A French startup recently made the first contactless payment in space.
Some people are making fun of it
"I love it, we're busy making contactless payment in space, while we have absolute emergencies right under our noses."
This immediately reminds me of the phrase “Et nos SDF ?” ("what about our homeless?" a common phrase uttered by anti-immigration French people, who say they'd rather help the French homeless first, than help immigrants).
This reasoning is clearly fallacious. It's like comparing the conquest of space to world poverty.
They are two different things.
Not doing one does not solve the other problem. You have to solve the other problem. Understand: not bringing in immigrants does not solve the problem of the French homeless. You have to help the French homeless if you want to solve the problem of the French homeless.
This comes from a very common misunderstanding: people confuse money (i.e.: currency, euro, dollar) with wealth (an immaterial concept).
They think that the total amount of money that exists on the planet is a cake, and that each person should get a piece of it.
This vision is totally false. There is no money on this planet, only debts and credits.
Only wealth matters.
Moreover, most of the wealth cannot be calculated with money (real work of a population, voluntary work, heritage of a country, barter, mutual aid, health...). However, this wealth is real.
20 years ago, to be able to listen to thousands of music at home required to own a lot of CDs, and therefore a lot of money.
Today, we are infinitely richer by accessing almost all possible music for free at our fingertips.
When we do research, or space conquest, we don't steal the planet, we don't take the food of the poor. We raise our civilization to new discoveries. We create wealth, with money.
And when a startup makes a payment in space, it does not prevent anyone on this planet from investing in the causes that are important to them.
Criticizing what people do with their money is not worth it.
The doer does. The commentator criticizes.
It is not the commentators who will save the poor, it is not the commentators who will save the planet.