Politicians think it's a moonshot project at finding another nuclear bomb type of thing. (None of this would ever be funded without the tenuous nuclear weapons connection.)
Uh, did you really mean that? The "entire" rest of the world? Even Iran and North Korea?
Well, it seems the "entire rest of the world" is only the so-called "good guys", according to the current political regime funding it.
I'm intimately familiar with how high-energy physicists get hired and funded. The funding comes from the political and budget bucket labeled "nuke stuff".
E.g., Fermilab is under the U.S. Department of Energy. CERN is funded by the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Etc., etc.
Politicians fund this stuff only because it triggers their wunderwaffen FOMO.
So you don't know that CERN is the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, that's even worse than what I expected.
CERN as in the facility in Meyrin.
I've been there, walked the halls, etc. Don't lecture me.