Usefulness of Useless Knowledge

 I was sitting and reading a piece yesterday, which led to the idea that there is value or useful purpose....if you were going out to gain useless knowledge.

This actually came out of a book from late 1930s, and it was an open discussion that maybe some experiment or project led to a simple report of zero value today, but sat around for an era and is picked up....to  advance some highly valued project in decades to come.  

It'd be like you doing a garage experiment to find some other type of air conditioning 'element' that was workable but less toxic.  You wrapped this up successfully but found that this was ten times more expensive....so you published the idea but it just sat there.  Years later, the cost factor drops by 90-percent and it suddenly has value.

Out there in the bold world we live in....there's probably tens of millions of people across the globe....working to gather useless knowledge.  To be honest....some of what they work up....WILL NEVER have value and be terribly wasted efforts.  Some will have marginal value, and some will have tremendous value (coming maybe years after the guy's death).

So it is in our best interest to be 'kind' to these individuals and urge them on....even if we see the value of this today as totally wasted.  

I know it goes against our very nature....to discourage stupid work, or work without value.  But you just can't tell....that crazy cousin of yours might come up with some idea that might make Pepsi an actual healthy drink to consume, or get the magic formula to eat 10,000 calories per day but get the body to burn that intake as quickly as it comes in.