Vonnegut: a society without productivity variation has no Edisons.
instruct.westvalley.edu
instruct.westvalley.edu
Tesla, while brilliant, was also kindof crazy, and from what I understand, had poor human and business skills. He died penniless, and getting funding for his work was always a problem. (a travesty, I think, after his early successes.)
The optimal solution, I think, would have been for Edison to keep his ego in check (at least around Tesla) - I bet if Edison had handled the situation better, and managed to keep Tesla happier working for him, Tesla would have had a much more productive life.
I mean, If you are lucky enough to have a Tesla, and he gives you something as awesome as AC, I'd set aside a portion of the resulting money for his future projects. Buy him a lab and some assistants (and whatever else he wanted) and let him focus on his next idea, rather than on trying to get funding.
Edison could have done this... From what I understand that was kindof his business model, only he failed to keep Tesla happy.
But independent of the message, I have always found the image of the scene following Harrison's entrance to be rather awesome.
John Figler is a law-abiding high-school student. He says in his letter that he has read almost everything of mine and is now prepared to state the single idea that lies at the core of my life's word so far. The words are his: "Love may fail, but courtesy will prevail"
This seems true to me--and complete. So I am now in the abashed condition, five days after my fifty-sixth birthday, of realizing that I needn't have bothered to write several books. A seven-word telegram would have done the job.
Seriously.
On balance I think Vonnegut was socialist. But he had less of an agenda, and that made him able to see more, lent nuance to his writing.