This is basically the message that Tim O'Reilly delivered at the Web 2.0 Keynote in the spring - we need to focus on the hard problems: http://tinyurl.com/6zahv

This is basically the message that Tim O'Reilly delivered at the Web 2.0 Keynote in the spring - we need to focus on the hard problems: http://tinyurl.com/6zahvu http://tinyurl.com/6zahvu That being said, the beauty of a democratic society is that everyone has a choice of how they want to use their ginormous geek brains, and the beauty of a free market society is that eventually the big problems will need big solutions and money will flow to those who come up with them. There's also a bit of the same argument that the kids in my high school algebra class used to make to our math teacher. "Why do I need to learn this, when am I ever going to use it?" The answer is, you need to learn algebra, so you can learn calculus, so you can learn differential equations, so you can build a model that will predict the paths of hurricanes more accurately and potentially save millions of lives. The Web 2.0 building blocks we're creating today might lead to better global communication networks, which might enable scientists to better share information, which might lead to a critical breakthrough that helps to prevent millions of malaria deaths. I do love this post, though. It's good to see Dan back in his old FSJ form.