It's unfortunate that most of the general public does not understand how important it is that fundamental physics continues to advance. Advancing fundamental physics is the most important thing humans can do. It is not difficult to argue that the basis for our civilisation, that is, technology, would be impossible without the advances in fundamental physics. Some products of physics:
- Electricity (our ability to generate, store, and transmit it)
- Lasers
- Electron microscope (arguably, the great leap forward in medical research)
- Nuclear energy (arguably the cleanest energy available)
- WiFi
- GPS
- The internet (developed by Berners-Lee while at CERN)
- The semiconductor (the camera on your phone would not exist without fundamental physics)
- X-ray and Magnetic Resonance imaging.
- Radiotherapy to treat cancers
There are many others that we take for granted every day.[0] Even our understanding of DNA, the most significant discovery in biology, would have been impossible without fundamental physics in the form of X-ray crystallography. (and Francis Crick was a physicist!)
(It can also be argued that climate change, human suffering, and inequality can be directly solved if significant advances in fundamental physics are made: new powerful sources of energy like fusion or something else yet unimagined could transform our economic landscape entirely by driving the cost and harms of energy production and use down by large percentages. The Standard Model has revealed the structure of the atom, yet the benefits of this knowledge have yet to be broadly realised and applied to control matter at the sub-atomic level. There might be no practical limit to our ability to control matter! It might be possible to make wars (economic and physical) over resources irrelevant.)
[0]: Physics for an advanced world: A look at the vital contribution that physics research has made to a number of major technological developments https://www.iop.org/publications/iop/2009/file_38209.pdf
This is an alarming statement. I'm not sure on what basis you make it. Education seems to very much be a "you-get-what-you-pay-for" type deal. I'll assume that you know the comparative histories of educational policies in China, Russia, U.S.A, East Africa, so instead of rehashing those, let me give you a comparable sentence to yours:
"I would argue that the reason for all these life-saving surgeries is the increasing number of educated people (not only surgeons) in the world. So maybe investing this money into education is better."
fwiw. Having read Dr. Hossenfleder's book and others, I believe she is correct that we don't need another accelerator because the benefit for the cost just isn't there. Fundamental physics has stagnated. Other avenues of fundamental physics should be funded instead of being crowded out, urgently.
What I wanted to point out is: there is a trade-off in allocating budgets which are finite to different parts of society. If science gets a certain budget, I argue (like the original author) that new collider takes away a part of the cake from others. However you frame the sources of the money, the budget is obviously limited and can be directed in other experiments and ideas as well.
What prompted my response is defending physics through listing inventions. Ironically, the proposed experiment might never give any practical application, and it shouldn't in my opinion. The search for knowledge, especially as fundamental as this is enough. But this part of physics already appeals to wide audience and has great PR. There might be other parts that could use billions but are not as sexy to general public.