> Would the vast majority of them invest years of their life in it if it only paid the same as getting a normal job? Empirically, given that academia pays muc

> Would the vast majority of them invest years of their life in it if it only paid the same as getting a normal job? Empirically, given that academia pays much less than working in the industry, yes. > the vast majority of productive people do the important everyday work I beg to differ. Most productive people do completely irrelevant everyday work: optimize or sell ads, or play wall-street poker with other people's money. Very few people do the actually important work (e.g. garbage collectors, farmers, scientists, teachers).