My problem with America. And, actually, even my own country of origin.
Is that ignorance is not merely tolerated.... It is cultivated.
Whatever happened to learning, just for the sake of learning?
Does everything need a price tag, now?
Does any new discovery have to reward itself in dollars and cents?
Funny thing is, no matter what it is, the discovery usually does.
If, of course, you have clever folks around to capitalize on it.
I believe, wholeheartedly, in knowing things, just for the goddamn sake of *knowing them*.
Regardless of material benefit. Because material benefit is always so fleeting.
Just because something doesn't have economic benefit *now* does not negate its potential for the future.
Potential, friends, it's all about potential. *insert saucey physics equation here*
We're human beings. We *LOVE* potential. It;'s what we're bloody made of.

WE CAN BE ANYTHING WE WANT TO BE.

KNOW IT. LIVE IT. LOVE IT.

*mwah* I'm makin' like a tree, and I'm leavin'!

I believe, wholeheartedly, in knowing things, just for the goddamn sake of *knowing them*.
Regardless of material benefit. Because material benefit is always so fleeting.
Just because something doesn't have economic benefit *now* does not negate its potential for the future.
Potential, friends, it's all about potential. *insert saucey physics equation here*

Word. Much of the economic activity in the Western world since about 1970 has originated with quantum mechanics, an endeavor which looked completely abstract and useless when first discovered.

It was sponsored in no small part by money from a European beer company. That's right. A BEER COMPANY.

Warren Buffett finally beat this idea into Bill Gates' head, and now he pushes it hard: sometimes the best investment is in stuff you don't make money off of, because other people make so much money from unlocked potential that you indirectly reap the benefits anyway. Microsoft will ultimately make more money because the Gates Foundation turned sick malarial kids in Africa into bright entrepreneurs who made enough money to buy Windows and Office.