It's not an ad hominem to point out an inconsistency. If your argument is a fair one, then it ought to apply to something that's more immediate to you. The point is that most of the time, it's much easier to say something is worthless if it's more important to somebody else or some other group than yourself or the groups you consider yourself a member of.

I notice your tendency to lecture other commenters and throw down links (usually to Wikipedia, which is precious), so I feel comfortable talking this way to you. I appreciate the link to the guidelines, but I can go through them with you some time so it's clear I didn't violate any of them. I'd say anything I said here to your face, happily and as courteously as possible.

It's funny that you find it fitting to try to hold internet court and talk down to commenters who are making very valid points and pretend you're winning arguments because of those trusty Wikipedia articles. But your arguments aren't that good, with the Wikisalt and Wikipepper or without them. The point here is that the community benefits from pooling resources for a shared service. The benefit is demonstrated daily in real utility in the very real lives of very real people. It is quite arguably much less abstract than any good, public or private, provided by those nebulous NSF grants you got so sensitive about. I think you understand very well that we're talking about shared services that don't lend themselves to provision on a for-profit basis. But I think, judging by your mountain of pedantic comments, you'd much prefer to pretend you don't and keep splitting hairs and posting Wikipedia links.

The rhetoric here in this latest comment is pretty classic internet-libertarian nonsense in the classic internet-libertarian shit-eating seriously-I'm-really-smart-Mom tenor, talking about how I want other people to pay for things I want. Who do you think you are? You want to live on a libertarian island? Take your superior intellect and your gone-Galt friends and start building. At some point, people are going to want some services. And you'll be right back in a town hall meeting where some people will have come to their senses and arrived at the obvious conclusion: communities are a good thing and require cooperation and shared services. I'm sure that some of your crew, perhaps yourself included, will go on with this I'm-an-island act, but at that point a large percentage of your own internet-libertarian brethren will have grown oh so weary of the whole schtick and come to another obvious conclusion: it's really not a philosophy at all but rather a thin pretense for being an asshole. It's a self-sanctioning of your own shallowness and selfishness and immorality. If you believe the highest good is to never contribute to anything shared, then I hope, and feel confident, that you'll largely get your wish.

I'd like to be more friendly here, but I've grown very tired of being lectured everywhere on the internet by people of your mind. I think there are really very few of you (the Universe is merciful in this regard, I hope), but you are a whining screeching loud bunch. You can go Galt. I hope you do it very fast and very far away from the rest of us who like public libraries and good public schools for all children and decent streets and sidewalks and sanitation and all the other thousands of things that we all depend on. If you don't like nice things for everybody, that's fine. Don't use them. But, for the love of all that is holy, stop trying to convince yourself and the rest of us that your greed and selfishness and neighbor-loathing is somehow virtue.