I fully agree. I’d even go one step further: don’t spend that 100 billion on physics at all. That’s taxpayer money that actually can be spent on feeding the hungry. That’s the humane thing to do, and I bet a much better investment in science too, since those hungry will have a chance to become scientists.
PS. I have a masters in engineering physics and several friends who are physicists. I’m also a science nerd. But I still think this is the right thing to do.
Why not take the 100 billion from somewhere other than frontier physics research. I always consider these articles small minded since the people writing them don't consider projects outside of their domain that eat up more funding than something like LHC++. It's such a zero sum situation where there is a 100 billion grant for grabs and the author wants it spent on one project in place of this one.
The more research we do the better and 100 billion spent over approx 20 years by over a dozen countries is a far cry from putting all our eggs in one basket.
The best way to feed the hungry is to implement systemic change which improves education, distributes productivity more evenly, invests in primary research across a broad range of domains, eliminates debt slavery, and - most of all for this three - keeps qualified physicists in research and out of fintech.
You need to throw politics at poverty and homelessness, not just cash.
Not incidentally, lowering the barriers to physics education and changing the incentives towards risky imagination and away from calculated academic careerism would also make breakthroughs in physics more likely.
PS. I have a masters in engineering physics and several friends who are physicists. I’m also a science nerd. But I still think this is the right thing to do.