HN needs not to have a flamewar about this.

That's a pretty simplistic view of society. Do we need not need novels or music either? Let's drink nothing but soylent and devote 80 hours per week to our STEM careers

People literally die without research into things like drugs. They don’t die without movies.

There's more to living than not dying.

Watching movies?

Yes.

there are a lot of anecdotes about how a song or a book or a movie changed someone's life.

As opposed to research changing someone's life.

> there are a lot of anecdotes.

There are a lot of data about how many people have been saved through research. Anecdotes are data with n=1. Not a great comparison.

I don’t want to live in whatever society you’re projecting here. I think that statement is incredibly narrow-minded. We need both.

> I don’t want to live in whatever society you’re projecting here.

I was describing society as it is now and explaining why researchers get more scholarships than actors do.

Yet the best actors and musicians make far more in the long term, from the support of millions of people who evidently don’t think the way you do.

Who's going to entertain the researchers when they're not working? Or do you imagine they'll simply work every waking hour?

Back in the day, people were actually entertaining themselves and their neighbors, via amateur community plays.

Amazingly, there’s other ways to entertain yourself than zoning out in front of a screen.

Who said anything about a screen? Plays, live music, comedy, need I go on?