One thing I've always wanted to ask PG is: does he think that helping smart people to get rich flipping companies (usually not by doing the "coolest thing") is cooler than making a great Lisp? One answer to why not, is: "No money".
Often times when people talk about money they are talking about resource gathering. At some point the resource gathering turns off and the money becomes an easy proxy for points.
So I'm not sure that creating another Lisp is less cool, but it can't be easily measured. What if IBM uses your Lisp for everything they do, how does that compare to another guys Lisp that has 6.5 million downloads. Who is cooler?
As a quick experiment with my girlfriend:
Do you know who Linus is? => Uh, No.
Do you know what Linux is? => Yeah, it's your system.
Do you know what IBM is? => Yes, it's a computer company.
It's pretty clear to me that outside of our nerd/geek bubble at the society level those that make more money are cooler.
You have to work in order to make money. And to make a lot of money you need to work a lot, or at least harder. To do that you need to know how to use your time well.
Understanding some meta aspects of work is very important. And sometimes studying nerd lives can give you how they manage those meta aspects which affect the actual aspects which make them money.
The value system you are pitting against money is completely subjective and therefore somewhat useless as a points system.
Of course, when I say 'good' I don't mean in the moral sense. Imagine you were to design a way for people to keep score and they had to use tangible things. What would make one tangle item better than another? Here's a quick list I came up with...
1. Easily transferable. Money fulfills this because it can be transferred electronically. The physical good need not even exist. Money when talking about it as a point system is strictly an abstract. Put another way it is a stored value that can later be redeemed for big macs or Jane Austeen books.
2. It must be difficult to acquire. Money you can't just print (Well you can, but it is mostly worthless). The difficulty makes it more of a way to keep score in the game of life. There needs to be a way to prevent someone from adding to their score arbitrarily.
3. You must be able to keep score at small enough intervals. Keeping score by buying big macs becomes unproductive when you get into the millions of dollar range. At the same time keeping score in the form of luxury cars becomes impossible in the thousands of dollar range.
That's why I said money is good. Not in the moral sense that those who have more money are better people or some form of Prosperity theology. Just that money has many of the traits needed to provide a way to keep score.
No, not really. You said money is "an excellent points system". I inferred that if it was the case, the price of current products sold on the market should reflect well their inherent value, which I think it doesn't.
Money is is too ductile and doesn't involve enough the "donor", a bit like "vote by SMS for your favorite star". The voting system itself is still not involving enough the person giving the vote.
My favorite "point system" is "feet-voting": the best city is the place where people move to, the best country is the one that people want to go to live, raise their kids, etc. This evaluation was used during the Warring State period in China, and it induces the kings and feudal lords to enforce justice and proper retributions. If not, their administrate will move away. Trying to force them to stay by forbidding expatriation will push them away even stronger. And this voting-with-your-life thing is such a deep decision from the voters that we can trust them to ponder long-term consequences.
Granted, this evaluation cannot apply to each and every case, but in the web services it has a clear equivalent in how many users stay on a site and use it.
Money is good since it provides a reference point, a solid ground for measurement and comparison. Although often you need to take into account some non-obvious stuff when you compare two amounts of money (esp. prices), it still does work.
For ‘inherent value’ each person would see their own price tag. And I'm sure my tag would reflect smaller amount for Jane Austen's book than yours.
And feet-voting is good if you can judge on a large scale, which is not always applicable. Edit: by the way, most people would feet-vote for a big mac rather than a book (that is, if we were able to conduct a really unbiased experiment with random selection of people).
Seriously? If you had to be thrown on a desert island and bring only one thing, would you bring a short term belly chemical satisfaction asset like a big mac, or a long term spirit satisfaction asset like a Classic book in your mother tongue?
However, what is unfortunately much more common is day to day hunger. I'm willing to bet that most people (myself included), after a few days of not eating, would rather have the Big Mac than the Austen book.
I love literature, but it won't keep me alive.
For money to be a good point system, everyone with a wallet would have to be sensible and make good market choices but unfortunately the case is, for the most part, the exact opposite.
On top of that I would argue that (for example) Khan Academy is much more valuable than most of the investment firms, but investment firms are worth more $$$ than Khan Academy will ever be.
Let's be constructive: what would be a better point system?
My point was that money is a factor, but not because it can be converted into signed limited edition Jane Austeen books for your private island. It is because it serves as a point system when you play the game of life.
Sure, we should think about how someone got the money. But that isn't what the question is about. The question is about how does an individual judge that something is cool. For many, it's about keep score. For a large subset of those money serves as a valid point keeping system.