[advael]

You make a really good point. Defining risk in terms of financial ROI and trying to assess it algorithmically and default-gating more and more endeavors behind such risk assessment is a surprisingly coherent model for a lot of widespread modern rot

[vinnyvichy]

Thanks for being one of the few commenters questioning the microconomic angle itself. In my view, the problem is that no rational economic agent will ever embrace the idea that research should be expensive. Well some very few of us do, we realize that we are competing against Nature and the Universe (not other economic entities), so one of the sensible avenues left to us is to try and recuperate all the losses that have already gone into past research. (maybe Kepler was trying desperately to salvage Hellenic heliocentrism? He also had a thing for platonic solids, after all)