My Plan for My Country's Next 2 Years

[KukriKhan]

Below is my plan (If you haven't time to read it, to summarize: I go "bold").

What's your's?

1) All troops out of Iraq by St. Patrick's Day, and re-deployed to Afghanistan.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Dear Friends in Iraq:
It's been real. It's been fun. But, even you must admit: it hasn't been real fun. Thank you for letting us visit your wonderful country, depose your dictator, look for WMD's, and try to establish a US-friendly regime. We wish you all the luck in the world, and hope and pray that we'll still be friends.

2) Send ultimatum to Pakistan & Afghanistan.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hello Afghans and Pakistanis: Thank you for your cooperation so far. OBL still resides, we're told, somewhere in the Paki/Afgha border region. Kindly deliver him in the next 96 hours. If you can not or will not, we shall find him in our own blundering way: shockNawe bombings of the entire border region, with follow-on mechanized search-and-destroy missions We apologize in advance for any broken family china. We'll leave (totally) as soon as we know he's captured or dead.

3) To our debtors/bondholders:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hi fellas. Hang on to your US paper; it's gonna get real valuable, real soon, just like it always has. If ya wanna get wobbly-kneed now, no problem: send it back for early payment... 30 cents on the buck. Just know that, since you've reneged on your trust of us, we renege in our ability to sell our securities to you in the future. Fair, no?

4) To the US banks and Wall Street:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

"Hi Guys. You have 90 days to clean up and audit your books. On Day 91, have your accurate Balance Sheets on my desk outlining your current status. If your Balance Sheet is found inaccurate by my staff by more than 1%, I will close your business, take over your assets, and send you to jail for 20 years for fraud. No kidding. With Love..."

5) To the scientific community:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Stop whatever you're doing, and work immediately on this: Find a new way to capture, store, and release, on-demand, energy. You have a blank check for 2 years, and the world depends on you. After 2 years, if undone, we'll assume you can't get it done, and no more money will come. And you'll be bagging groceries at your local Piggly-Wiggly.

6) To America:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hi Folks: Times are hard, you might have read or heard. Well, they're gonna get harder, before they get better. But they will get better, if we all, every one of us, give our best effort every day. I'm working with both our friends and enemies around the world to make sure they know where we stand, and what they can expect of us.

Just the usual: Honesty. Integrity. Strength. Good-will. Optimism. Hope. And determinism. I know I can count on you to show all that. If we all pull together, we can do this thing; nor only survive, but thrive on our strengths and principles. Let's walk together, strong, cheerful, confident, into a new day...

[Don Corleone]

How exactly is it that you didn't find your way into the Cabinet? Is Postmaster General still open?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

How exactly is it that you didn't find your way into the Cabinet? Is Postmaster General still open?

Maybe we should stop electing ex-generals and elect a few ex SMaj's. This is good stuff.

[KukriKhan]

Thanks fellas. Really. I depressed myself with My own #47 to this thread , and figured it wasn't right to predict doom-and-gloom without offering an alternative. And hope the other great minds here might do the same.

There has to be a way out/through. With our heads together, we can figure it. I'm sure.

[CountArach]

Alright my memo to the Prime Minister of Australia regarding the next two years...

#1 - Get our soldiers out of Afghanistan and reduce the size of our armed forces back to what they were a decade ago. The 'War on Terror' is a waste of money that is only going to get more expensive to maintain. Strongly consider spending this money on helping to re-build Afghanistan.

#2 - When bailing out any companies that need it (Likely to be parts of the auto-industry and other manufacturing sectors), include a cause that states that part of the company must be nationalised. This ensures a long-term return on investment and will provide people with great job security and more confidence in their long-term prospects.

#3 - Stop with these stupid one-off money handouts. While they are stimulating the economy it is only a very short-term stimulant. Also you are blatantly buying votes - we can see that...

#4 - Spend above money handouts on increasing the aged pension and unemployment benefits. These are the people who are going to spend every single dollar you give them on the essentials of life. This will have a knock-on effect on the economy that will help everyone.

#5 - Actually ensure that you invest in green, renewable energy. We have the capacity to build these now, but without the correct push from the government nothing is likely to get done in this economic climate. This will have both a short-term benefit (in the form of more jobs building manufacturing plants now) and a long-term benefit (helping our balance of trade and more jobs servicing and maintaining these energy-efficient power supplies).

