This is the Fallacy of Relative Privation, also called the Appeal to Worse Problems.
Rebuttals for this fallacy (not necessarily rebuttals for this instance)
- Not all problems have the same solution, working on one solution does not preclude working on another solution at the same time.
- Some times problems do have the same solution, but it’s better to prove the solution on a smaller problem before trying it on a larger problem.
- Some problems are intractable on their own, but solving other problems can open up new avenues to resolve the larger problems.
- Throwing more effort into a single solution often sees diminishing returns, at some point it is better to make moderate progress on two problems than make no progress on one problem and slightly better than moderate progress on the other.
- Not everyone shares your passions, people tend to be more productive if they follow what they are passionate about.
More specifically with the last point, the cost for Cory to highlight that some one else did a lot of hard work they likely were passionate about is very low.
The cost to not highlight people doing good things is high. It discourages, or at least fails to encourage, others from doing good things.
The cost of asking those who did the actual work to stop doing what they are passionate about is very high. It discourages people to seek out and follow their passions, it pushes people into tasks they may be less suited to wasting some of their effort, it assume more people doing this one thing will result in an equal amount of progress.
