I don't know. If we had a time machine, we could go back to the 1950s and defund government-sponsored education and research programs instead of increasing spe

I don't know. If we had a time machine, we could go back to the 1950s and defund government-sponsored education and research programs instead of increasing spending on them, and see how things turn out, GDP-wise. Trouble is, that could easily do enough damage to prevent the invention of our time machine in the far future, or at least seriously delay it. Maybe not such a good experiment after all.