Dear Apricot Capybara,
I finally found the time to read your essay and the picture you are drafting is indeed the "dark side" of what the "mistake minimiser" and my essay sketch. Quite intriguing that we are tackling similar issues but describe complementary aspects and differing viewpoints.
After reading, I was reminded of Durrenmatt's Novel "The Physicists". Maybe you know it. The moral of the story is the same as your essay: science is a danger to humans and anything even discovered in the best intentions can be misused. Has it always been that bad or is it just a newer development when population densities raise to a certain level that there is no room for individuals to achieve their goals without interfering with someone else's objectives?!
And after all, as far as I know, we live in the least belligerent world we have had over history despite all wars going on at the moment. Hence, it seems that there is an evolution towards a more tolerant humanity.
But I definitely agree that short-term goals often attached to direct personal gains prevail when it comes to funding options and that this is not the best path for an efficient and encompassing progress. The UAP/UFO debate is an excellent example in that context, as people often reject it on the basis that nothing useful has come out of these investigations for us over all these decades. While the search for an UFO-needle in the cosmic haystack may still take a lot of time and the analysis of many false alarms, in my view, we learn a lot about anomalous phenomena in our atmosphere, the more detailed structure of our own planet and technological devices. Actually, the idea of navigating a vessel with variable charge on its surface in earth's electric field is not too far off our state of knowledge, we even know appropriate materials to build such vessels.
Last but not least, I currently see this evolving research field joining many different branches of science and even engineering in an unprecedented way. This synthesis and dialogue is highly valuable and other fields should take this endeavour to resolve UAPs as a positive example for fruitful collaborations!
Bests,
Beige Bandicoot.