Or she cared more about running a hot dog stand. Some people do things out of passion, you know. Me, I am a programmer because I like solving puzzles, not because I think software engineering is a way to get rich.
Editing to add my own view on capitalism:
To me, it seems the problem with capitalism is that it has no maximum score. There’s no way to say “congratulations, you win the game” and then retire the winner to a nice, comfy life. Or let them compete some other way, as long as they realise that they can’t rack up a high score. Because it isn’t materialism any more, it’s too abstract with the amounts they are scrabbling at. It’s only about seeing who can get high score, not about actual material comfort.
And that’s the conundrum: advancement of society needs an incentive, and man, was money ever an incentive for a long time. It was a nice way to encourage people to compete, wasn’t it? But it was never perfect, and now its flaws are too large to ignore.
Sigh.
I hope the AI’s come in the end. Preferably something like Iain Banks’ Culture, but now I would also welcome Colossus from The Forbin Project.
