• aidan@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    From Wikipedia on Vincent Van Gogh: Van Gogh’s work began to attract critical artistic attention in the last year of his life. After his death, Van Gogh’s art and life story captured public imagination as an emblem of misunderstood genius

    I don’t really understand how this follows from what I said.

    For every $1 spent on the moonshots, we got $14. Feel free to look for other investments, but big science really has proven itself.

    Do you have a source for that? (And what that claim actually means), afterall, plenty of “essential” inventions in the modern day(including the base of modern rocketry) came from weapons development- does that make war a good investment? (Of course its not 1-to-1 because war is destructive, but my point is putting a lot of effort and smart people into almost anything will lead to a lot of innovation)

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 months ago

      I don’t really understand how [The bit on Van Gogh – that he was only posthumously appreciated in the art sector] follows from what I said.

      My following paragraph is about that. Art often happens before the framework made to create it. In fact, when we have set up studio, they’re already doing knock-offs, trying to repeat prior successes.

      For every $1 spent on the moonshots, we got $14

      Do you have a source for that?

      This came up during a TED talk on the benefits of investing in big science. On an unrelated research effort, I found the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 which Eisenhower signed during his freak out over Sputnik, and the big grant to Fairchild Superconductor which kicked off the electronics boom in Silicon Valley (~San Jose, California), so the $14 value is certainly plausible.