This makes me think of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), I remember a scientist working there in an interview right after the firs

This makes me think of The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), I remember a scientist working there in an interview right after the first discovery telling the reporter how back in the day he was dissuaded by his teacher to go into the field because "there's nothing there, it's not a serious field of research" or something along those lines. Maybe a bigger collider is exactly what we need, and if it fails that's also useful as a confirmation to go in other directions. To build it right now instead of other things is the difficult question because that's politics.