[Invictus0]

Yeah it's fine for mathematicians to amuse themselves, the problem is when they demand salaries to do that and taxpayers like OP rightfully ask "whats in it for me?" And when the answer is "IDK but maybe in a century we might have a problem this math is useful in solving" then it's not surprising that no one wants to fund pure math research. It's not the 20th century anymore when math research was going to meaningfully improve someone's life through the invention of things like electrical devices.

[gspencley]

Yeah, if you force other people to pay for something then you had better offer them an attractive value proposition. Though public funding of mathematics and other sciences is not what I thought we were discussing :)

[Ar-Curunir]

In which world do you think mathematicians are raking in taxpayer money? Mathematics requires very little funding: a blackboard, some chalk, a pen and paper, a desk, some coffee. That's it.

[burnished]

Thats a pretty myopic view of history there champ.

The pragmatic, practical perspective here is that funding the egg heads has had incredible outcomes (and its so cheap too), so dont let the simpletons shake the golden goose down just because they don't understand anything they cant fuck, fight, or eat.