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emphasize the "cant touch this" side for have-nots, and then amplify personal power motivations on the other side.. What could go wrong?

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Can you cite any investment in scientific research that isn't goal or product oriented? The best example that comes to mind for me are the theoretical researchers that were on staff at Bell Labs prior to the breakup of AT&T -- but even then, funding basic scientific research was a requirement for AT&T in exchange for their monopoly of the telephone network at the time.

That isn't really a useful comparison in a world where public or public-adjacent (bureaucratic committees operating by consensus) funding has totally crowded out rich funding interesting projects in terms of both dollars and status.

But wasn't always that way, and most of the science behind the modern industrial world was probably funded by rich guys sponsoring research at Cambridge or Edinburgh or wherever. The complaining scientists just don't like the accountability entailed by being funded by a real person very much.

Not their job to educate you

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