#6 - Strongly consider bank nationalisation when all this ends - they caused the mess so let's nip any future problem in the bud.

#7 - Don't censor my internet. Seriously.

[Husar]

Your last point Kukri, sounded a lot like Obama's inauguration speech to me.

1 and 2 I find a bit...improvable, personally, 4 sounds pretty good.

5 may be a bit optimistic, could just as well tell chip manufacturers to introduce a 0.5nm process within a year, but I doubt they can pull it off, even if such a process is actually coming down the road. It's just that I guess you cannot force people to have new ideas or make certain findings, think of the folding at home project which has litterally millions and billions of complicated calculations to possibly come to a result, you cannot just force them to calculate faster, although it would perhaps be nice if you could.

1 I would change to a more gradual pulling out rather than just packing up and leaving the new Iraqi army staring at a huge gap they have to fill now. Before they have filled it some crazy warlord might do it and then you can invade again a few years down the road, won't exactly improve conditions for your kids. So, pulling out, yes, but not in a hurry but gradually while handing over control to the authorities in a way they can actually handle.

Number two sounds to me a bit like Israel's revenge attacks on Gaza, it has just been established in polls that something above 80% or so of Afghans don't want the Taliban back and now you apparently lump them in with the terrorists or force them to take up arms and catch Osama just because you think they are harboring him. So what if he is actually elsewhere or the locals are afraid and will all die trying to capture him? What would your approach achieve then? A lot of bombed innocent afghanis or a number of shot afghan civilians who tried to get Osama out of his cave. Another funny thing is that according to the BBC, more and more afghans think the troops the west has stationed there are not capable of handling the whole situation. If you know where he is and think getting him will solve all the problems, then send a lot of soldiers up there and find him yourself, that way you prove that you're actually effective and capable of stopping him. Instead of carpet bombing a whole region because you didn't get him served on a silver plate, that's like a kid sulking because it didn't get that lolly from mommy when it could have just bought the lolly itself, or something...

[InsaneApache]

Where's the bit about free beer and loose women?

[naut]

I agree with you CA on all but the banks. Our banks aren't as stupid as those in the US and the UK. Tighter regulations would be cheaper and more effective.

Edit: Yeah the one off hand-outs are a joke, I'd add single parents to the list of those eligible. The military really should be specialised. We don't have the money for a large military, cutting it back to just specialised units like the SAS for the army, while leaving the navy at it's current capacity should be sufficient.

Where's the bit about free beer and loose women?

So you mean a college fund?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Ok, I'll play.

In the UK

1. Reduce the Civil Service drastically in size, possibly by half. Our Government is too large and costs too much, being forced to do the same with few people should also cut down on the red tape. After all, red tape is just a way of giving quangoes something to do.

2. The Government does not rent, it buys. I don't care if it's a fighter jet or an office block. The Government will end up buy after five years anyway, and it will cost twice as much. Better to buy now, or wait until the Treasury actually has the money.

3. No long term public ownership of industry and finances. Some times companies go bust, but State run enterprises usually end up flogged and flayed dead horses. So what is bought up in the short term must be sold off in the long term, regulation and actual prosecutions for corperate negligence are better ways of controlling excess. Our government is also institutionally incapable of regulating itself.

4. Reform of the House of Lords, and no, I do not want an elected House, thank you. I would like an appointed one, with a membership of never less than 400, because this is a chamber that revises law and I want it full of experts. Appointments should be completely seperate from the Prime Minister's Office, the last two have demonstated how dodgy that man can be.

5. Reform of constituancy boundaries, no more 4% more for the Tories to get elected. In general I would like to see the regulation of many of these matters taken out of the hands of MPs and their cohorts. The partisan climate in the UK has clearly damaged the operation of democracy by placing far too much of the basic machinery under the thumb of the ruling party.

[Devastatin Dave]

How exactly is it that you didn't find your way into the Cabinet?

I would assume that our good man Kukri pays his taxes.

[Furunculus]

My plan for the UK's years 2010-2011:

> Legislate a minimum level of peacetime defence spending of 2.5% of GDP (we need to prove we are committed allies to the US)

> Legislate an annual review to determine if we are in fact at peace, and if not; how much more we need to spend (we need to prove we are committed allies to the US)

> Begin a transition to reduce the tax burden from 40+ percent of GDP to 33% of GDP (starting with stealth taxes)

> Begin a transition away from the EU and into EFTA (no need to continually spoke the wheels of the more integrationist EU nations)

> Repeal the Human Rights Act so that we can concentrate on justice (the concept of universal human rights is fine for head-hacking countries, but actually a hinderance to the UK)

> Legislate a program of 1:1 legislation introduction/repeal so as to make headway against the vast burden of new legislation created in the last ten years.

