> My perspective is this: string theorists are cheap. We may as well have a few for some long shot research, and while we fund them they teach kids math and physics. Seems like a good trade.

We need kids learning math because it is useful for engineering and other parts of life. However there are large parts of math that are useless in the real world and we don't need to each at all. (we need enough to teach rigorous logical thinking because that is useful in the real world - but there are lots of ways to get there)

Is there value in more theoretical physics - at what point do we know the constants to enough values? This is a reference to just before relativity was discovered when it was thought refining the constants was all that was left - it turned out that some major things were left, but is there anything more? This is an unanswerable question, but what if we redirected those working on string theory to a hobby if they want to and made their day job either teaching math (which they are already doing part time), or some engineering type job? If we distribute the workload that implies everyone could work half an hour less every day, is that a bad trade?

> However there are large parts of math that are useless in the real world and we don't need to each at all.

The way I see it is thus: life is objectively pointless. There is no god and time will erase everything anyone ever builds one way or another. Human life is predicated on doing work to survive, but that isn't the point of life. Instead of asking how we can only do what is useful, we should be asking how we can do more and more useless stuff while still providing for our bodily needs. Show me a mathematician working on pure math and I see a person at the absolute peak of human potential. I do not resent the mathematician. On the contrary, I aspire to their place. I guess you see one and you think they are useless and should be writing code for an ad company somewhere.

What a dogshit world.