Some things in life need to be treated as tools to accomplish a goal. We don't have the mental capacity to develop an understanding of everything in the modern world, so we specialise instead.

It's no different from someone seeing their car as just a tool to get from A to B. That might be an understandable mindset for people on HN, whereas people at a car meet might find something off about that mindset.

Not to mention, sacrifice can come in many forms. The simplest example is, the time required to learn something or develop a skill. As long as people want to pursue things just out of interest, that's not going away.

(Unless we find a way to download the information directly into our brains, I suppose.)