[ExI] Heroism without self-sacrifice

[PJ Manney]

On Fri, Mar 7, 2008 at 3:30 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> When I read Max's challenge, I thought of those who invent things that
> create enormous wealth, motivated entirely by profit.  In our world, most of
> those people have been software developers, ja?  Think of the development of
> spreadsheets and how much they have done for us.  Probably everyone here
> uses them for something, and many of us have mastered the subtleties, macro
> languages etc.  Excel is probably my most important single engineering tool,
> enabling many other inventions.
>
> Remember the old days, when Visicalc first showed up?  When was that, about
> 1979?  1980?  Wasn't that the coolest thing we had ever seen?  Then Lotus
> and Microsloth carried the idea and ran with it.  One can scarcely imagine
> how much wealth was created as a result of Visicalc and its direct
> descendants.  Are not Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston perfect examples of
> heroes motivated by profit?

But where is the myth?  Where are their stories of awful childhoods
overcome, their overthrow of power-hungry politicians or whiny
socialists by the sheer inevitability of their scrappy little
technology, or the moment they reached their capitalistic apotheosis,
deified on Mount Moola by God Greenspan on one side and Goddess Rand
on the other?   ;-)

Will they be celebrated in song and story?  Does anyone (other than
you, Spike!) want to read books, see movies and tell gripping yarns
years from now 'round the campfire about them?

I sure don't.

PJ