Bobby Jindal and volcano monitoring.
Offline Man I can't stand republicans!
Should volcano monitoring (and indeed any natural disaster) be within the remit of government?
Here an analysis over at ScienceBlogs: http://scienceblogs.com/authority/2009/02/volcano_monitoring_and_the_sti.php
And here's some comments of a Jindal supported:
I don't care who's job it is to finance it. I just know that if I live next to, fly around or buy produce that's grown at the foot of a volcano, I don't expect someone in Peoria to subsidize my lifestyle.
Some people prefer the risk. What makes you think it's moral to use force against them to pay for what you want?Also, though all may benefit (though I doubt it) how is it just to force one person who benefits little to pay the same as someone who benefits greatly?
Commercial organizations whose business in dependent on the information would probably pay a premium for real-time reports. That's just an example of how a market could respond.
If you never use the services for which you paid, how do you benefit?I fail to see where you explained the morality of forcing someone to pay for you or another.
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
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Piyush and his supporters are fools.
Ok, I'll play. Why should the government force people to pay for a service that monitors volcanoes? Is it moral for me to be forced on threat of imprisonment to pay so that someone somewhere far away who voluntarily choose to live close to a volcano can feel safer? Or should the people who actually live right next to volcanoes be expected to either fund volcano monitoring themselves to just not get it?
I think that if the locals can't pool enough money to monitor the volcano on their own, then they shouldn't get monitoring. If we force other people to pay for them, then they are just being leeches on society. As was quoted above: I don't want to subsidize their lifestyle. If they foolishly choose to live right next to a volcano, then they choose to die in the event of an eruption. The rest of us are under no obligation to help save their lives. If they wanted to live they would move away right now rather than expect other communities to subsidize their foolishly risky lifestyle.
As for Air Force bases: why on earth would they store close to $200 million dollars worth of fighter planes near an active volcano? That is just stupidity.
I seem to have missed something in the article. Mike Dunford claims that "OK. Volcano monitoring is cheap." Wait, what? Where did he get that from? I don't see where he demonstrated that. He claimed it would be cost effective because it would save our jets, but that does NOT make it cheap. And we could move the jets for a hell of a lot less money that the cost of volcano monitoring. The foolishness of storing jets near a volcano does not justify further foolishness by wasting money. So the government does a stupid thing (keeps lots of fighter planes near a volcano) and that makes it 'cheap' to now spend lots of money monitoring volcanoes?
I'm not even against their local government paying for this. If the locals are capable of monitoring the volcano through private means (not feasible) or through their local government (maybe feasible), I have no objections. I will object if non-locals have to pay to keep only the locals safe. The locals made a foolish choice that they could easily reverse by moving away, don't charge me money to try and rectify that dangerously irresponsible choice choice.
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India
This is a good idea. The United States should not, on a federal level, help anyone if it's going to cost money. It is not the job of the US government to help people. It shouldn't supply funds for roads, as those roads only help local people who actually use those roads. It should never have responded to Katrina or any other natural disaster. It should not be wasting money on space exploration, as that only benefits the astronauts. It should not help fund research into medicine and diseases, as only those who are sick will benefit. It shouldn't be helping those who live below the poverty line, as the general economic situation of the poor doesn't affect the moderately-well-off at all.
The states also shouldn't be funding any of this, as volcano monitoring only helps those near the volcanos, or who are flying in a 747 over the volcano as it blows and the engines stall and the plane carrying people from all over the world almost crashes, shutting down an international airport. This doesn't help those in, say, Port Alexander or Ketchikan or Sitka.
I personally don't benefit from any of this. Why should I have to pay?
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Bobby Jindal's state like mine benefit from NOAA and the National Hurricane Service as well as FEMA. Hurricanes don't often make it to Oregon, Washington or Alaska or nearly all of the Midwestern and Mountain States so by his logic it should be eliminated and Louisiana owes the Federal government a lot of money. Or we can continue to be a United country and help all of our citizens through various disasters whether each disaster affects a given area or not.
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"I guess it's time to ask if you live under high voltage power transmission lines which have been shown to cause stimulation of the fantasy centers of the brain due to electromagnetic waves?" - Me
"God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks please. Cash and in small bills." - Robert A Heinlein.
Sorry but I can only read this as sarcasm. I hope it was?
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
excellent point indeed. what a hyprocrite.