i am not a complexity theorist but I am a CS academic by training (I never was a good one, but welp), and during my PhD it is often said that maybe P vs. NP an initial proof/disproof to the statement is not that practically important, e.g., if P=NP, maybe the NP -> P reduced algorithm is very very cosmic. P=NP by itself hardly proves that one would instantly design an AGI whatsoever. Often the downstream potential theoretical/practical insights/results seems more exciting;

> The NS equations are far,far,far less meaningful. Like I mentioned earlier, if you actually want accurate CFD, you dont even use them.

Sure. Consider this: in algorithm research often the most optimal algorithm in big-O is not the one used IRL; examples are numerous: matrix multiplication, LCA data structures, many variants of shortest paths.

An academic can work two years on faster-in-theory matrix multiplication that no one expects to be used in practice (in our currently imaginable univese). Do you consider that less meaningful than working on faster matmul kernels?