[credit_guy]

I for one don't feel sad, I feel good about that. I loved the movie "Good Will Hunting" and that's the message I got from it: the pursuit of the personal happiness trumps petting your mind to work for the greater good. Let's imagine, just as you said, that these brilliant mind did work towards the new advances and new products. We would get the new generation of smartphones one year sooner, and we'd be so moch richer for that, I guess. But if that comes at the expense of these people being one epsilon less happy than they currently are, that's not a trade off we as a society should be willing to make.