tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post1244889558478514306..comments2024-03-21T06:13:52.539-04:00Comments on Luis von Blog: Existential Questions and Utopian SalariesLuis von Ahnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03028143830490915261noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-2234978681707516202009-09-20T00:55:02.356-04:002009-09-20T00:55:02.356-04:00Oh, as a continuation of my last post forgot to ad...Oh, as a continuation of my last post forgot to add: So why do we pay politicians as much as we do, which is lot more then teachers and they don't even do half a job!Taranghttp://whorang.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-83874436683956971452009-09-19T18:38:41.807-04:002009-09-19T18:38:41.807-04:00Surely you need some ground rules and have a clear...Surely you need some ground rules and have a clear definition of what it means to have helped humanity. Sure there are tangibles, that any profession such as Teacher, Professor, Nurse, Doctor and even Hedge fund manager can be measured on. But what of the intangible deeds that many, including all of the above professions are involved in. Also what may appear to help humanity at one point in time may well be contradicted, with hind sight, some point later in time. So would you consider having penalties for this? After all Nuclear bombs didn't just invent themselves and I am sure Professors were involved. For that matter if robots replace people, in the name of efficiency, is that considered helping humanity. Clearly not if viewed from the people who lost their livelihood. Our system of payment is based on supply and demand, something relatively easy to measure and clearly tangible. The other factor that boost the salary afforded is based on how many people thrive off this one individual (or group). So if you are center of that cluster then you can expect high salaries, just ask any top athlete.Taranghttp://whorang.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-2744251621675768692009-09-15T16:13:57.375-04:002009-09-15T16:13:57.375-04:00I like your post, but there are other ways of view...I like your post, but there are other ways of viewing thins then just been materialist. Not everything is about money, salaries or how much you earn. There is more into how to help humanity improve itself, and actually your question is very well put on your post "What does it mean to help the world?". So, in my view, I would say that we should re-evaluate our existentialism in our daily life, to see what is the purpose of all this. At the end, shouldn`t the satisfaction of helping humanity be more important than just getting a raise!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15717453708515313678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-24147849348682367062009-09-14T14:06:07.303-04:002009-09-14T14:06:07.303-04:00"If only we knew that money is only an idea. ..."If only we knew that money is only an idea. There is no scarcity or loss connected to it. Nothing cost anything."<br /><br />Roy Lee ScottAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-979115207650889682009-09-13T01:39:56.797-04:002009-09-13T01:39:56.797-04:00"I know this is impossible, but wouldn’t it b..."I know this is impossible, but wouldn’t it be great if everybody was paid a salary proportional to how much they actually helped humanity?"<br /><br />Heck, if’in the last twelve words of the 5th Amendment were not fiction moi’d be in the three billion + bracket. <br /><br />Stay on groovin' (Just up the river from moi) safari,<br />Torhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03037704048671379868noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-77311478477596455132009-08-13T21:15:12.506-04:002009-08-13T21:15:12.506-04:00The biggest question should be to define what huma...The biggest question should be to define what humanity means. The value of humanity should be equal to justice. Without quantifying what the definition of humanity is as the measured goal, then fulfillment is ambiguous. Justice is the core of defining humanity. -jMOAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-65505102922169925692009-08-08T17:48:30.161-04:002009-08-08T17:48:30.161-04:00"According to the survey about most prestigio..."According to the survey about most prestigious jobs, professors come out second or third every year in the US. I think professors are well respected"<br /><br />and child-care workers make next to nothing - but they are making a huge contribution to society by freeing up talented parents to work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-42125439687676524502009-08-04T18:57:17.326-04:002009-08-04T18:57:17.326-04:00This questions seam to limit compensation to $$ wh...This questions seam to limit compensation to $$ what is the value of feeling good about making a positive impact?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-31166227316103119912009-08-04T14:40:52.984-04:002009-08-04T14:40:52.984-04:00I saw you on Nova last night and I was blown away ...I saw you on Nova last night and I was blown away on what you have done for the entire security portion of the internet. Keep on doing your cool stuff sir!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-20557629532361813072009-08-02T03:44:42.593-04:002009-08-02T03:44:42.593-04:00A hotter professor should earn more. This will sig...A hotter professor should earn more. This will significantly increase the amount of X chromosome in computer science and mathematics. Come on! We need more girls in Math!