Isn't much of the science work just taking money for doing basically nothing? I don't think that is a loss for the us.

No. It is for research that wouldn't be funded by companies, since it is either too risky or has too long of a time-horizon. If all academic research was removed from the world you would notice a vast stagnation in technological progress. This can be confirmed by looking at what technologies have come from this process, and what private research built upon public research.

Yea, exactly. You should send all your top scientists to Europe. Great idea to get rid of them. Totally just dragging down your country. Send them to Europe.

Hacker News really isn't what it used to be, huh.

"Science work" is NOT doing nothing. All the modern conveniences we have today came through such work, which usually go for long stretches of time before payoff.

It's not for doing nothing, it's for fooling around at the edge of knowledge. Sometimes, very useful stuff emerges.

You presumably spent 15 or so years in school to learn things of which many only have very indirect applications, and at most a small minority directly applied to your career.

Should we similarly get rid of mandatory education? Most of it is useless after all.

For real. How much more do we need to spend to learn that plants crave Brawndo?

You are motivating me to get enough reputation points to be allowed to downvote.