[techphys_91]

This sounds reasonable, but we don't have the knowledge to be able to make a targeted experiment now, nor do we know whether we'll gain that knowledge within the next 100+ years. If we just stop, then we might not have the infrastructure or the people/ skills to make those experiments when the theory arrives.

Even if we didn't get a physics result from a high energy collider, we'd have a few more generations of skillful and motivated scientists/ engineers. Perhaps there are more efficient ways to achieve that, but I think "a waste" is perhaps an overstatement; we lose something either way.

[aduitsis]

+1!

We don't know what we don't know, but one way or the other it's money spent on basic research and physics.