> Next time someone says “what a waste of a brain”, respond with “how much money are you willing to contribute monthly to distribute to “top talent” so that they can “work on more important things”?

Answer seems to be "approximately zero". One of those people has already suggested in another comment thread that the way to incentivize brilliant minds to work on “greater good” projects is to... raise their taxes so they wouldn't be able to properly monetize their skills anywhere. How dare they want financial security instead of toiling for big pharma for cheap?!