It seems to me that a big part of the problem with funding long term R&D projects is that the public and politicians do not understand what these projects are "good for". In other words, what is the outcome of this long term R&D spending? People can sort of imagine what the value of improved products are, and safety testing of products. These are short term R&D efforts. But what about long term projects, which are not expected to provide fruit for years, decades, centuries or longer? Why should anyone fund those? It is very difficult to predict exactly how something will be of use in the future. For example, the laser was invented by Theodore Maiman in 1960 at Hughes Aircraft Corporation. The laser, and its predecessor, the maser, had been predicted by Einstein decades earlier. But no one knew quite what to do with this technology when it arrived. As one physicist said at the time, "This is a solution looking for a problem to solve." Maiman could not even get a short report describing his device published since the editors at the journal rejected it. There were early classified projects that relied on using the laser. And in the first couple of years, there were some surgical experiments done with lasers. But it really took at least 10 or 15 years or even more before "bar code readers" (i.e. devices for scanning UPC codes) and laser disks and laser signals sent down fiber optic cables for communications purposes started to emerge. And then the laser started to become an important tool for lots of tasks. A similar thing happened with the detection of the neutrino at Los Alamos in 1956 by Cowan and Reines. The neutrino's existence had been predicted years before. It took many attempts by Cowan and Reines to detect the neutrino, and a lot of clever experiments and technologies were invented and designed for this purpose. Once their efforts were successful, their bosses were sneeringly unimpressed and dismissive. Cowan and Reines' managers thought they should do something "useful" for a change instead of playing around with "nonsense" like morons. In retrospect, the mundane tasks their managers had in mind were completely uninteresting and would make no contribution whatsoever to the future or the people paying for the work, the public. These tasks were a waste of time; basically "busy work". The techniques and technologies Cowan and Reines developed, on the other hand, are still in use today, decades later. The managers making these decisions were failed technical people who were completely unproductive during their careers and were singulary unqualified to make such judgements. This is a very common state of affairs in R&D. There are both direct and immediate benefits to R&D, and more indirect and amorphous benefits to long term R&D. Among the direct and immediate benefits are of course innovation and military prowess and economic advancement. The vaguer indirect benefits include things like a. ennoblement of the human spirit b. inspiration c. aesthetics But even work that initially appears to only have aesthetic value often later turns out to be very valuable for assorted applications. A prominent example would be work in number theory which is of foundational use in lots of security and cryptographic systems. No one could have predicted this, decades before. Investigations which appear to only have indirect benefits can produce incredibly important knowledge leading to exotic applications that we cannot envision yet. One of the most important ways that long term research can lead to future applications is the development of new tools in the course of these investigations. The neutrino example demonstrates this, as does the work in number theory, but there are many others. Some fields (like parts of the earth sciences or psychology) make the mistake of attempting to discourage tool development. Then they are invariably surprised when they do not get as richly funded as other areas which are more tool-focused, like many of those in mainstream physics. As brutal as this reality is, if your field does not have some intrinsic appeal, by being associated with science fiction or has some other positive image, in an almost "romantic" way, it better provide good fodder for future applications through tool building. There is a lot of sneering in some areas directed towards those who design and create tools, but this in fact is a very healthy activity for an R&D field. Another perspective might be provided by comparing research and development to ecosystem management. When one blindly culls out one or more elements of an ecosystem, like the wolves at Yellowstone Park, there are all kinds of unforeseen consequences, and "knock-on" effects, of a secondary, tertiary, quaternary and higher order nature. If one ejects people who are classified as "useless" or worse (often only by one arbitrary failed scientist who has crawled into management and accorded themselves unquestionable infinite power), one can easily upset the entire balance and create a less productive environment. This is a sort of unstated benefit associated with a push to encourage people to return to the office, after the pandemic. It is to facilitate more unplanned contacts in the hallways and in the lunchroom. This is not to say that this is a good motivation for "return to work edicts", since solitude can also be very beneficial. Here are three quotes from Nikola Tesla that reinforce this viewpoint: 1. "Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born." 2. "The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude." 3. "Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind." -- Nikola Tesla This is echoed in the practice of Siberian tribes: In Siberian tribes, shamans were often isolated from the rest of the community, meaning they lived somewhat apart from the everyday life of the tribe, and this isolation was considered crucial to their role as spiritual mediators who could access the spirit world through deep trance states during rituals; this practice allowed them to focus on their spiritual duties without distractions and was a key aspect of traditional Siberian shamanism.