The point that I was trying to make, which apparently must be downvoted into oblivion, is that comparing big numbers to really huge numbers leads to some very distorted conclusions. No matter how really huge the defense budget is[1], spending $20 on a drinking straw is a lot.

Speaking of someone who has been on the receiving end of lots of research money throughout my career, still...$6 billion is a lot of money, and it should not be wasted. I agree with the original article that a new particle collider probably is not what we should do with this money.

[1] (and yes I agree it's too much--go fight that battle if you like, but you probably won't win a single cent back)

knock off the whinging about downvotes. this isn't reddit. people dislike what you're saying. move on.

What criticisms of the military budget always fail to take into account is that the military budget funds science too. The US Government is the largest sponsor of science in the world, and the military currently funds more science dollar for inflation adjusted dollar than it did even during the cold war.

The military's budget for Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation in 2016 was 69B, or 11.9% of the total budget.

https://csbaonline.org/reports/research-development-test-and...

https://www.aip.org/fyi/2018/fy19-budget-request-defense-st-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_...

development, testing and evaluation in a military context does not sound like fundamental science at all...

sure there will be research, and some of it will be open, but all the research behind closed doors does not enjoy the scrutiny of normal research, so there is plenty of opportunity to waste money on nonsense "research" ...

Observing the superior tech used by even standard military it's obvious that there is a fuckton of pure reserch going on, most of it will be top secret for many years though. NSA records this message and will apply some superhuman quantum algorithms to it and theres nothing I can do about it. Hail our petrodollar overlords!

I'm sure we are simply talking about different kinds of research...

Just like I'm sure 20 years ago a market researcher was convinced he was doing "pure" research...

Agreed, but good luck convincing Congress. You have to deal with the reality of the situation. Sure, the money exists, but you won't get it. So what do you do with the money you _can_ get?

Luckily, CERN is not financed by the US Gov.

Of course, but problems around funding are not unique to the US. You still have to make do with that you can get.

The U.S. isn't a member state but the US government (through the NSF and DOE) contribute a ton of money to the research, development, and operation of the LHC and it's major experiments.

What's the budget towards fusion energy research? Given the political difficulties in funding fundamental research, would that be a better sideshow for making a positive difference in the world if we had to prioritize one or the other?

The trick is to make the military finance your science project by finding a military justification for it.

It worked for Galileo: https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/galileo-was-one-of-t...

I don’t know why you were downvoted, a lot of CompSci research is funded this way, including some of the things a few of us enjoy today (internet.)