[webdevver]

but doesn't the empirical evidence reject this premise?

if the greatest minds of earth, in their wisdom, have all collectively concluded that the smartest thing for them to do is make as much money as humanly possible, then evidently the greatest calling for mankind is... to be wealthy!

and the older i get the harder it becomes to argue with such a perspective... hmm... maybe i am getting closer to wisdom? haha!

[foltik]

“The smartest people pursue whatever is incentivized, therefore the current incentive structure is humanity's greatest calling.”

Yeah, no. The smartest people on earth didn’t convene and design this system. What we have now is just a fragile equilibrium we collectively stumbled into. There’s no reason to think it’s final, unless you've come to assume history ends with you...

[thatwasunusual]

You assume that what smart people _do_ is the same as what humanity _ought to do_.

Even if every genius on Earth spent their days trying to get rich, that would show something about incentives, institutions, fear, status, and survival. It would not automatically prove that wealth is mankind's highest purpose.

Rats also optimize for calories when the maze is built that way. That does not make cheese (or whatever rats prefer) the meaning of life.

Modern capitalism often acts like the scoreboard is the game. That confusion is one of civilization's recurring clown acts.