrected that. Is that better?

reply to post by dainoyfb


Fix it in the title of the post as well. That was an awesome freudian slip though. It made my day.

reply to post by justsomeboreddude


I agree with you but where I am confused is that we a willing to let our governments send us to war for oil but we sit on our buts when it comes to people suffering. How do we start changing the apathy factor?

Because, we don't control everything.

That doesn't stop the need to understand the World.

When you've wrestled the lovely dictators, pirates and their ilk who are stealing all the food aid already being sent, and gotten them to submit to gentility and noblisse oblige AND THEN wrestled all the people who think you are a big goon because you forced your cultural ethic of not starving the crap out of people on others. AND THEN you've educated everyone enough to get popular world wide buy in. AND THEN you've eliminated all the psychopaths so that they won't obtain power and do it again.....

Then we'll all be allowed to do something new.

Sounds like a GREAT plan.

It's a drop in the ocean compared to tax dollars spent on national defense. The War on Drugs, the War on Terror and the War on Immigration cost way more. The War on Obesity is more expensive. The War in Afghanistan and Iraq have cost more dollars too.

The good news is that tax dollars aren't spent on CERN/ LHC. It's a European adventure.

CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, Turkey, the European Commission and Unesco have observer status.

Press release

US Military budget

reply to post by dainoyfb


We didnt just go to war for oil. We went to Afganistan to cash a check out of someones a... and to have a military base close and personal to the Russians and Iranians. We went to war in Iraq for oil and to have a great stategic location for a few military bases. There is value in that.

As far as apathy goes, I think people would do more if doing more worked. But it doesnt, because you just keep making the guys more powerful that were causing all the problems in the first place.

I'll argue the opposite viewpoint of the OP, because clearly, even in times like these there is enough money to do both. Is it the will that is lacking? Feeding programs are effective in the short term, but more important would be the adding to growth of economies world wide. Investment in micro programs could be a good start.

I would even attribute a good portion of the recent doom & gloom and pessimism to our lack of an even more robust space program that doesn't already have in place manned space travel to the moon and mars.

We are society of explorers by nature and when exploration is curtailed or impeded we suffer globally because our collective vision of the future is clouded. So, yes, I laud Nixon for opening a dialogue with China, but blame him for decimating the future (present) of manned space travel.

Going from one extreme to the other, from the vast and infinite to the very small in the extreme, at the LHC we need to continue to advance our collective knowledge in order to have a future that we clearly see ourselves a part of. The LHC will conduct experiments that may either confirm or deny theories that have been floating for ~40+ years.

reply to post by Aeons


Ok, so why aren't we doing that? Why instead are we sitting in front of our Play Stations all day (or whatever) and feeling good about it? As people of a society how do you go about changing societies prioritys?

reply to post by dainoyfb


I would say for 2 reasons. 1. Sitting in front of your playstation is easy and safe. 2. Most people dont know how to solve the problem. So just like anything that you lack knowledge on you procrastinate.

There has to be a bigger picture plan in place to solve these issues. Look at what the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is up to. They realize that these things are progressive. You have to take baby steps to get to the big picture. You also have to take into account the current leadership of those countries and convince them that the success of their populace is good for them as well.

The usa donated around 500 million for this project
www.energy.gov...
I would rather donate my taxes to this project then to the greedy banks and to a useless war.This is not just an european project it is world wide.Yes alot of people starve to death but I think each country should take care of their own except in natural disasters when emergency aid is needed.I have followed fermi here in Illinois for years and can't wait for the results from the lhc if they ever get it running correctly.

I guess I should be more specific about the question in my original post.

What is a reasonable strategy for getting people in our society to apply energy and resources toward bettering the lives of everyone globally. I'm not referring to government or leader agendas, I'm referring to the people taking charge and making governments change there agendas. We all know the government and the elite are taking us for a ride. the issue is that we know yet we let it happen despite a better outcome.

It's a false argument. There's no "either/or" going on when comparing the cost of the Super Hadron Collider with money that could be spent on "starving people." It's not as if we instantly stopped working on the Super Hadron Collider suddenly all those people would be fed.

At this point in Earth's history, if there are people starving, it's due to politics, not lack of resources. And throwing billions of dollars into a political situation is a bad investment no matter what.

Either a society values scientific inquiry, or it doesn't. And if people are willing to spend the money on that, it's foolish to stop it. Advancing science has the general ultimate effect of enhancing people's lives in both the short and long terms. The immediate benefit is felt by the builders and technicians who create and run the machine. The long-term benefit could result from some discovery that might allow us to easily travel between planets and stars. Or who knows?

Consider this, too. People are always starving and dying. That's the human condition, and nothing is going to stop that. But it's also the human condition to look beyond our individual needs and as a species reach for something beyond ourselves.

If you're really worried about starving people, there are organizations where you can put your energy and resources. You get to choose that. Other people want to explore other places, and that can be done, too. It's never an all or nothing thing either way.

Originally posted by dee132423
The usa donated around 500 million for this project
www.energy.gov...
I would rather donate my taxes to this project then to the greedy banks and to a useless war.This is not just an european project it is world wide.Yes alot of people starve to death but I think each country should take care of their own except in natural disasters when emergency aid is needed.I have followed fermi here in Illinois for years and can't wait for the results from the lhc if they ever get it running correctly.

Good post Checked your link and stand corrected. Didn't know the US had chipped in that much. War benefits the few but progress in science should benefit us all...in theory

reply to post by Nohup



Well I guess then my question should have been: Why is the human condition so messed up and how do we change that?

The way I see it is that we put greed in front of pretty much everything else and because of that even America is falling and taking a huge portion of the world with it. We let our neighbor starve while we make another shopping trip to Best Buy and it is taking us all down. Why the general populous can't see that is beyond me.

reply to post by dainoyfb


I have my own family to care for just like everyone else.My husband and I both work hard to care for our family.I don't see a point in giving away my hard earned money here in the usa mostly to people who refuse to work and expect the taxpayers to foot the bill.I do try to do what I can for people now that the economy is the way it is.I feel like the people who we should be helping are the people who help themselves not the folks who sit in front of the tv complaining they can't find a job yet never leave the couch to look for one. I do have a heart and feel for all the underdeveloped countries mostly I feel for the children it should be up to their government to care for their people everything should not always fall on the usa.

Originally posted by dainoyfb
Why is the human condition so messed up and how do we change that?

Why? Because we're fragile, transient animals on a little moist hunk of rock hurtling through space. And life is a series of painful horrors separated by brief moments of peace and joy, but pretty much destined to end badly. You can blame DNA or God or whatever you like. But we all need food and water to live and reproduce, and after that, we'll all die.

How do we change that? We can't. The only thing we can do is work on an individual level to ease the misery of life by being nice to your friends and family and people you meet on the street.

Like I said, if it really bothers you, go volunteer your time or money or skills to a local organization working to help people in your own community. There are hungry and lonely people everywhere. Do what you can for them, if you feel like you need to. "The World" doesn't care if you help, but an individual person might be thankful.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by Nohup]

You are protesting how the money is being spent, but what have you done in similar endeavors?

You could think of the money in the sense of how you yourself conduct your business, most of your money goes to what you want, with the rest of it going to charities or what have you. The division going to other people is usually a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of your spending.