Countries trying to lure in top academics don't just offer money, but also facilities, research grants and such. Compensation is only part of the picture, and scientists might want to choose the country were they are going to get the most science done, not necessarily the one that pays best.

All us heads talking about it gets scraped back into their AIs, then gets regurgitated back out in ever expanding echoes.

They could've instead named this thing "Wut is sequential access and why is it bad!?!?"

and apple... and most hardware builders out there

Yes, Newspeak. And Oldspeak.

See ancient governmental and religious texts for reference.

It's a rare medium that's well done.

And when pressed to define what "woke" actually means, they universally fail to come up with a definition. Even an "author" having written a book about it fails to be able to define woke.

This just leaves more product for other countries that run by morons, probably reducing prices worldwide. This is why much of Africa had 5G wireless before the US did.

True, but there are all sorts of things that we could do, but we don't because, well because we just don't. There are a number of things that come to mind. One is that novel solutions to problems often come from someone scratching an itch. The problem is, they have to notice the itch in the first place, but the problem domain of, well, basically saving the Earth, is broad and it is hard to see the forest for the trees. The problems to solve for space exploration can be much more focused, and I think that does actually tend to drive people towards developing solutions that can then be applied to broader problems. In other words, for invention usually specific to general seems to work better than general to specific. There is also the matter of drive. Not that drive does not exist for researchers working to deal with environmental issues, but still there might be a tendency for the space fanatic to also be able to maintain better focus. Overall, even if what is developed is never used in space at all, I think that working towards the space-focused form of these technologies might actually bear fruit that can be highly useful here on Earth.

Like back when the deregulated comms sector over-built capacity.

Some of the technologies that would enable space exploration could also help us with the goal of repairing our biosphere though. Among our issues here on Earth is our reliance on fossil fuels. Hydrocarbons for energy make little sense pretty much everywhere we might go in space, however. All that energy storage potential for hydrocarbons is completely reliant on a massive supply of free oxygen being there for the taking. That means that basically all technology used for space either needs to not burn fossil fuels, or use systems with self-contained oxidizers. So those technologies are potentially useful for Earth. Beyond that, nearly everything you might do in space is more resource constrained than Earth, so you need to find methods of re-using the same methods over and over. Reclaiming wastewater and turning into fresh water again, recycling, scrubbing and replenishing atmospheric gases, etc. One interesting area is growing crops in limited space and with limited or no light. A more compact, direct way to grow food could massively reduce the area needed for farming on Earth and reduce the environmental cost. Processes to make steel and produce other metals in space, or to produce concrete in space could greatly reduce the energy waste and pollution of the versions of those methods used on Earth. Methods for local in situ manufacture of more goods would reduce the environmental cost of transporting those goods such long distances.
Basically, self-sustaining space exploration would involve the development of a whole host of technologies that would also help back on Earth. Space exploration and mitigating damage to/repairing the biosphere are not necessarily mutually incompatible goals.

It most certainly does. I did say "adequately trained".

Citizens United.

'Nuff said.

You were comparing manned missions to automated missions. The only practical result of either is science; it will be a long while before we'll see something practical being done in space. Manned mission are more expensive but they can yield way more science as well. I think we ought to at least try and get something of a moonbase established. That is attainable, and will give us a much better idea of what we can expect should we want to venture further out in a manned mission. That experience in itself is worth attaining.
If you want practical, however, space exploration has little to offer anymore, except some spinoff tech perhaps.

There is a huge difference between having a little robotic rover trundle over the Lunar service, and having some scientists present, with a lab. Though I imagine a lot of that research will mostly be useful for further human exploration of them Moon or space, so it might seem a little self-serving. But it may well drive down the cost of human space exploration.