But have you thought about this: Why it is that no one with the mentality you are presenting here was able to solve that millenium problem? Maybe it was solvable only by someone you would call "insane".
Same with Tesla - if he had taken money seriously, it's probable that he would accomplish less, because everyone has only a limited capacity for things one can "take seriously". He just took other things seriously (and was quite successfull with those).
(This reminds me somewhat of the meta-narrative in Logicomix, about the relationship between madness and mathematicians. Many of the great Logicians did not end well... or _go_ well, for that matter.)
>Why it is that no one with the mentality you are presenting here was able to solve that millenium problem?
I obviously can't answer why this one guy got there first. Plenty of people with a sane attitude about money have solved significant problems, Edison for example.
>it's probable that he would accomplish less
There's no reason to believe this. There's a wide spectrum of how much energy you have to put into things. It's certainly true that there are only so many hours in a day, but why does handling the unpleasant necessities of life (proper nutrition, exercise, basic money management) sanely have to be a net loss? You don't have to be a dollar hungry millionaire in the making, just use basic common sense. Einstein for example lived a sane and competent life. So did Niels Bohr and Stephen Hawking and numerous other people that made enormous contributions.
Same with Tesla - if he had taken money seriously, it's probable that he would accomplish less, because everyone has only a limited capacity for things one can "take seriously". He just took other things seriously (and was quite successfull with those).