Okay, we need to take that money from somewhere. There is only so much labor on the planet, and that is what the money is buying in the end. (I'm including corruption in labor here) Some labor is more valuable than others, and we can debate how much we want to spend, but in the end if we have someone do X they could do Y instead. Sometimes Y is sit around doing nothing, sometimes it is valuable.
The problem here is we don't know what will be discovered and if it will be useful. Cheap Science Fiction FTL without all the time dilation - very valuable. Add half a decimal point to our models - probably can't be used for anything and so less valuable than a game. I have no idea, I just picked unlikely two extremes.
You're talking about opportunity costs - it's not a false dichotomy at all. Spending trillions on financial assets mean they are not spent on other things.
The problem here is we don't know what will be discovered and if it will be useful. Cheap Science Fiction FTL without all the time dilation - very valuable. Add half a decimal point to our models - probably can't be used for anything and so less valuable than a game. I have no idea, I just picked unlikely two extremes.