[pgbovine]

ok, i'll bite ;)

if everyone thought the way that you did, then we'd still be programming by submitting our punch cards to some gigantic centralized machine. think about how much basic academic research occurred before the invention of something like the iPhone became possible

[natrius]

There are plenty of necessary things in life that aren't exciting to do. There's nothing wrong with pointing it out unless you're trying to get more people to unwittingly do those things without fully understanding their choice.

EDIT: I'm not trying to say that pure science is universally unexciting. Few things are. But generally, more people seem to be interested in consumer products than pure science research.

[_delirium]

I think a lot of researchers (myself included) really do prefer doing what we're doing, though. It's not like I'm doing research instead of making iPhone games because I have no choice; if I wanted to jump and make iPhone games instead, plenty of companies have open positions. I just find what I'm currently doing a lot more interesting.

(That said, I wouldn't want this prof's job, because managing a large group of people, whether in industry or a research lab, is not my idea of fun.)