"...we..."
Newp. I explore stuff alla time. Don't speak for me if you're not going to speak the truth, ok? Also, we are pretty intellectually insignificant. Our reach far exceeds our grasp, and there are lots of questions we can't answer today, many about cosmology. I see no reason to assume from what we are that we are capable of grasping such matters.
"...we shouldn’t be spending $15 billion on something as stupid as deciphering the mysteries of the Universe."
I've explored the various cosmological hypotheses and physicists studying these matters, and there's a lot of merit to such explorations. But there are practical limits on what funding can be dedicated to such matters, and there are plenty of starving homeless fentanyl addicts that need EBT cards that need funding as well. We have to make rational decisions regarding what we spend on what stuff, and clearly killing Ukrainians is far more important to our peerless leaders than head scratchers trying to figure out the theoretical structure of the universe, and feeding homeless fentanyl addicts is more important than my electric bill, or dental needs.
Decisions, decisions. None of the political scrabbling over funding these things matters in the least to us paying for root canals. Clever monkeys need to take care of clever monkey stuff, and cosmological questions are pretty low on the list. They're a lot less important and practical than spending money genociding Ukrainians, which I don't think we should be doing at all. Max Igan has said 'As goes Gaza, so goes the world.' I agree, and reckon we should be making every effort to prevent genocides wherever they're ongoing.
I can afford to wrassle with the Higg's Boson when I have managed to wrassle the thieving politicians laundering tax money by slaughtering people around the world.
"...understanding the nature of dark matter and dark energy..."
These things are probably - almost certainly - not real, but errors in how we interpret the data we already collect, and will be resolved by rethinking how we interpret the data we already have. The biggest problem smart people have is thinking they're so smart. Huffing their own farts, hubris, is the enemy of science, and humility is the only reasonable foundation of understanding of things far beyond our ken.
Thanks!
I was definitely not including people like you in that general we. Or myself, for that matter. I am curious about a lot of stuff... even things I have no hope of understanding.
You might be right. I've heard the idea before, but I find it depressing.
Oh, but Biden just talked to Xi and the media said the problem is being taken care of... Seriously, why would your administration spend money on solving the fentanyl crisis. Seems like a very lucrative business to me, it keeps plenty of people drugged out of their heads, and they will inevitably die young so they won't be a burden on Social Security. It's perfect!
Sorry about your dental needs.
Soft-hearted lefties have made it impossible to arrest them and make money off of them in jail. I think that's the only solution the current administration might work towards.