[akiselev]

While it is true that most of this discussion is a false dichotomy much of your claim is based upon the statement "Virtually every legal way I know of making money helps society" which is coming from ignorance. I doubt you have a firm grasp of how many jobs there are, what kind of value they produce, or how to quantify that value (I don't think anyone has even a basic grasp of one of these factors let alone all three).

However, one thing I don't understand is why everyone keeps talking about industries that fall largely outside of the scope of Silicon Valley. This post seems to be directed at entrepreneurs (I would guess that most employees of SV tech startups are paid more than the rest of the tech sector anyway) and it seems counterproductive to steer the discussion in the direction of the finance, law, medical, or any other industry which are (I would think) drastically different situations.