>Capitalism is an effective filter for economics and resource allocation
It really isn't a good filter for anything except "makes money quickly". Plenty of science returns zero economic benefits for years, even decades, but that doesn't mean it's useless.
> It really isn't a good filter for anything except "makes money quickly".
How do you figure? We stand in a nation built on giant economic long shots and in the only one that managed to put humans on the moon in a joint government commercial venture.
I'm using an open source product to write this to you. Running on an open source operating system. Also on an open source hardware device. Where's the "quick money" in any of this?
> but that doesn't mean it's useless.
It doesn't mean it's useful either. You can't use a simple "expectation factor" divorced from all other reality to decide how to spend tax money.
Our motivation for putting humans on the moon was an international dick-measuring contest. While the space race certainly created jobs and advanced science and technology, none of that was the primary reason we went up there.
The maximization of American dollars in a bank is a polite, democratic proxy for the violence of neo-colonialism. So any good investment scheme should ignore common metrics of science potential, as a lot of evidence is required to measure and determine what is a good science program to embark on. In contrast to analytical models and proposed theories that are more rational than they are empirical; rationalism is a sneaky way for neo-Marxism to taint the natural administration of science, technology, and capital. Hard evidence and reproducible centuries-long experiments are protective guardians of sensible science.
America wins for a reason in geopolitical history and it's because it has a secret military on top of its apparent military. Air forces and scientists are just fungible tokens for a surreptitious right wing shadow government that competes with ankle biting bugs like neo-Marxists. But it can all be reduced to undignified gang banging like Crips and Bloods, because space colonization isn't as noble as the romantic fictions have showed it to be. Maybe the correct inference from knowledge of history is that humanity isn't the end goal to chase after?
It really isn't a good filter for anything except "makes money quickly". Plenty of science returns zero economic benefits for years, even decades, but that doesn't mean it's useless.