I wish that more people understood that if they're very wrong/openly lying about the history of scientific achievement, they're probably in the wrong about their conclusions regarding the future of science as well.
And that's Eru (and perhaps you) here. Pubic science continues to make fantastic moves forward, with one notable example being nearly ALL the meaningful research and engineering moving us towards nuclear fusion being based on public research. Historically, major contributors to research almost universally had significant government funding.
It's true that we can gesture to AI research recently as a fruitful place for private research, but even orgs like Deepmind took government grants. Deepmind's publicly called for governments to fund AI research, as have many other (private) researchers.
In any event, taking tax money and giving it back to the betterment of society as a whole is one of the most uniformly good things that could be done with tax dollars. Science consistently betters society as a whole, and it's almost impossible to identify in advance what theoretical or practical breakthroughs in any given field are about to become significant.
And that's Eru (and perhaps you) here. Pubic science continues to make fantastic moves forward, with one notable example being nearly ALL the meaningful research and engineering moving us towards nuclear fusion being based on public research. Historically, major contributors to research almost universally had significant government funding.
It's true that we can gesture to AI research recently as a fruitful place for private research, but even orgs like Deepmind took government grants. Deepmind's publicly called for governments to fund AI research, as have many other (private) researchers.
In any event, taking tax money and giving it back to the betterment of society as a whole is one of the most uniformly good things that could be done with tax dollars. Science consistently betters society as a whole, and it's almost impossible to identify in advance what theoretical or practical breakthroughs in any given field are about to become significant.