Try submitting this paragraph as your next grant application!
It is actually possible to make educated guesses as to what's interesting and what isn't. It is just very hard.
The management of the old Xerox PARC, for example, was very good at it. So were the people at DARPA - about 40 years ago. So, once, was Bell Labs. And so on.
Needless to say, the actual process of guesswork has nothing in common with the modern scientific budget process.
I'm willing to accept that you are more than capable than predicting what's interesting. Let's try a zero knowledge proof. You point out the interesting ones, and we'll check back in a few years to see your accuracy.
The only thing that made the management at Xeroc PARC, Bell Labs, etc. good, was that they let smart people do what they wanted and stayed out of the way.
It is actually possible to make educated guesses as to what's interesting and what isn't. It is just very hard.
The management of the old Xerox PARC, for example, was very good at it. So were the people at DARPA - about 40 years ago. So, once, was Bell Labs. And so on.
Needless to say, the actual process of guesswork has nothing in common with the modern scientific budget process.