[wildmusings]

To go on a bit of a tangent, one of the things that gives me pause about my otherwise enthusiastic support of capitalism is the horrible waste of talent.

How many mathematicians and physicists are going into finance to produce marginal improvements in liquidity, instead of contributing to the advancement of human knowledge?

How many brilliant software engineers are working on mindless CRUD and API-piping tasks at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, et al.?

How many great doctors go into high-paying, no-research, largely menial positions instead of working on medical breakthroughs?

Capitalism probably does a better job at allocating talent than any other economic system we know of, but the results are still depressing.

[jmalicki]

How much talent is wasted coming up with medical breakthroughs that are not used to save lives because doctors who are interested enough in knowing the medical start of the art, because all of those who have an interest go into medical research, leaving people to die?