Hacker News Reader

Comment by david927 | Hacker News Reader

That's exactly it. I sometimes wonder how many brilliant people have left this industry because they were similarly enlightened. (One prominent person in applied computer science recently told me she was considering going to go into medicine because she wanted to do something useful.)

It doesn't have to be like this. We have the brain power. But I feel we squander it on making silly websites/apps when we could be making history.

View on HN

You know what medical professinals do? Get patients healthy so the patients can enjoy apps and sites.

I think the previous poster already identified the problem:

>I follow the money for survival

Maybe we can have a system where people can survive without money?

Nice, however that would remove an incentive for innovation

> incentive for innovation

Do you think Alan Kay was incentivised by money to do all the stuff he talked about in this video?

OK - so alan kay did working on creating this great system. Is there any knowledge from it used in a practical application today ? Probably no, because

a.It's probably too soon.

b.It often takes boring work(and money) to transfer pure ideas to successful practical applications.

we were talking about insentives for innovation, not insentives for boring work. I agree that boring work should be insentivised by money.

I'd be interesting in going the course of: boring work should be eliminated through automation or obsolescence.

Who paid you for your comment?

Take a look at this thread -- scroll all the way to the bottom. What is the incentive for all of that?

I don't think anything says you can't use another incentive.

Innovate or die (literally), doesn't seem like the wisest philosophy to base life on this planet around.

See Keith Weslowski's recent split.

I suspect a similar calculus may have inspired Joey Hess's retreat to a farm.

I can think of others: jwz, Bret Glass, Cringely.

I know about one such person that after having successful IT Business career moved to another country (mine) and became neurosurgeon (at absurdly stupidly low pay that doctors in my country get).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com