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I think this is a problem for any "deep" occupation which can't readily be measured by immediate financial benefit. If I look around me, I can identify only a

I think this is a problem for any "deep" occupation which can't readily be measured by immediate financial benefit. If I look around me, I can identify only a very few who are paid a living wage to do a) a thing that they enjoy that b) doesn't have a direct, immediate benefit to others. It's not just physicists, it's theorists of all kinds, the arts, history, and yes, underwater basket weaving too.

konjin 6y ago
It's worse than that, those areas are taken over by know-nothings who are great at politics and terrible in their field. The people deciding tenure and grants are the best physicists, they are the best politicians who happen to have had a physics degree, or physics adjacent at some point in their education.