Famously stated by Issac Asimov through his character Salvor Hardin in Foundation, the title quote could not be more apt at our current moment in history. I do not need to elaborate.
Instead, I will present just a few, brief ideas of what competent people, using the money that seems certain to be spent futilely on Syria, might be able to accomplish to lessen the suffering of humanity on a much larger scale than is now happening in that country (without in any way downplaying or condoning in any sense that suffering):
- End Polio Forever. $1,000,000,000.
- Accelerate the struggle to end malaria, saving 500,000 lives yearly.
- Accelerate research into cures and treatments for multiple sclerosis, e.g, New Kind of Therapy Shows Promise in MS Patients and 5 Promising New Treatments for MS. MS affects more than 2,000,000 people worldwide.
- Deploy a gazillion more solar panels and wind turbines, thereby reducing the effects of global warming on future generations and saving bazillions of dollars in the longer term.
Can you come up with other clearly better uses for a few billion dollars that will mitigate human suffering more than doing whatever it is the United States thinks it might achieve in Syria via an ambiguously defined intervention that seems to have little prospect for stopping the violence?