As someone who has worked in the industry, I've yet to see any compelling argument that high frequency quants are making any meaningful contribution to society. Maybe on the low frequency end, but slightly higher market liquidity doesn't serve that large a social good imo.

Isn't Jane Street mostly into HFT arbitrage?

I think I have a very different idea of what "exactly" means; I would expect set equality, but at best you're using it to describe a massive superset.

The Rockefeller and Ford foundations funded the most successful crop improvement programs. I imagine finance tried to persuade them to use that money somewhere else.