Comment by aerodexis
11 hours ago
I'm genuinely surprised by this comment. I'm not talking about why a mathematician pursues math - I'm talking about where the stipend comes from.
Higher math is exceptionally useful for cryptography, defense, econometrics etc. I have a hard time thinking of other motivations that would hold a candle against such things.
Is the idea that government (for my purposes : folks w/ a monopoly on violence) is sincerely interested in promoting human flourishing, and is invested in mathematics insofar as it is a pure expression of human curiosity? I can also maybe see the glorification through monument building angle. If we're talking about math literacy in the population - that's distinct in my mind from higher mathematics.
It's dangerously naive to believe that science and math are pursued for majority benign purposes. No one here knows about Grothendieck?
Some of the comments here are very strange. Someone called Terrance Tao a useful idiot. Friday in America, maybe people are hitting the beer a bit early.