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-50775003164292340622009-07-27T23:20:11.602-04:002009-07-27T23:20:11.602-04:00Great! This is my favorite topic since I was fourt...Great! This is my favorite topic since I was fourteen. A few related questions:<br /><br />which contribution is worth more, harry potter the novel, or harry potter the movie?<br /><br />which contribution has been more beneficial to people, (re)-captcha or tetris? (tetris has been found to reduce stress and may be a treatment for post traumatic disorder)<br /><br /><br />should someone be allowed to make his living from his parents fund, merely for being their child?<br /><br />is philanthropy beneficial to humanity?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-38600273394351458742009-07-27T17:31:05.524-04:002009-07-27T17:31:05.524-04:00"wouldn’t it be great if everybody was paid a..."wouldn’t it be great if everybody was paid a salary proportional to how much they actually helped humanity?"<br /><br />While I am intrigued by the concept, let me play devil's advocate on this issue.<br /><br />I'm not certain that it compensation based on ones "contribution to humanity" would indeed be so great. Humanity is not an indivisible whole - it consists of many groups and subgroups. Quite often what helps one group comes at the expense of another. How do you value the "benefit to humanity" when the same thing can be both harmful as well as beneficial. Should we start measuring how many people benefit and how many suffer and compensate in proportion to the net difference? Should we consider things that dramatically benefit only a small group (such as helping the blind or those suffering a rare disease) to be fundamentally worth less than things that benefit very many in a minor way (let's say entertaining people)?<br /><br />"The good of the many outweighs the good of the few... or the one."<br /><br />It is a cold calculus to employ in my opinion - but yet seems inevitable in a society where we compensate on the basis of "benefit to humanity". <br /><br />Fundamentally, the concept of benefit to humanity may be flawed because the benefit changes both as a perspectives of culture, values, and time. Something that may be perceived as beneficial in the near past (let's say the invention of the internal combustion engine) may in the present or future be viewed as harmful (say if man-made global warming destroys civilization as we know it). How can you reward proportional to benefit where the true (long-term) benefit is unknowable in the contributors lifetime?<br /><br />Furthermore, compensation based on such a concept may be just as oppressive and restrictive to poor people as systems in place today. Poor people often have a subsistence lifestyle - the majority of their labor goes to keeping themselves and their families alive. Very little may go to improving the overall condition of humanity. Should these individuals receive little compensation for what they do simply because their effort does not somehow improve humanity as a whole? In fact, in a perverse way, you could consider that such individuals should not be compensated at all because they may in fact be a "drag" on humanity - the resources expended on their existence could in principle be employed to benefit others more.<br /><br />Finally, if "benefit to humanity" is poorly defined it may squelch the incentive for people to take risks. Taking risks is often balanced (and sometimes driven) by the potential for reward and growth - but if we only reward net benefit, individuals who are motivated in this manner are likely to pursue vocations in which the benefits are more obvious, and the compensation greater. We could very well stagnate those endeavors where the benefit to society is unclear or middling.<br /><br />While the idea of humanitarian compensation sounds appealing at an emotional level - it's quite unclear if it would necessarily bring about a society that more equitably allocates resources or creates incentives to bring about improvements to society.Leo Bushkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08042967841611979113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-36956814104359554592009-07-27T14:01:29.153-04:002009-07-27T14:01:29.153-04:00"I think professors are well respected."..."I think professors are well respected."<br />But if you will make this profession commercial, and introduce bonuses and options and other wall street stuff, then perhaps this respect will vanish away.<br />My suggestion to you Luis. Conduct a quick survey in the next blog post about the reasons, why people respect professors so much.Varun Aggarwalanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-51008321044065966462009-07-27T07:57:31.060-04:002009-07-27T07:57:31.060-04:00According to the survey about most prestigious job...According to the survey about most prestigious jobs, professors come out second or third every year in the US. I think professors are well respected.Luis von Ahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03028143830490915261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-56345644068200263032009-07-26T23:30:37.603-04:002009-07-26T23:30:37.603-04:00Luis if you will bring money into the scene, you w...