I think we can blame the education system. At some point it became solely about passing some arbitrary threshold of students with high exam scores rather than about teaching students how to get by in life.
End result was an education system that simply teaches kids how to pass exams rather than basic life skills like critical thinking.
I’d hate to live in a world where just because something isn’t immediately useful it shouldn’t be researched.
Being able to demonstrate the ability to suppress a sonic boom would be huge.