[Qom]

That's a rather extreme viewpoint. Don't forget that it's things like culture that make life worth living. I love technology, but I also recognize that the end goal of technological progress is to allow us to experience more culture by augmenting and facilitating our lives.

I honestly don't see how studying Ancient Greek for example is supposed to encourage cultural domination. The term "humanities" denotes a vast array of subjects.

If there is cultural domination going on, it's mostly with the mass media output of whichever country happens to be in a position of power at the time. For instance, the US have been flooding the market for a long while with their audio, video and written content thanks to their dominant economic position. Local production simply cannot compete with billion-dollar budgets. This leads to cultural intoxication in millions of minds around the world as they are exposed every day to the American way of viewing the world and American cultural norms. A humanities course, no matter how active in its propaganda, cannot possibly rival this kind of utter cultural domination.

[chrismonsanto]

> but I also recognize that the end goal of technological progress is to allow us to experience more culture by augmenting and facilitating our lives

For you, anyway. For me (a theoretical computer scientist/mathematician), more advanced technology is its own reward. I don't really care what the results are applied to.

[Qom]

Expanding our understanding of the universe IS part of culture since it allows us new avenues of thought. The arts and sciences were considered to be the same thing not so long ago.

I also find it highly doubtful that you do not care about the results of technology. Technology pretty much shapes our lives so you cannot plausibly pretend to be so blasé about it all. Our continued existence depends on the responsible use of powerful inventions so not caring about the results is a pretty unscientific and downright dangerous attitude anyway.