The world would be a much better place if everyone stopped worrying about whether ideas “fit” the purposes of their specific organization / community and simply accepted them on their perceived merit (again, my philosophy holds that the absolute merit of an idea is inestimable).

And I’d love it if I could stop having to explain how my theoretical computer science research helps every minority under the sun (but not white males; that’s taboo). First of all, it’s very difficult to explain how developing a streaming kernel PCA algorithm helps starving children in Africa. Second, my research ultimately helps everyone (by adding to knowledge, which can then be used in all sorts of ways) or no one (if nothing is ever developed on them). Which is the case depends entirely on how these ideas are used.

If these things are more important than the quality of the research, it’s no wonder the USA is losing its technical edge!