<i>Luis if you will bring money into the scene, you will take away honor from the teaching profession. People do have immense respect for professors and teachers because these honest, selfless souls work at universities when they could have earned lots of money in the industry....</i><br /><br />It actually works just the opposite in the US: people don't generally respect professors and teachers, due to the "if you're so smart, how come you're not rich?" reaction. Adding more money could fix this. :-)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-78696777057424608542009-07-25T11:39:24.631-04:002009-07-25T11:39:24.631-04:00"Service to others is the rent you pay for yo..."Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." Muhammad Ali.<br /><br />:)Tammyhttp://www.rootsandwingsintl.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-47760037150924479932009-07-24T06:13:23.988-04:002009-07-24T06:13:23.988-04:00im almost certain that the answer to the question ...im almost certain that the answer to the question is 3/5. Any asnwer is correct and valid at the right time.sergionoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-67107873838509755422009-07-24T01:07:05.659-04:002009-07-24T01:07:05.659-04:00Luis if you will bring money into the scene, you w...Luis if you will bring money into the scene, you will take away honor from the teaching profession. People do have immense respect for professors and teachers because these honest, selfless souls work at universities when they could have earned lots of money in the industry....<br />So its up to you, honor or money!!!Varun Aggarwalanoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-46403246077248775352009-07-24T00:12:06.153-04:002009-07-24T00:12:06.153-04:00High school computer science teachers. They'r...High school computer science teachers. They're the ones who should be paid the most. <br /><br /> After all, we are the ones who recruit students and get them ready for to be worked on by the lovely CS faculty and encourage a broader group (who will eventually create amazing life-changing technologies) to participate... right?Hélène Martinhttp://helenemartin.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-30213513781891233272009-07-23T09:55:41.146-04:002009-07-23T09:55:41.146-04:00I think running "Hot or not" contests is...I think running "Hot or not" contests is not helping the world very much...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-21907524520750828142009-07-22T01:38:19.294-04:002009-07-22T01:38:19.294-04:00everybody ought to do the BEST they can, everyday...everybody ought to do the BEST they can, everyday they can - that is the contribution to humanity and the bonus is - you get paid $ for it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-7364700537488727512009-07-21T19:50:00.719-04:002009-07-21T19:50:00.719-04:00No, I don't buy that arument to the tune of so...No, I don't buy that arument to the tune of so much money. Sorry.Luis von Ahnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03028143830490915261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-65104717353132260522009-07-21T18:26:14.987-04:002009-07-21T18:26:14.987-04:00So I take it you don't buy into the argument:
...So I take it you don't buy into the argument:<br /><br />1) hedge funds increase liquidity and more accurate price estimates<br />2) better price estimates mean better information revelation/aggregation<br /><br />In other words improving market efficiency. <br /><br />I'd be willing to pay a lot for better capitalism.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-86073392414320389712009-07-20T23:33:08.384-04:002009-07-20T23:33:08.384-04:00Academia is an investment industry. It would be pr...Academia is an investment industry. It would be pretty hard to set a salary down for results you can only expect years from now. Money brokering has immediate effects - how would drowning in 5 years of academia after general education help humanity? Hint: It doesn't. And there's no guarantee that the result ever will. So, in such a system, how would you give out the 'expected value' for any given professor? From the beginning, they wouldn't have any track record to help them out, so there's no history-given guarantee that they actually will accomplish some great goal. Among the stars in academic accomplishments, there are also many, many duds. It'd be rather difficult to gauge that kind of payment with a distribution such as this, but it would both 1] propel professors to research things that are 'popular' or whose effect is more clear to see rather than pursuing subtle fields with giant long term gains and 2] likely result in professors' salaries taking a dive and their payment correlating directly from the success of their research alone. Not very encouraging for many, when they can enter the vocational world and have a much more financially stable salary curve.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03135107317896243158noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4725006152290977601.post-91477252875904215072009-07-20T18:38:25.784-04:002009-07-20T18:38:25.784-04:00I'd imagine lot of ppl will take less money ho...I'd imagine lot of ppl will take less money home - especially the people who are making $70k+ /year. reason? we have lot of people around the world who are doing lot more stuff for humanity - and are not getting paid enough.<br /><br />But I also imagine - is this not what socialism is all about in some sense?Ameyahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09276512144028538160noreply@blogger.com