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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kramodlog" data-source="post: 6667808" data-attributes="member: 55961">Fundamental research is very important period. Even if it just shows that one avenue is a dead end. That is useful research because others will know not what to do. I'm tired of the ideology that everything must be economically viable. Especially if we consider that economists more often than not do not take externalities* into the equation. The cost of obesity is rarely factored in when we talk about the revenues of McDonald's. Studying history or archeology's, just to give an example, are worth doing because we learn about ourselves. CERN lets us learn about the universe. Just learning makes those endeavors worth while. Of course, the flip side is that science can come with its problems. Take the research that lead to drones. They are amazing feats of science, but killing people remotely and the potential lost of privacy are externalities that haven't been tackled. But maybe that is because of capitalism and not because of how science is conducted. Some people saw a profit to be made with drones and to hell with the other consequences as long as there is profit.*A side effect or consequence of an industrial or commercial activity that affects other parties without this being reflected in the cost of the goods or services involved, such as the pollination of surrounding crops by bees kept for honey.</blockquote>