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We don't collectively own engineers time, we are not under full blown socialism, yet and people are free to do what they want.

If individuals enjoy reverse engineering windows and making it work on Linux, that's great, actually I really need that. I wouldn't spend my time on it, but I'm sure I have equally suboptimal hobbies (from a "civilisation" point of view).

You don't get to spend someone else engineering effort.




"We don't collectively own engineers time"

Fully agreed. My intention was not to signal any entitled presumption of ownership of said resources - just that they are not maybe applied with maximum impact, which does not imply I presume to benefit from them anyway.


Writing these comments is also not applying your time with maximum impact to our civilisation. This metric feels perfect for armchair analysis.


There isn't any scenario under 'full blown socialism' where society collectively owns engineers' time, either. You may be thinking of Communism?




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