Are you pissed off at me or something? It reads like you are.
At you personally, no. Please don't take anything I'm saying personally and I'm not trying to attack you or anything. Sorry if you felt that I was. As we all know forums are not the best way of relaying messages. However, as you can see, the topic is something I am passionate about and what you have said so far has struck a chord with me on many fronts.
First of all, I've run the spectrum from poor to rich to back to poor and back to rich again. I've seen all sides of that prism and most of the people who seem to have a strong opinion on the topic have mostly have seen it from one side only (poor, rich, or typically right in the middle). What bothers me about what you say is, I'm a typical person whom you would classify you have no respect for, in that regard I take offense. The first reason is that you minimize what it took for me (and others, like doctors) to accomplish what I (and they accomplished) accomplished. When others skipped out and partied on Friday nights, I studied my ass off. When other people easy majors, I chose a hard one. When others decided to work 40 hours a week, I worked 80. When others didn’t want to take a position because they didn’t want to travel/clean toilets/fill in the blank here, I stepped up to the plate and did it. So in that regard, I earned it and so too I earn the money, fame or respect that goes along with it. Now it is your prerogative if you want to or don’t want to respect that, and you have the full right to turn your nose up to it if you like, but it would be no different than my right to flaunt my money in your face; both of which only fan the flames of animosity. All I’m suggesting is if you don’t have a ton of money, don’t scorn or look down on those who did regardless of how they got it, because they most likely worked very hard to earn it. And if you do have a lot of money, don’t flaunt it in the face of those who don’t. It’s a two way street.
Secondly, you minimize what people like me do on a daily basis. I don’t do deep physics and research. I don’t invent grand devices in the grand way you envision. Very few people can do that. So I don’t do some grand, life altering, historical work and I probably never will. What I do, will vanish the second I croak and probably even before then. However, that’s not to say that what I (and many others) do on a day to day basis isn’t important, valuable, affects our lives on a day to day basis and isn’t to be respected. In my work, I sometimes help facilitate saving energy or the environment by suggesting more energy efficient designs. I don’t develop that design and I don’t invent that product, but I am a conduit to helping that get employed. And my impetus for doing this is to make myself money. It’s a system that works. And even when I’m not innovating, the work I do is part of a life blood of work that needs to be done to survive and make sure this country moves forward. The same can be said for the fisherman, or plumbers, or people who builds houses, or the realtor that sells the house. We need these people on a daily basis. I can respect a person who picks up my trash as much as I can a person who invents some grand invention. Because we need those people who cut our hair, make our sandwiches, fix out toilets, build our houses, heal our patients, fight our wars, because without them, then you won’t have inventors and physicists to make these grand inventions. There is a support structure that allows these people to do what they need to do and each cog in that wheel has its own independent value and worth in the system.
Do you look down on the guy working out in the field picking heads of lettuce making minimum wage? He’s not making some grand life changing invention. But I have respect for him, because he is doing something I can’t or don’t want do. Just like Kobe Bryant does something I can’t do, and a plumber does things I can’t or won’t do. By that regard, I can even respect those working at McDonalds because that is something I benefit from and yet is a job I could never dream of doing. Again, everyone plays their role in this machine and we all have our parts. I just feel it is myopic to not respect everyone from the top of the pole down to the bottom and everywhere in between, when in reality, it is all interconnected.
Finally, I know for you it’s not about the money. But what I think you are doing is penalizing people for making money. In your case of the electrical inventor and the neurosurgeon, sure the electrical engineer has invented something, but what the neurosurgeon does, has a greater impact in the lives of people today and in the present and there is a heavy value and respect for that. Hence my comment about not wishing you or someone you love will have the need for a neurosurgeon. So while there is great value in the future for patents and things to come, there is a value, need and respect for things in the present. Say this neurosurgeon, saves the life of this electrical engineer who then goes on to invent some life changing device. In this regard, he’s partly responsible to the development in that invention and that has as much value of respect you have for the guy doing the inventing. In essence, these inventors, great minds, are nothing without the support structure behind them that help cultivate a society that will 1) allow them to do what they need to do. 2) appreciate and accept their invention/development 3) utilize that invention. I mean do you have the same respect for the inventors that build these wacky but useless inventions like socks with built in radios? I worked in the PTO (patent and trademark office) as a patent examiner. For every one real patent there are tens of thousands of useless patents that are neither revolutionary, nor life changing. Often patents are a micro evolution of an existing idea. Plus the process of a patent is a joke. It’s all about getting your idea out there on paper so that if someone uses it, you win the lottery. I have greater respect for the business man who takes that concept or idea and puts in an format that can be used by the masses and markets it in a way so that he take a simple concept or idea on paper and turns it into something realistic, tangible and useable for all to benefit from.
Again, not an attack on you, just a wildly different perspective. I know that I’ll never change our mind on this topic, or anyone else’s for that matter. This really is just an exercise. But it is at least good banter and may perhaps spark, you or someone else’s mind to at least ponder.