> Begin a transition from big-government to localism

> Encourage a referendum on Scotland asap (i am British and support the union, but for gods sake make up your mind and either stop whinging or eff-off)

> Scrap all plans for national citizen databases, id-cards, and dna records of people who remain un-convicted of a criminal offence.

> Allow smoking in private members clubs

> Repeal the fox-hunting ban (the only non-retarded objection to fox-hunting is that the fox is not a designated pest species)

> Be clear of iraq

> Be committed to Afghanistan

> Put pressure of Pakistan to reform

that should do for now.

[Furunculus]

Ok, I'll play.

In the UK

1. Reduce the Civil Service drastically in size, possibly by half. Our Government is too large and costs too much, being forced to do the same with few people should also cut down on the red tape. After all, red tape is just a way of giving quangoes something to do.

2. The Government does not rent, it buys. I don't care if it's a fighter jet or an office block. The Government will end up buy after five years anyway, and it will cost twice as much. Better to buy now, or wait until the Treasury actually has the money.

3. No long term public ownership of industry and finances. Some times companies go bust, but State run enterprises usually end up flogged and flayed dead horses. So what is bought up in the short term must be sold off in the long term, regulation and actual prosecutions for corperate negligence are better ways of controlling excess. Our government is also institutionally incapable of regulating itself.

4. Reform of the House of Lords, and no, I do not want an elected House, thank you. I would like an appointed one, with a membership of never less than 400, because this is a chamber that revises law and I want it full of experts. Appointments should be completely seperate from the Prime Minister's Office, the last two have demonstated how dodgy that man can be.

5. Reform of constituancy boundaries, no more 4% more for the Tories to get elected. In general I would like to see the regulation of many of these matters taken out of the hands of MPs and their cohorts. The partisan climate in the UK has clearly damaged the operation of democracy by placing far too much of the basic machinery under the thumb of the ruling party.

could you explain #5, because as far as i understand labour has a massive electoral advantage in that it requires a lesser proportion of the national vote to achieve a majority election victory, to the point that the last general election gave the Cons a significant lead in english votes which makes up ~90% of the population, and yet still failed to win the election.

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

You're but dreamers aloof the ground. I, for one, welcome the wonderful world of the status quo, as crapped it might be. There is little choice!

[Strike For The South]

1. Spend Less, Raise Taxes to balance budget

2. Leave Iraq

3. Hands off my social liberties.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

To Ms. Merkel (though maybe not for long)...

1) Let's pull our weight in Afghanistan. Come on - the Canadians are working harder than we are. Get in there with everything we've got, and start doing things that are, you know, a little dangerous. It is war, after all.

2) Stop the farce of Lisbon. Use your pressure to scale back the European Union and start working more in our national interest, instead of helping push documents that may well be unconstitutional. And if you really want to do it, at least have the decency to let us decide.

3) Let the markets work.

That's all so far.

[Gregoshi]

I would assume that our good man Kukri pays his taxes.

He shoots, he scores!

We can't have Kukri going postal on the status quo, can we? That's too bad.

[seireikhaan]

Feasible things in the next two years:

1) Spend our money more wisely. End the money holes in Iraq and domestically.

2) Continue to stimulate the economy with a combination of tax cuts and wise spending(see above).

3) Smooth over America's infrastructure at its weak points, including electric grids, roads, and bridges.

4) Make a concerted effort to continue our efforts at obtaining renewable energy. Primarily, expansions of solar and wind power are in order.

5) STOP agricultural subsidies, allow developing countries to start developing their own agricultural sectors by ending our ag dumping.

6) Close loopholes that allow companies to expand their "monitization" efforts into tax-free areas such as the Caman Islands.

7) Find OBL and root out Al Qaeda and related networks in Waziristan.

8) Strengthen coordination with countries like Indonesia and Turkey- we need more effort from our stable Islamic allies.

[rory_20_uk]

Ok, I'll play.

In the UK

1. Reduce the Civil Service drastically in size, possibly by half. Our Government is too large and costs too much, being forced to do the same with few people should also cut down on the red tape. After all, red tape is just a way of giving quangoes something to do.

