Sounds similar to pure science, which often ends up finding a use (you know that mathematician who deliberately choose an abstract area with no applications so

Sounds similar to pure science, which often ends up finding a use (you know that mathematician who deliberately choose an abstract area with no applications so that it would never end up being used for military purposes - and it was) It's testable: has anything in the past week (say) turned out to be useful in a way that you didn't expect at the time? (hindsight may obscure how useless it seemed before) Of course it might take much longer for its use to appear. Sometimes indirect, eg you learn concepts/principles from taxes in another state, which later help you understand your own state's tax policies (or something else altogether).