If you've never written software using mod, then you've never implemented a lockless data structure, or likely written any low-level code. In fact, I'd find it pretty hard to think of what category of software you are writing where you never need to do it. It's not something I use every day, but I'd expect to see it at least once every thousand lines of code. I've no idea what you do, but if you think you've managed to become a competent programmer without ever having to use mod then you're such a statistical outlier that it's not likely to be a problem to accidentally not hire you. If you don't know the basic arithmetic and logical operators in your favourite language, then you are probably not worth hiring.

Sometimes the footing can go deeper than the building is tall above-ground.

So I've been told. Houston, TX for example doesn't have bedrock. It's effectively dried up swampland. What we have is "gumbo clay". I've also been told that one of the reasons we don't have a subway is because of the unstable nature of the ground and the constant need to pump water out. In fact, we have an entire industry here that repairs residential home foundations. It's just a fact of life here.

It should be noted that DC is the only place in America with an active baby boom going on now! These people are swimming in wealth and prosperity!!! For them, it's like living in 1998 all funded by -you- the tax payer.

The reason why a manned space program is important is, in the end, to avoid the Great Filter

You assume that there is some inherent value to avoiding the great filter.

It's not a philosophical question. It's a practical question about the economics of space travel. Whatever philosophical warm fuzzies you get thinking about space travel mean nothing to investors. When you say that there is no objective value, you're right. When you say that that doesn't matter to anyone, you're wrong. It means a lot more than any sentimental value. That's the real world.

I'm with you really. I think it would be a great thing to start working on moon bases and multi-generational space craft today. It would also be great to stop dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, and stop breeding antibiotic resistant bacteria just so fat people can eat meat every day. But "great" doesn't pay the bills.

The value in living on it is the extension of the human race's lifespan beyond that of its current host planet

What value does that have to those of us remaining on Earth who would be funding such a mission?

If anything evolution ***proves*** we need to go to space.

"Need" implies some sort of value judgement. Evolution is a natural process. Don't anthropomorphize it.

I agree that if we want the species to continue, we will have to find other rocks to live on. But I don't think the answer to that "if" is necessarily "yes". No individual human necessarily has any interest in the survival of the species beyond his own lifespan. I don't think you're going to see investors making investments that will only pay off to future generations.

No, I just answered his question factually. The reasons humans evolved on Earth are entirely unrelated to the reasons we might want to put humans in space. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.

Humans are in space because there's cool stuff there.

What are the humans going to do with the "cool stuff" that requires their physical presence? What value does the "cool stuff" have to those who would fund such a mission?

The problem is the enrgy needed to escape the gravity well. Until you solve that problem efficiently, you are pretty much screwed and it might take hundred of year, if ever, to get colony or industrial extraction on other planetoid or moon.

Because the Earth has liquid water, and enough complex organics to start the process of evolution.

Propel vehicles from where to where for what purpose? Why are there humans in space to be kept alive?

You're begging the question. All those materials you mine in space would be used for what? Building mining equipment in space?

Someone I was talking to a few months ago claimed that around half of the applicants they get fail to be able to write fizzbuzz in their interview. This is just a function that has to take an input number, print fizz if it's divisible by 3, buzz if it's divisible by 5 (fizzbuzz if it's divisible by both), or the number otherwise. It's a trivial use of simple flow control and if you can't remember the name of a print function in your language of choice (no marks deducted for using printf instead of puts) then there's really no hope for you.

Our scientific research system is built around the process of joining a lab, mastering the work there, and then leaving. There are very few long term research partnerships. The people who stay in place are the professors, who generally do not do the research work.

So you join a lab, produce a few terabytes of data a year, pull a few publishable nuggets out of that and then leave. I have a few backup hard drives that move around with me with what I consider my most important data, probably total 1/10 of the data I have taken. After a few years, this data is really unimportant to me as the labs I have left have done a good job of continuing the research and I have to spend my time and money on something else.

The original data is eventually overwritten by researchers a few "generations" removed from me and that's the end of it.