2. The Government does not rent, it buys. I don't care if it's a fighter jet or an office block. The Government will end up buy after five years anyway, and it will cost twice as much. Better to buy now, or wait until the Treasury actually has the money.

3. No long term public ownership of industry and finances. Some times companies go bust, but State run enterprises usually end up flogged and flayed dead horses. So what is bought up in the short term must be sold off in the long term, regulation and actual prosecutions for corperate negligence are better ways of controlling excess. Our government is also institutionally incapable of regulating itself.

4. Reform of the House of Lords, and no, I do not want an elected House, thank you. I would like an appointed one, with a membership of never less than 400, because this is a chamber that revises law and I want it full of experts. Appointments should be completely seperate from the Prime Minister's Office, the last two have demonstrated how dodgy that man can be.

5. Reform of constituency boundaries, no more 4% more for the Tories to get elected. In general I would like to see the regulation of many of these matters taken out of the hands of MPs and their cohorts. The partisan climate in the UK has clearly damaged the operation of democracy by placing far too much of the basic machinery under the thumb of the ruling party.

1. Yup. The Civil Service recycles money, it doesn't create wealth.
2. I'd add to that with military spending that we need to realise we're a second rate power and buy appropriate to this - no fighters or aircraft carriers - we can't fight a war of attrition anyway!
3. Yup.
4. And the sodding Commons. It's not a free piggy bank to fleece. Get like the USA of openness with finances. Getting caught on tape selling influence = expulsion and fines, not get out of jail free as you're above the law.
5. Sorry, I've lost you. Gerrymandering is bad though.
6. As an adjunct to (1), simplify the tax code, simplify and reduce benefits payments, child allowance, pregnancy allowance and other parts of the tax code that shuttle small amounts back and forward.
7. Stop kicking the hornet's nests in Iran / Afghanistan. Been there, done that 100 years ago. Didn't work then, it won't now.
8. Legalise Drugs / Prostitution. Tax both. Reassign all police to more useful tasks. That shouldn't be difficult.

[Sarmatian]

I was inclined to write something but I would need about three days of typing for 3692 points I have in mind for Serbia so I'll pass...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

...and no one would give a damn

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

1. Yup. The Civil Service recycles money, it doesn't create wealth.
2. I'd add to that with military spending that we need to realise we're a second rate power and buy appropriate to this - no fighters or aircraft carriers - we can't fight a war of attrition anyway!
3. Yup.
4. And the sodding Commons. It's not a free piggy bank to fleece. Get like the USA of openness with finances. Getting caught on tape selling influence = expulsion and fines, not get out of jail free as you're above the law.
5. Sorry, I've lost you. Gerrymandering is bad though.
6. As an adjunct to (1), simplify the tax code, simplify and reduce benefits payments, child allowance, pregnancy allowance and other parts of the tax code that shuttle small amounts back and forward.
7. Stop kicking the hornet's nests in Iran / Afghanistan. Been there, done that 100 years ago. Didn't work then, it won't now.
8. Legalise Drugs / Prostitution. Tax both. Reassign all police to more useful tasks. That shouldn't be difficult.

Fair points, except about fighters and aircraft carriers. Even "second rate" powers maintain navies and air forces, unless we actually wish to become entirely dependent on the US, and to subourn our army as "round out" brigades to US division the maintainence of both is essential. The fact that we build our own also means we have a valuable export commodity, both in the form of finished product and technology. Further, I know of no alternative to fighters which is as effective at downing bombers and attack aircraft, potentially leaving our ground forces cripplingly exposed; while carriers provide important airlift capacity for ground forces.

Creating a sense that the UK has crippled herself, and abandond combat arms that even Sweden and Norway maintain is not a good idea, and it will hurt our industry.

I'll go with the legalisation of prostitution, but not hard drugs. I would also caution that the Dutch have recently been having problems in that vein.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to say about the constituancies thing. Currently safe and marginal Labour constituancies are generally smaller than Conservative ones. So it's easier to get elected in a traditional Labour seat. This was the case about eight years about when I was in school, and it was recognised then. It still hasn't been corrected.

[KukriKhan]

I was inclined to write something but I would need about three days of typing for 3692 points I have in mind for Serbia so I'll pass...

