> "when will we ever use this stuff in the real world."
That can be tough to see, even when
there is a lot of value in the real world.
Some of what some such math has going for it is
being part of a rock solid directed acyclic graph
of theorems and proofs that are about the highest
quality thinking. e.g., little risk of being wrong, on the planet.
Next, much of the math is both quite abstract and
general, both so much so that in principle, and
sometimes in practice, a lot of applications are
possible.
Next, some of the intention is to prepare for the
future, and, since that future is not here yet,
now we have to guess at what the most solid tools
will be.
> I don't know how an intelligent person can argue in good faith that fiction is not only meritless but basically useless.
That claim is stronger than I made, but, still,
my main criticism is that, according to 20th century
standards of intellectual safety and efficacy,
fictional literature looks poor in comparison,
in particular, because it (1) does not make
clear just what it is claiming to be true and
(2) fails to give solid evidence for much
in such claims. So, as information or knowledge
we don't much know what we have.
To be a little nicer to fictional literature, at times
it can describe situations in human experience,
say, suffering. But, for one, the experiences, e.g.,
the suffering, are not given a solid description, that is,
are not documented with good facts and references. E.g., we have famous fictional literature about the French Revolution, but from all that literature I read, and, indeed, the history courses, it was never explained that due to The Little Ice Age there had just been three years of crop failures so that many peasants were starving. Should have been mentioned. For
another, solid solutions are rarely even considered, much less often presented. So, such fictional literature can
make a reader feel some pains but be helpless at
alleviating the pains -- incompetent.
I said long ago in high school, if a writer of
fictional literature actually has something
important to say, then they should write an
essay.