[1] Apparently, young men who were going to be trained as shamans were separated from the rest of the tribe and isolated from an early age. Another reason that is frequently stated as a motivating factor behind funding research, particularly of a long term nature, is to "avoid surprises". It should be obvious in both the economic sphere and the military and intelligence domains, an unexpected advance or even a paradigm shift can completely obliterate an organization. This has happened over and over in history, as in the case of the Xerox Corporation which funded the creation of the technology which was behind its own demise, and then never took advantage of it. Xerox even gave it away free of charge to their competitors. This situation is so common that it has a name; the "Inventor's Dilemma". However, this is contrary to the advice given to all young people starting out in the working world. One of the most fundamental precepts, which is repeated, over and over and over is, "never surprise your boss". But doing R&D is all about creating surprises, that even surprise the innovators themselves. And these surprises are not recognized as beneficial, or are attacked by those in power. Although it is "only" a line in a screenplay, I found that this quote really resonated with me; "Sometimes it's the very people who no one imagines anything of who do the things no one can imagine." -- Christopher Morcom (played by Jack Bannon) in The Imitation Game (2014). If you look at the history of R and D, this is invariably true, or at least is pretty accurate in most cases, of figures like Newton and Galois and Einstein and Noethe and Ramanujan and many others. Those who make serious advances march to the beat of a different drummer, and are ridiculed and despised by most. And this has always been true, going back centuries or even millennia. Almost always, the people who were on the "right path" and primed to make substantial advances in a field, were not recognized by their colleagues and particularly the managers. This is where the expression comes from, that science advances one tombstone at a time. Another reason that people do R&D is that they are exploring. They are amusing themselves. They are playing. They are following their curiousity, and so on. Here are a couple of relevant quotes that bolster this perspective: "What am I to come back for?" -- Eliza Doolittle "For the fun of it! That's why I took you on!"-- Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady, Lyrics: Alan Jay Lerner, Book: Alan Jay Lerner, Film: 1964 "Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it." -- Richard Feynman "It has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending." -- Robert R. Wilson, the first director of Fermilab Therefore, what I think might be beneficial, at some point, is to have actual professional economists and forensic accountants and finance managers and military analysts look carefully at various R&D funding projects. How much was spent? What were the benefits, if any, 5 years later, 10 years later, 20 years later, 100 years later? What was the "return on investment"? Was it purely monetary or did it have affects on the culture and the species, like inspiration and ennoblement and so on? It is not clear how these vague notions can be characterized and measured, but it is clear that not all the benefits of R&D can be measured in monetary terms, or in terms of military might. Just pleading with the characters with the green eyeshades is unlikely to have much influence. No, serious hard numbers and case studies are needed. Many of my friends think this is unnecessary, and that it is overkill. They think, "how on earth can people not realize that investing in the invention of the transistor yielded substantial benefits for mankind?" Now it is obvious to me, and it is probably obvious to you, the reader. But I dare say that is not at all obvious to a substantial portion of the population. They need to be hit over the head with a hammer, repeatedly. They need hard data, and lots of it. They have no idea where all this stuff around them in their life comes from, and they do not care particularly. Perhaps they need a bit of a reminder. Now also buried in some corners of the population, are those who want "de-growth" and "impoverishment". They are terrified of progress and advances and want to stop them and roll them back. They are effectively Nihilists. And of course, these people believe that anything that has a chance to better the lot of humans has to be rejected. They hate humanity and want to obliterate it, for whatever reason. One would do well to be alert to anyone with this viewpoint, because there are quite a few of them. This mindset is sort of "chic" and "hip" to these nincompoops, and one should be wary of them.Notes [1] A Bridge Between Worlds in Siberia: Tatyana Vassilievna Kobezhikova https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/bridge-between-worlds-siberia-tatyana-vassilievna Shamanism in Russia - Ancient Rituals & Traditions Written by Alicja Pietrasz https://www.56thparallel.com/shamanism-in-siberia/