No, I dont have to. I never claimed I had an alternative.

All I claimed was that saying theres not alternative is unsubstantiated and you proved me right, by listing those alternatives.

> the only way to stem to tide is

I see no evidence thats the only way. Its the only way that has crossed your mind as you were writing that message.

This is so disrespectful.

Reminds of that idea - Feynman perhaps, I cant remember - that theres two reasons why an organization might give a prize to an individual. One is to afford the individual the prestige of being associated with the organization, the other is for affird the organization the prestige of being associated with the individual. Sort of like your uncle Bob creating a prize for enterpreneurship and giving it to Jeff Bezos.

P&T should say We dont want it now.

> If you want a sample of similar comments online

If you want a sample of this online, you can just come to HN and read the discussions on theoretical physics research, where people say funny things like no progress has happened in fundamental physics since the Higgs boson paper.

Anyway, my theory for the phenomenon is that social status and money boosts ones ego. Once youve made good money coding for long enough, and have long had people saying youre smart because youre a software "engineer", you start overestimating the depth of your understanding of the world. I would like to see what would happen if youd ask unqualified people like janitors how they think engineers build bridge. My guess is that theyd start off from the assumption that the subject is too complicated for their understand, but when it comes to the details youd get a cartoonish picture in a sense not unlike that of the software "engineer".

Bigger picture, I see people repeating ideas thoughtlessly ALL THE TIME. These cocktail parties where people discuss trendy topics, its basicall the same 3 ideas per topic that get brought up, because thats what their favorite influencer said. Extremely depressing.