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Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, June 25 2012 @ 01:19 PM EDT |
Well. The argument I believe is that...if you're after
maximizing d(Utility)/d(Money) - and you assume that human
lives are of approximately equal value...
investing in vaccines and cell-phone based diagnostics is a
better choice than either better electric cars (battery
technology is not there yet, neither are fuel cells, quite,
there's already a ton of investment).
I don't know enough about planes except to observe that
they're really, really expensive and marginally useful to
the average person.
Oh, and solar panels...are already being manufactured in
China - so there's really no net utility increase related to
making them in the US. (probably a utility decrease) (If you
want to change that...consider changing permitting practices
in the US.)
In general, also, most of the 'big science/engineering
products' that benefit the developed world are already
funded to levels that make Gate's fortune look like chump
change - any additional money he can throw at them won't
make a difference. It is more sensible to make modest
investments in projects that are either improbable or
underinvested because of lack of financial return.
Improbable projects include asteroid mining. Underinvested
projects include low-cost vaccines.
--Erwin[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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