...and no one would give a damn

To the contrary, my friend. Your and other's ideas not only illuminate how you (all) see your country, but some of those ideas might transfer to MY country - something, or an approach, I hadn't thought of.

Hopefully, it wouldn't really take you 3 days of typing.

-edit-

I would assume that our good man Kukri pays his taxes.

And I've never been a lobbyist, either. My application for DepSecDef for Policy was returned, stamped "NFC" (Not Favorably Considered"), tho' I offered to work for mere beer money. Some yay-hoo from Harvard got the gig.

[Furunculus]

Fair points, except about fighters and aircraft carriers. Even "second rate" powers maintain navies and air forces, unless we actually wish to become entirely dependent on the US, and to subourn our army as "round out" brigades to US division the maintainence of both is essential. The fact that we build our own also means we have a valuable export commodity, both in the form of finished product and technology. Further, I know of no alternative to fighters which is as effective at downing bombers and attack aircraft, potentially leaving our ground forces cripplingly exposed; while carriers provide important airlift capacity for ground forces.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to say about the constituancies thing. Currently safe and marginal Labour constituancies are generally smaller than Conservative ones. So it's easier to get elected in a traditional Labour seat. This was the case about eight years about when I was in school, and it was recognised then. It still hasn't been corrected.

agreed about defence. it should be remembered that we spend only the minuscule amount of 2.1% of GDP on defence at a time when annual Gov't spending consumes about 42% of GDP. so defence makes up only 5.0% of Gov't spending, and defence of the realm is supposed to be the first duty of the sovereign nation state to its people.

cheers for the clarification.

[LittleGrizzly]

it should be remembered that we spend only the minuscule amount of 2.1% of GDP on defence at a time when annual Gov't spending consumes about 42% of GDP. so defence makes up only 5.0% of Gov't spending, and defence of the realm is supposed to be the first duty of the sovereign nation state to its people.

But we don't actually need an army to defend britian... our army has nothing to do with defence of our realm and much more to do with projecting (american) power abroad...

[rory_20_uk]

Fair points, except about fighters and aircraft carriers. Even "second rate" powers maintain navies and air forces, unless we actually wish to become entirely dependent on the US, and to subourn our army as "round out" brigades to US division the maintainence of both is essential. The fact that we build our own also means we have a valuable export commodity, both in the form of finished product and technology. Further, I know of no alternative to fighters which is as effective at downing bombers and attack aircraft, potentially leaving our ground forces cripplingly exposed; while carriers provide important airlift capacity for ground forces.

Creating a sense that the UK has crippled herself, and abandoned combat arms that even Sweden and Norway maintain is not a good idea, and it will hurt our industry.

I'll go with the legalisation of prostitution, but not hard drugs. I would also caution that the Dutch have recently been having problems in that vein.

Re: the armed forces I think that we should increase our navy considerably - but with smaller ships; the army too should be increased. Rather than aircraft I would advocate missiles. Faster than fighters, tighter turning circles, faster speed of deployment, less risk on the ground and more easily updated. Hunter packs of Apache gunships are going to be more versatile than fighters.

Forces that have good, modern fighters are some countries in Europe, the USA, Russa, China. I don't imagine we'd be fighting a long range war with any of these forces - and certianly not with a navy. Exocet missiles are 20 years old. Better versions means any aluminium ship is in danger of burning to aluminium oxide.

I agree that having the technology to produce military hardware is a good thing as an export commodity. I imagine that there is significant overlap into other spheres that would be continued.

Hard drugs doesn't make them a good idea. More police to find and punish those creating disorders regardless of if it's alcohol or whatever. I thought that the Dutch made it illegal, just not enforced. IMO not a good compromise as the industry is still illegal.

[Furunculus]

it should be remembered that we spend only the minuscule amount of 2.1% of GDP on defence at a time when annual Gov't spending consumes about 42% of GDP. so defence makes up only 5.0% of Gov't spending, and defence of the realm is supposed to be the first duty of the sovereign nation state to its people.

But we don't actually need an army to defend britian... our army has nothing to do with defence of our realm and much more to do with projecting (american) power abroad...

I agree, and i am the first person to suggest that the navy should get a larger slice of the UK defence-spending pie*, however the UK continues to believe that its interests are best served by making the world in its image, and it continues to have the clout to do so. Furthermore, given that we share the same aims and goals as the US, and given that they are the dominant super-power we are best served by backing up their interference if we wish to be effective at making the world in our image.





