Clue tip: If something appears to make little sense, you probably missed something. Your immediate response to that should be, "what am I missing?", not "okay, these professional scientists must be idiots who don't understand the topic they have Ph.D.s in as well as I do". Appeal to authority is bad, of course, but if you find yourself at odds with an expert, it should at least prompt a bit of self-critical examination to double-check where you might have missed something that, if you hadn't, would have made it all make sense. Like here, where the point of what they're doing is to determine a heck of a lot more than simply what the foreground process is, but rather, what the foreground process is doing.

For some specific individuals, yes. For "private citizens" in general, no. The citizens as a whole have the exact same amount of money either way. The government doesn't take the money from taxes and bury it in a hole somewhere, it spends it, usually on employees that are predominantly citizens, or companies that are usually located within the same country. Indeed, money spent by the government is more likely to be spent on in-country companies that money spent by non-governmental organizations. The idea that the people have less money when taxes are higher is absurd. They money is redistributed, not eliminated. The people as a whole have the same amount of money regardless of whether taxes go up or down.

Yes. The argument is that if you call a large organization a government, it doesn't create wealth, whereas if you call it a corporation, it magically does... by acquiring money from some parties and redistributing it to further parties. Those first parties will have had their money stimulate other business, instead of having had it been taxed, where the government would have then spent it, usually by giving it to businesses to do whatever job that needs to be done. In the end, the same amount of money is in the economy, and the same amount is in the hands of other businesses, all that's changed is which specific businesses have it, what work is actually done, and who benefits from the work done.

Well, if you're going to go that route, the contractors don't build anything either, they just arrange/rearrange the materials they're given. By that standard, nothing's ever been built on Earth, we're just assembling stuff left over from the last local supernova.

By any reasonable definition, NASA builds a lot of stuff.

If you weren't interested in the article, why did you click on it? You know you're not required to read the ones that don't interest you?

Even better, you commented on it. Comments count even more than clicks to the bean-counters who determine which articles are generating the most interest and thus should be focused on more by the site. Comments are more content for the site, creating even more for people to read, and ultimately, more ad-revenue for the bean-counters. Even if your comment is negative, it's presence and the debate that it engenders encourages sites to post more of exactly what you commented on.

If you want to see less of something, actually prove it by not looking at it in the first place. That is what sends the site a loud and clear message about what you'd like to see more or less of.

They didn't betray their oath. Arguably they upheld their oath better than others. They did what was in Earth's best interest, even when Earth's government (and probably most of its people) would consider them traitors for it. Their oath was to Earth, not its government, and they chose the path of true loyalty rather than blind obedience. You seem to be confusing loyalty to your country with loyalty to your government. Sometimes the former requires defying the latter.

Being geezers and wearing diapers are not mutually exclusive.

Not sure what backwards part of America that post came from, but I can tell you for certain that it's absolutely false in every part of America that I'm aware of. I use my debit card everywhere, for everything, including buying a single item at a dollar store if that's all I want to buy. No one has ever once even blinked. $1 at the Dollar Store, $3 at the fast-food joint, whatever, everyone's happy to take my business. I stopped using cash for anything at all over a decade ago, and the only people who don't want my card are the government -- they would rather I write a check for my driver's license renewal or whatever (which is funny, no one else will accept a check anymore around here).

It's not a convenient option. I live in an essentially horseless society, but I don't mind, and it's not really limiting my freedom -- I could get a horse if I wanted, but why would I want it when it's so less convenient?

Personally, I haven't used cash in over a decade. The cashless society arrives the same way as the horseless society, not by limiting freedom but by providing better options, and letting people choose what's most convenient for them. Unless you want to force people to keep using cash, the cashless society is probably inevitable, precisely because people are free to choose other options, and will.

When astronomers point a telescope at the sky and see a large bright object, they tend to assume it's a star, not a giant alien lighthouse. If they see a bright flash of light, they assume it's due to some natural process and not an alien strobe-light. Is there some reason they would jump to an "it's aliens" conclusion in this case? You do understand that light is light, right? Even if the wavelength puts it in the radio-frequencies instead of the visible-spectrum? There's no particular reason light in one part of the spectrum is more likely to be made by aliens than natural phenomena.

Wait for a 2-for-1 sale. ;)