[billoday]

I think that's crazy reductive though. It's not an either/or, and it's a gross oversimplification that big projects only show benefit within their major focus. LHC has produced benefit in particle physics, yes, but I am 100% sure it also introduced new methods of construction, semiconductors, material science, and other fields in the construction of the facility. I see this argument with space exploration as well, "why not feed the world instead of exploring space?"

Why is it zero sum to begin with? And more importantly, how less effective would be able to feed the world had we had no space race to begin with? If we were still at a 1950s technical level, our farming capacity would be exponentially lower, and most of the big leaps came as a direct result technologies originally developed for space.

It's naive to assume we can see all the benefits of daring to attempt hard things, but attempting hard things is what moves society forward. If all we did was lots of little cars in all directions when we have already figured out the challenges with little cars, mean the ONLY benefit is the direct one. If we've never built a car to explore REALLY far, well, there's a bunch of other problems we need to solve to get there. And honestly, it's those results that will likely move the needle.