I know this is impossible, but wouldn’t it be great if everybody was paid a salary proportional to how much they actually helped humanity? In my book, then, stock traders or hedge fund analysts would get smaller salaries than they do now -- sorry to all of my friends who have chosen the financial world; while I think you’re great people and some of you have helped individuals make some money, I think we all agree that most of you are not helping humanity out in proportion to your multi-million dollar salaries. On the other hand, farmers should be making bank -- no farmers, no food; no food = bad.
My question then is, if salaries worked this way, how much should scientists or professors be paid? More specifically, how much should computer science professors make? I became a professor in part because I wanted to help the world. But am I actually doing so? What does it mean to help the world? How do we measure this? Carnegie Mellon pays me a very healthy salary (although I wouldn’t mind a raise, boss), but I’d like to think that professors are underpaid compared to how much they would make in such a utopian system. It's not clear to me they are.
My question then is, if salaries worked this way, how much should scientists or professors be paid? More specifically, how much should computer science professors make? I became a professor in part because I wanted to help the world. But am I actually doing so? What does it mean to help the world? How do we measure this? Carnegie Mellon pays me a very healthy salary (although I wouldn’t mind a raise, boss), but I’d like to think that professors are underpaid compared to how much they would make in such a utopian system. It's not clear to me they are.