I agree that investing in both is optimal. I'm unclear, however, how quality of life builds infrastructure?

How much cheaper or more accessible will the future version of the connected tablet be in 1-2 generations (25-50 years)? 20 years ago mobile phones were rare, expensive and not very good. What if the availability of energy takes a huge leap.

Those things can have a profound effect on the productive capacity of a people born into it. Can the third world brands of 'education as a major challenge' be solved to the point where most kids have a decent chance by our standards? If those kinds of changes happen, part of that increase in productive capacity almost certainly will go into building infrastructure.

Honestly I think that part of investing on a horizon like this and betting on either ambitious charities, companies or even in scientific research is that it's hard to know. Some people leave their endowments to Art and I'm not sure you can really coherently argue against it.

People who aren't struggling to survive have the luxury to spend time working on other things, like infrastructure. There's no guarantee that will happen, though.

When you're no longer stressing about where you're going to get food for the next day, researching big ideas seems a lot more reachable