"I hope you’ll agree that humanity has a variety of important engineering problems to solve, and nicer-looking graphics is quite low on that list."
I used to sneer at the social value of entertainment. Then covid lockdowns hit. I spent a lot of time playing Factorio. When professional sports resumed playing (in empty stadiums, with fake crowd noise on the broadcasts) I was happy to sit on the couch after work and watch baseball.
Without that entertainment, there is no way I would have been able to trudge to my computer and work from home day after day, when the only thing I could leave my house for was an occasional walk and a frightful trip to the grocery store.
So even if the brain surgeon is not using those "nicer-looking graphics" to improve brain surgery (which could very well happen), the brain surgeon might just be looking at "nicer-looking graphics" to unwind after a day of brain surgery, which gets her ready for another day of brain surgery. Entertainment has value.
I used to sneer at the social value of entertainment. Then covid lockdowns hit. I spent a lot of time playing Factorio. When professional sports resumed playing (in empty stadiums, with fake crowd noise on the broadcasts) I was happy to sit on the couch after work and watch baseball.
Without that entertainment, there is no way I would have been able to trudge to my computer and work from home day after day, when the only thing I could leave my house for was an occasional walk and a frightful trip to the grocery store.
So even if the brain surgeon is not using those "nicer-looking graphics" to improve brain surgery (which could very well happen), the brain surgeon might just be looking at "nicer-looking graphics" to unwind after a day of brain surgery, which gets her ready for another day of brain surgery. Entertainment has value.