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[+] 440 points 2 years ago (29 children)
  • [–] 215 points 2 years ago (6 children)

    Elon Musk could have actually done something for humanity and build two of those instead of buying Twitter.

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  • [–] 85 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Dude literally owns a boring company, he could have ate the cost of digging the tunnel to specifications and still have more money than buying xitter

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  • [–] 49 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Upkeep might be expensive, but 22 billion is probably lower bound estimation, highly likely to 5x that at least

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    [–] 211 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    Budget: Military Complex > CERN

    Long term value to citizens: CERN > Miltary Complex

    All historical CERN expenses combined are a tiny fraction of the yearly expenses of the combined EU miltary

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  • [–] 118 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    But particles don't make my dick feel big

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    [–] 203 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Guys, the trick is to get it partially built and then cancel funding. Then scientists will never trust you to fund anything ever again, and you get to act like science is a waste of money while you're spending ridiculous sums on fighter jets.

    Yes, I am still bitter about Waxahatchie.

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    [–] 157 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    This is cheaper than two super carriers.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago

    The feds give the states more than $16b per year to build and run shitty, custom made IT systems for their Medicaid programs. It's basically a subsidy to IT companies. There are thousands of examples like this, where spending money on fundamental science is clearly a better investment.

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  • [–] 100 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Remember when people were worried about these killing us all by creating a black hole that swallows the Earth?

    Can this one just hurry up and do that please?

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    [–] 99 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    This fucks, way better use of 22 billion dollars than usual

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  • [–] 38 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    But we could kill kids in the middle east somewhere for that money!

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  • [–] 92 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I'd rather spend 22 billion on this than in Israel or more weapons of war

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    [–] 84 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (10 children)

    Fun fact, they were going to build one in the US crossing the borders of LA, TX, AR. They even dug out the damn hole, but they shit canned the whole project so now we're just left with a random giant circular hole underground.

    Edited AK to AR. That would have been a bit excessive.

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  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    Not quite circular, they only got 26% of the tunnel dug. Still, 23 km is quite a long tunnel to leave sitting empty

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    [–] 80 points 2 years ago (23 children)

    i hope someday we construct a collider that spans the entire circumference of the earth. But we'd probably have to build one that spans the circumference of the moon first, and then maybe mars, since the oceans are going to be a bit of a doozie to work around that we don't have the technology for, whereas the interior of a collider is supposed to be evacuated, so, the moon almost kinda already handles that for us. heat might be an issue of course, but if we can figure out thermal radiator panels that can dump the heat straight into space, maybe we could pull it off...

    mars would address the heat issues, but those dust storms are no joke and the dust itself is microscopic toxic/caustic razors and it'll try to get in everywhere and ruin fine instruments it touches. Moon dust is also really bad but there's no wind to kick it up on the moon obviously...

    but damn. DAMN. imagine the fucking science we could get done with a LUNAR-SCALE PARTICLE COLLIDER!!!

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    [–] 58 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (22 children)

    Imagine if only 1/10 of all countries GDP gouvernement spending went to scientists and the patent bullshit didn't exist ? We'd be mining asteroids and sipping coffee on Mars.

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    [–] 57 points 2 years ago

    Mfw this pipe dream costs 22 billion and we just gave Israel 105 billion to keep genociding

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  • [–] 39 points 2 years ago

    I'd rather spend money on science than killing innocent people.

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  • [–] 33 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    How about one that goes around the circumference of the Earth? That would be boss.

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  • [–] 32 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    When I look at the inability to fund big science projects like this, I'm reminded of the most fictional thing to ever happen in a science fiction movie.

    The film? Contact.

    They build a giant portal machine thing.

    Gets blowed up by terrorists.

    But that's okay, because they've got another one!

    What?

    Yep!

    "Why build one when you can build two for twice the price?"

    FALSE. SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF FAILURE. ABORT.

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    [–] 31 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Sorry bro, we spent the 22 billion on the genocide budget.

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    [–] 31 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (6 children)

    STOP ACCELERATING PARTICLES! Years of research and no use found for particles any smaller than SAND!

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