Cerulean Cordillera

Posts Tagged ‘Greedy’

Originally posted on Monday, November 14, 2008

I came across this quote in one of my essay readings:

“People have sometimes asked me whether I am upset that I have not made a lot of money from the Web. In fact, I made some quite conscious decisions about which way to take my life. These I would not change – though I am making no comment on what I might do in the future. What does distress me, though, is how important a question it seems to be to some. This happens mostly in America, not Europe. What is maddening is the terrible notion that a person’s value depends on how important and financially successful they are, and that that is measured in terms of money. That suggest disrespect for the researchers across the globe developing ideas for the next leaps in science and technology. Core in my upbringing was a value system that put monetary gain well in its place, behind things like doing what I really want to do. To use net worth as a criterion by which to judge people is to set our children’s sights on cash rather than on things that will actually make them happy.”

~Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web

I thought it was an awesome quote. The message behind it is cliched, although well worth mentioning since we tend to forget or ignore things that are cliched but also important. What will truly make us happy in the future is difficult to predict – the complex interconnections between all the subproblems of life begs the use of a greedy algorithm to simplify things, as any other micromanagement solution is beyond human capacity. However, the obvious thing we ought to optimize is happiness, not economic value. It is much safer to bet on a greedy algorithm that optimizes happiness, than to bet on a greedy algorithm that optimizes economic wealth and at the same time, to also bet on that economic wealth will bring happiness.

How’s that for using technical jargon to describe a way of life? Appreciate those with the capacity to be happy, and you shall be happy. Appreciate those with the capacity to be rich, and you might be rich, but you might not be happy. To be happy is easy, one merely has to adopt a mindset. To be rich is difficult, for one must struggle endlessly in the competitive market. To be happy requires a certain degree of wealth, not the maximum potential. Being rich is usually a nice side effect you get for reaching a good degree of your happiness. Basically, focus on happiness and you’ll probably be rich. Focus on richness and you’re not guaranteed happiness. If you want both, focus on your happiness. That’s probably the practical and less ideological way of understanding this viewpoint.

Anyway, that was my attempt to disect the reasoning behind the old and cliched (but important in many contexts) viewpoint that money != happiness.