[zarkov99]

> Those people were paid, why should they be also be thanked on top of what they gained?

Because there isn't enough money in the history of the world to compensate say the inventors of vaccines. Or electricity. Or the computer. Or the combustion engine.

There is no problem with giving things for free, as long as the giving is voluntary. There is an enormous problem with taking things by force from a group so you can give them to another.

[jokoon]

Those inventors are a fraction of people we would call productive.

Here is a presentation I find insightful on motivation and creativity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

> There is an enormous problem with taking things by force from a group so you can give them to another.

Are you talking about taxes? Budgets are voted and depend on an elected government. Laws are a form of social contract, I guess. Money is just a medium of exchange, a way to "count sheeps" and reduce waste. In my view it's its only true function. No man is an island. People are free to go elsewhere and create their own country.

Now it's possible to advocate for a form of anarchism (there are many, I guess). Bertrand Russel has criticized anarchism.