* I would see defence spending split 50/30/20 between army/navy/airforce rather than the approximate 60/20/20 it is now.

[rory_20_uk]

I'd be inclined to split the air force between the army and navy. The days of strategic bomber command are behind us. If you really, really want to that sort of approach, ICBMs and cruise missiles are much more effective as without a massive airforce ground batteries are going to take a toll that is impossible to replace.

[Furunculus]

I would agree, except that it has been shown that when that happens the air elements tend to get treated as airborne artillary with little thought given to the strategic applications of fighters and bombers.

playing fantasy forces my preferred setup would be:

return to 200,000 active duty personell split: 100,000/60,000/40,000 between Army/Navy/Airforce
funding split by the same proportions.

The navy being composed of:
Three brigades of Royal Marines
Three Albions Class
Six Bay Class
Three Ocean Class
(one brigade and five vessels extra)

Three aircraft carriers
Nine T45 AAW Cruisers
Nine new ASW Cruisers
Nine Global Cruisers
Nine C3 MCM Sloops
(seven more than required by the SDR)

Twelve Astute
Three Vanguard replacement
(only one more sub than required by the SDR)

[PBI]

5) To the scientific community:

Stop whatever you're doing, and work immediately on this: Find a new way to capture, store, and release, on-demand, energy. You have a blank check for 2 years, and the world depends on you. After 2 years, if undone, we'll assume you can't get it done, and no more money will come. And you'll be bagging groceries at your local Piggly-Wiggly.

I would quite agree that the question of energy supply is perhaps the most pressing issue of our times and one worthy of a great deal more attention than it currently recieves. Aside from the climate change issue, the fact is that as long as we are reliant on fossil fuels we are essentially avoiding the question of whether it is possible to create a sustainable, energy-intensive industrialised society and are instead building our entire society on a finite resource which is inevitably going to run out. The solution to this problem you seem to favour is to find some new source of energy based upon an as-yet undiscovered physical mechanism. However, I don't see how exactly we can go about finding such a mechanism in a more efficient manner than that we are already employing, that of pursuing research purely for the sake of advancing our understanding of nature, even if it does not have an apparent immediate application.

I must say, I find deeply disturbing the apparently increasingly common view that only scientific research that yields an immediate useful application is a worthwhile investment, and that research undertaken purely to advance our understanding of the natural world is essentially pointless and can be safely discarded. I would argue it is nothing of the sort, and that neglecting more esoteric research in favour of fields which yield greater economic return in the short run is deeply irresponsible, the scientific equivalent of running up a huge debt and leaving it for your children to pay off.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I would quite agree that the question of energy supply is perhaps the most pressing issue of our times and one worthy of a great deal more attention than it currently recieves. Aside from the climate change issue, the fact is that as long as we are reliant on fossil fuels we are essentially avoiding the question of whether it is possible to create a sustainable, energy-intensive industrialised society and are instead building our entire society on a finite resource which is inevitably going to run out. The solution to this problem you seem to favour is to find some new source of energy based upon an as-yet undiscovered physical mechanism. However, I don't see how exactly we can go about finding such a mechanism in a more efficient manner than that we are already employing, that of pursuing research purely for the sake of advancing our understanding of nature, even if it does not have an apparent immediate application.

I must say, I find deeply disturbing the apparently increasingly common view that only scientific research that yields an immediate useful application is a worthwhile investment, and that research undertaken purely to advance our understanding of the natural world is essentially pointless and can be safely discarded. I would argue it is nothing of the sort, and that neglecting more esoteric research in favour of fields which yield greater economic return in the short run is deeply irresponsible, the scientific equivalent of running up a huge debt and leaving it for your children to pay off.

Kukri-san is not saying that we should bag basic research forever -- you'll find he's well aware of the value of such research.

He's arguing in favor of a "Manhattan Project" level of effort on energy -- perhaps harnessing fusion power or truly making solar power cost effective -- so that we can address basic energy needs with less emphasis on consumable forms thereof.

[Vladimir]

He's arguing in favor of a "Manhattan Project" level of effort on energy -- perhaps harnessing fusion power or truly making solar power cost effective -- so that we can address basic energy needs with less emphasis on consumable forms thereof.

We know what will make large scale fusion power possible but it poses a similar and much larger challenge than our use of fossil fuels. Bringing that stuff back from the moon is no small undertaking. Just wait until environmentalists get their hands on celestial bodies!