What would be the social implications of this new discovery? Given the most urgent problems humanity faces right now--international militant terrorism, refugee crisis, rising of the right-wing nationalist politics, varieties of intolerance,the threat of a nuclear fallout, global warming and the ensuing catastrophic climate changes, wage slavery...--, in what possible way, if any at all, can this new black-hole discovery contribute to solving these problems?
And if to think of this discovery as having anything to do with social ills is a category mistake, then why all this highfalutin excitement about it on TV?!!!
What does a black-hole have anything to do with civil life and its problems?
Of course the mere image of a black hole cannot solve the issues you mentioned but it is a giant step forward in scientific research. It also shows how in the scientific world collaboration over boundaries and ideologies is possible even if some “leaders” try to deny scientific results and want to reduce their funding.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/14/how-our-capacity-was-challenged-by-black-hole-image
Maybe have a look at the link
Ladan Give me one, just one example, that this discovery is going to have any impact at all on "the most urgent problems of humanity" above.
The only immediate social contribution this discovery has is new commissions for upcoming TED talks, books, documentaries... by the involved scientists.
Franz-Josef Hambsch Why not expand our "capacity for wonder" through more accessible and far less costly means by ,say, listening to Bach's Toccata and Fugue, or reading philosophy? Trillions of dollars for "wonder", while a tax-paying citizen can''t afford a decent dental insurance?
This Question could have been asked first about HAARP, then about CERN.
Could a Giant Hadron Collider find a particle, which could create food, to feed the starving people, or a miracle cancer cure, etc.
The same could have been asked of the first caveman to "bang the rocks together". The standard of living in modern society and resulting life expectancy is vastly better than it was even a century ago, and much of that is down to our technology, and this conversation would be impossible without it. That in turn is based on scientific understanding. The observations are aimed at improving that knowledge, but nobody can know what benefits we might obtain from a better understanding of gravity.
To resolve social problems, you have to look at social causes. How many people have died because of religious intolerance? How many have died due to measurements taken from radio telescopes?
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