alt Hacker News>When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable.
I'd rather we don't encourage "monetarily favorable" intellectual endeavors...
>When correctly applied it can be an effective tool to encourage certain sorts of intellectual endeavors by making them monetarily favorable.
I'd rather we don't encourage "monetarily favorable" intellectual endeavors...
We want to encourage intellectual endeavors that are desirable to society as a whole but which otherwise face barriers. Making them monetarily favorable is an easy way to accomplish that. Similar to how not speeding is made monetarily favorable, or serving in the military is made monetarily favorable, etc. Surely you don't object to the government using monetary incentives to indirectly shape society? The historical alternatives have been rather brutal.