I'm genuinely surprised by this comment. I'm not talking about why a mathematician pursues math - I'm talking about where the stipend comes from.

Higher math is exceptionally useful for cryptography, defense, econometrics etc. I have a hard time thinking of other motivations that would hold a candle against such things.

Is the idea that government (for my purposes : folks w/ a monopoly on violence) is sincerely interested in promoting human flourishing, and is invested in mathematics insofar as it is a pure expression of human curiosity? I can also maybe see the glorification through monument building angle. If we're talking about math literacy in the population - that's distinct in my mind from higher mathematics.

It's dangerously naive to believe that science and math are pursued for majority benign purposes. No one here knows about Grothendieck?