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I completely agree, but at some point you do have to make an economic risk/benefit calculation. Almost any person or organization can truly say that they might
by foldr 6y ago
I completely agree, but at some point you do have to make an economic risk/benefit calculation. Almost any person or organization can truly say that they might do something really amazing and important if given lots of money and resources.
- m0zg 6y agoYou can't really make that calculation with truly open ended, fundamental research. Both the potential benefits, and the complexity/cost of obtaining these benefits (or finding out they can't be obtained) can be enormous. At best, you can improve the odds of getting something rather than nothing, by e.g. hiring the smartest people and letting them do their thing with ample funding, a-la the Space Race or Manhattan Project. It just pisses me off that we spend trillions on bombing random people in the desert, yet a few billion for e.g. fusion research is an insurmountable obstacle.