From: Emlyn (pentacle@enternet.com.au)
Date: Sun May 28 2000 - 22:35:54 MDT
> Why more productive? Well this one is explainable with a short analogy:
> Who would you rather have, 100 Bill Gateses or 100 Mother Theresas?
Every Mother Theresa after the first (at any point, the "marginal" mother
Theresa) adds something (even if only a little) to society; a net benefit.
Perhaps at some extreme adding extra Mother Theresas becomes a cost. What
does a society made excludively of Mother Theresas do, there being no one to
save? However, one might safely assume that 100 is a lower quantity than
that necessary to fall to the break-even point.
We can say that one Bill Gates, also, is a net benefit, for argument's sake.
Although you can't be sure; the benefit of Bill Gates is in what he has
built; the cost in what he has destroyed.
After the first Bill, however, you end up in a blood bath. If anyone
subscribes to the "there can only be one" philosophy of existence, it is
Bill. So marginal Bills just add to the general multi-sided chaos &
destruction; a net cost.
Thus, the rational choice would be 100 Mother Theresas.
For my money, I'd go for 100 Doug Hofstaders; now that would be useful. If
it was the fight pit situation, however, maybe Hans Moravec would be a
better choice, because 100 Moravecs could build some meaty BattleMechs and
slaughter all comers.
Emlyn
(I would choose myself, but I'd only be useful if there were infinite
copies, and even then that doesn't include the cost of the typewriters)
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