On Tue, 19 May 2015 13:22:23 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

Your brain is royally screwed up, peterson. If no one wants to buy a particular piece of art, then it has NO value, represents NO "wealth."

A simplistic economic viewpoint.

Star parties conducted by the
club in Colorado Springs educate thousands of people about astronomy
every year.

Few people among those thousands is, or ever will be, any better off materially because of the -tiny- bit of astro knowledge they might receive at a star party.

You have no way of knowing how knowledge like this impacts people. And
your restriction of the benefit to "better off materially" is again
simplistic.

Of course, you don't recognize that education as a form of
wealth.

Education constitutes wealth only if one can profit materially from it. Millions of perfectly intelligent young people owe thousands on student loans for educations that have not, and will not ever pay off for them.

You may never pay off an education and still place huge value on that
education. Your education may advance society, both materially and
non-materially, even if it never earns a dollar.