> Makes it a little less dramatic. But also shows what a big *'n deal the railroads were!

It also makes it more dramatic, consider the programs on the list and what they have in common.

* The Apollo program. A government-funded science project. No return on investment required.

* The Manhattan Project. A government-funded military project. No return on investment required.

* The F-35 program. A government funded military project. No return on investment required.

* The ISS. A government funded science project. No return on investment required.

* The Interstate Highway System. A government funded infrastructure project. No return on investment required.

* The Marshall Plan. A government funded foreign policy project. No return on investment required.

The actual return on investment for these projects is in the very long term of decades; Economic development, national security, scientific progress that benefits the entire country if not the entire world.

Consider the Marshall Plan in particular. It's a massive money sink, but it's nature as a government project meant it could run at losses without significant economic risk and could aim for extremely long term benefits. It's been paying dividends until January last year; 77 years.

And that dividend wasn't always obvious; Goodwill from Europe towards the US is what has prevented Europe from taking similar actions as China around the US' Big Tech companies. Many of whom relied extensively on 'Dumping' to push European competitors out of business, a more hostile Europe would've taken much more protectionist measures and ended up much like China, with it's own crop of tech giants.

And then there's the two programs left out. The railroads and AI datacenters. Private enterprise that simply does not have the luxury of sitting on it's ass waiting for benefits to materialize 50 years later.

As many other comments in this thread have already pointed out: When the US & European railroad bubbles failed, massive economic trouble followed.

OpenAI's need for (partial) return on investment is as short as this year or their IPO risks failure. And if they don't, similar massive economic trouble is assured.

You're actually arguing those highly technical engineering projects provided nothing to humanity investing labor in them because they were not a financial success?

Just confirms my suspicion HN is not a forum for intellectual curiosity. It's been entirely subsumed by MBAs and wannabe billionaires.