[beej71]

Or calligraphy class. What a waste! What has that ever brought us except the entire Macintosh line of computers?

You never know when something is going to pay off somewhere. You bag on the feminist perspective on Aztec dance, but that's someone new looking at something in a way no one has before. And you never know what might get found.

Maybe it's nothing. But if we stop looking, were only finding nothing, guaranteed. The best things are found by people looking where no one else thinks to.

Like TFA said, modern STEM education is training you to be an automaton for the machine. And now AI can do that.

Better to learn STEM and learn some liberal (as in freedom) arts. And I don't want us to focus solely on STEM just to be outperformed by countries that do STEM and humanities.

Finally, if I may be so bold, it appears your political identity is clouding your judgment. We need to research everything. It's really impossible to overdo this. Just ask China.

Disclosure: I teach undergrad computer science.