Comment on Telescope prices and sharing
What YOU Can SEE Through a $1 Billion, $32,000 and an $800 Telescope!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwoII9TQd8k
There are many countries with LOTS of people where $800 is more than the median annual income. And many more countries and many more people where $800 is more than monthly income. So here you are, posting a video that could be seen by the whole world that includes these countries and people, talking about methods most cannot afford.
Please try to find things that help everyone, not just those with much disposable income. At least find ways to share telescopes and data from them with everyone – lossless image data that covers the whole sky for everyone. Your video might be tongue in cheek for entertainment and click purposes. But you can also think of real needs. Why do people need to see the sky? Why do they want to? What can the human species gain from studying anything like this? Why do people with telescopes not share? What does NASA still post most of its pictures of “stars” and “galaxies” in lossy formats just as eye candy, rather than seriously try to share with everyone? I know you have serious intent as well as being flip and cute. A lot of people subscribe and listen to you. Try to see that what you post in the Internet ought to be for everyone who uses the Internet. Right now that is about 4.8 Billion people and another 3 Billion with no access at all. A telescope that cost a billion dollars, and a billion people can get and use all the data it produces is a good deal. It might cost a billion dollars to share, but that is still better than a billion people paying $800 each to maybe once in a great while – something interesting. So I think your comparison lacks something critical – who pays those dollars, who benefits, who sees at all? Isn’t most of the telescope data in the world hoarded by the people who buy the telescopes? Or the people who run the facility, regardless of who paid or what justification?
Policies and sharing on the Internet, for the whole of the human species, is different than “every group for themselves”. Or every investigator who can garner support and funding for themselves. It is not hard to share, but it takes much more thought and effort than anyone on the Internet is trying. Those online “look at all the stars” sites are only accessible by a tiny fraction of Internet users. On the Internet, one in a hundred thousand is 48,000 and that seems like a lot, but it is not enough. “We served 10,000 people last year” sounds good at a fund raiser, but is only one in 480,000 on the Internet. Smart people can figure it out. It is not hard, someone just has to try.
Yes, I did like your video. I just think you could go a bit deeper.
Richard Collins, Director, The Internet Foundation
