This was Aaron Swartz's inspiration for, “A Non-Programmer's Apology”, where he battles with and ultimately justifies his own decision to favour teaching and campaigning over programming, despite being a talented programmer: <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nonapology" rel="nofollow">http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/nonapology</a><p>“I am saved, I think, because it appears that Hardy’s logic to some extent parallels mine. Why is it important for the man who “can bat unusually well” to become “a professional cricketer”? It is, presumably, because those who can bat unusually well are in short supply and so the few who are gifted with that talent should do us all the favor of making use of it. If those whose “judgment of the markets is quick and sound” become cricketers, while the good batters become stockbrokers, we will end up with mediocre cricketers and mediocre stockbrokers. Better for all of us if the reverse is the case.<p>But this, of course, is awfully similar to the logic I myself employed. It is important for me to spend my life explaining what I’d learned because people who had learned it are in short supply — much shorter supply, in fact (or so it appears), than people who can bat well.”