Too many mouths to feed, they said, too many ‘useless’ people . . . but we had more than enough food and housing for everyone. And the people they declared useless had plenty to offer—just not anything they cared about. The idea of doing something without immediate benefit, something that might only pay off in ten, twenty, or a hundred years, something that might benefit people they disliked, was anathema to the Founders. Even though that was precisely the kind of thinking that the world needed to survive.”
