[mywittyname]

An important consideration is that those doctors could have been something else.

If you buy into the notion that intelligence follows a normal distribution, and that people below some threshold are fundamentally locked out of professions, then it becomes important how society allocates that top x% of intelligent people, because they are in short supply.

A society that underproduces physicists in favor of doctors might find their economy is unable to grow rapidly enough to pay for the hospitals those doctors need to operate in. One that overproduces amazing musicians might find that their cultural influence helps to attract smart people from other countries.

We see this issue in America too. Where hedge funds are paying extremely intelligent people tens of millions of dollars annually to program computers that essentially play games in the stock market with the programs written by other hedge funds. That isn't exactly the kind of behavior that will lead to the technological improvements our society will need to continue to grow.

[caf]

Where hedge funds are paying extremely intelligent people tens of millions of dollars annually to program computers that essentially play games in the stock market with the programs written by other hedge funds.

This seems overly reductionist. A case can be made that these games are overall working to optimise the allocation of resources, which itself contributes to growth.

[mywittyname]

Yeah, these people might be ensuring more optimal prices for corn, and maybe that's a good thing. But in doing that, they aren't doing something else which may be more important for society.

My point was that very smart people are a finite resource. And misallocating them can have devastating effects on a society.

[captainoats]

How each person assigns value to different professions is entirely subjective. Almost every industry has its own bell curve, the market determines how tall/shifted each is.