> I knew Salk refused the patent, not about the USSR's pioneering work in barely feeding their people (sorry, phage therapies). That's pretty stupid snark, by

> I knew Salk refused the patent, not about the USSR's pioneering work in barely feeding their people (sorry, phage therapies). That's pretty stupid snark, by the way. More evidence of unthinking dogmatism and rather limited understanding. No one sensible seriously claims the Soviet Union had a model worthy of emulation. However, it's foolish to think it was totally flawed or that its flaws somehow prove "capitalism is best, the more the better." > But if Salk had made 100M dollars, would that have been bad? Lebron is worth way more than that. He plays basketball. > We as a society should be recognizing and paying for talent, not pretending workers co-ops and non-profits are effective or that capitalism hasn't produced all of the good things we enjoy. Some segments of society need to stop pretending that capitalism is a suitable replacement for literally every other kind of human motivation. The main strength of capitalism is that it sometimes incentivizes the already greedy according to their own logic to behave in ways that are socially beneficial (at least more than some other systems), but that's about it. It's a serious error to want to corrupt the noble people who raise above greed and want to do good for its own sake to the point they need to rely on capitalism to motivate them. It's also a serious error to think that capitalist motivations will accomplish all the good those people would have done for their more noble reasons.