[pj]

These people are us. They include me, you, America, the world. It's not just my problem, because what I do, what you do, what everyone does affects everyone else. I can produce tons of value and our society can still crumble because of greed and mistakes (and I too make lots of mistakes) made by other people.

The question, more generally, is how do we change society's definition of value. How do we convince the world to spend more on teachers than it spends on athletes? Did you know in ancient Greece, philosophers were exempt from taxation because they were so valued by society? In the past, thought was valued above all.

We need to go back there and revive thinking as a valued contribution to society.

[evilneanderthal]

Society's definition of value - there is no such thing. If something is valuable to you, then you can pay for it. There's no secret magic underlying economics. When the supply of people willing to teach is lower than the number of available teaching positions, the value of a teacher rises.

Editted - forgot I wasn't on /irc/ =]