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Comment by Demiurge | Hacker News Reader

This is a great example of how money and market does not encompass all of life.

I didn't read the book, regrettably, so I'm not sure if that's besides the point, but the value of education is a sum of many values for the society as whole that seems a bit hard to put a numerical value on in a spreadsheet. I think the reductionism is kind of obvious.

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For every dollar you put in this box, I’ll put ten cents into a scholarship fund for poor children in your country then burn the dollar. How many dollars do you put into the box?

What if it were 300 cents instead?

What if it were a recipe for a functional fusion reactor?

Would I rather spend money on scholarships for poor children or buy the recipe for a functional net-positive fusion reactor from aliens? How much recipe does each of my dollars get?

I’d give away all of my current net worth and take out a loan for $1 million from loan sharks and give that away too for a functional fusion reactor recipe, pending some questions about whether they will be able to sell the recipe again, do we actually have the materials to build the device and I’d want my nuclear engineer friend and lawyer to review the terms.

I know this is besides the point but even if we didn't have the materials, just knowing what materials we lack and that they are possible is monumental and would be worth tens of billions of dollars.

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