• Limeey@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    95
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    Research for the sake of research is how we make discoveries we never thought possible.

    • paddirn@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      47
      ·
      7 months ago

      The best discoveries are the ones that start with somebody going, “Huh, that’s weird…”

    • GloriousGouda@lemmy.myserv.one
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      7 months ago

      Absolutely! The mentality that it’s “wasted time and resources” is exactly how you extinguish progress, invention, and ultimately the ability to innovate existing tools.

    • xantoxis@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      7 months ago

      This one’s not even that far out there. Understanding how ants think has direct applications! Ants must take many thousands of steps in a day; being able to count them precisely requires certain cognitive facilities we wouldn’t otherwise know existed. Next step: figure out how those things work with such simple cognition. Then apply that to self-organizing robots and use them to cure cancer or something.