It has everything to do with our society. There are some things that just waste an awful lot of resources if they are done according to market logic. Science is one of those things. Luckily, some people are intrinsically motivated (or just rich) and do it anyway. In a different society (e.g. if everyone got an unconditional basic income) intrinsic motivation may receive more value than government decisions about funding.

I'm confused: it seems like you're saying that it has nothing to do with our society because it has everything to do with our society. What's the distinction you're trying to make?

Per se.

You think there is a different sort of society, that overvalues scientists? That's cute.

Arguably, communism did. I certainly know a lot of ex-soviet scientists who have a much worse life than they did under party rule.

We can do a present day apples-to-apples comparison: how does the life of a North Korean scientist compare to that of their Southern counterpart? I think the latter is probably better off overall.

"Capitalism" and "communism" aren't operating systems that get installed on different countries but impose identical function. South Korea has a much more planned and centralized capitalism than the Anglosphere. North Korea is basically a monarchist personality cult rather than anything resembling the Soviet Union.

> North Korea is basically a monarchist personality cult rather than anything resembling the Soviet Union.

Unlike the Soviet Union, where no personality cult of Stalin and Lenin existed. </sarcasm>

North Korea is as good an example of a totalitarian dictatorship as any Communist country (including my own).

That's not apples-to-apples, because clearly in today's world capitalism is more favored and has much more resources (taken by force). Not trying to argue whether one is better than the other, it's just that the current state of the world has a major bias for capitalism and against communism due to sheer quantity of people/power. Although I suppose that strength is a result of the differences between the two ideologies. I think it's mainly the result of the outcome of WW2 though, but that could be due to the differences as well! Maybe if they each had their own planets where they didn't have to fight we could find out...

Maybe the point that you are making is that communism is worse because if capitalism can also exist, it will take more resources and make communism miserable. Or, that if communism were widespread that life would be more miserable for everybody because we wouldn't have the capitalistic systems to make life more luxurious. Anyways, there's been plenty of debate on this topic, I just don't think there is any way to make a fair comparison in today's world. Even though these countries have similar ethnic makeup and size, I'd still say it's more of an apples-to-oranges comparison.