[msm_]

>Now, is Irrigation Maths more important to us as a species than Terrence Taos work on spontaneously combusting water? Probably! Would it be more useful to have PhDs be funded in optimizing food routes between countries after climate change over game theory applications for blackjack? Probably!

I imagine you would be equally annoyed at Euler in 1736 when he was wasting his time with bridge brain teasers (and invented graph theory in the process) instead of solving bubonic plague or optimizing irrigation. Science just doesn't (in general) work the way you propose.

[eddsh1994]

And the majority of science sit in empty libraries with maybe a single citation by a postdoc trying to write enough papers to get the next postdoc...

[TheRealPomax]

Sounds like you forgot that's literally everything niche until a post doc or tenured mathematician goes "yo hold up. This tiny proof (helps) solve(s) X". And now their name's in the science history books.