How many lives have been lost because someone with the capacity to be a great doctor or civil engineer but instead became a mediocre artist? I've seen some very intelligent people waste their lives on mediocre arts careers when they could have made a more solid technical contribution.
There is a reason that the economy treats art like a luxury to be reserved for the wealthy - for most of those artists, it is a luxury and we only put up with it because they are wealthy.
First, for each mediocre artist that would have been a good doctor there's 10000 bad doctors, software engineers and waiters that are there only for the money.
Second, the job market was never designed to encourage people to express their potential at best. The incentives are not aligned.
Additionally, throughout history almost all early *scientists* where wealthy people that did research out of passion. If it was for market forces we would be still in the middle ages.
There's plenty of people with good skills and advanced degrees in mathematics, physics, philosophy and whatnot that end up working in completely different fields only out of need.
If anything, this is a big argument for basic income.
> it is a luxury and we only put up with it because they are wealthy.
You're right, but let's see this in a different way.
Let's not devalue Art too much. What you speak of is a more general
problem, that the race is not to the swift... Humanity faces myriad
problems, all solvable by smart, motivated young people. Yet we fail
because we do not motivate, reward and support them to become all they
can be. We turn their "solid technical contributions" around and make
them the very thing that keeps us stuck in bureaucracy and systemised
hopelessness. Without the spark of "art", the imagination that
Einstein and Feynman spoke of, teche is no more valuable than wanky
modern art [1].
Our interregnum then becomes one of disappointment and frustration for
most, who cannot exercise their power as creative, rational and
compassionate beings. Ironically, the thing that often signals a new
direction and seeds revolutionary progress is Art. It's proper place
is in the hands of the poor and disenfranchised. In the hands of the
trustafarians it's just more stuckness for the status quo.
Creativity is not a product. It's an attitude, as applicable to
computer science as to sculpture, oil painting, or music.
Just looking at what people convinced to give up their mediocre art careers and do other work have done, I'm pretty sure it's been a huge net negative for humanity. Let the mediocre painters paint!
Art; aesthetics give context to human culture that would otherwise be colorless. Carpenters, architects, nurses, doctors, engineers may form the bedrock of society but art, music, literature, film tell the stories of our times, our dreams and nightmares.
> Why? That great doctor could cure cancer, which would be greater achievement than all art in the history of art together.
I don't know your life story, but you probably don't know how an artist works and you probably don't know the power that art (especially music) has to heal people, but let's focus on your question.
An unhappy artist in a profession that doesn't make sense for him/her could be dangerous:
The person can be mentally affected because he/she works in a shitty job, that can lead to stress, depression, etc. And the last thing you want is to be treated/envolved/engaged by a depressed {put any profession here} doctor or to travel in an airplane with a burned out, stressed, depressed pilot.
The probability that something REALLY good and life changer can come out from an unhappy and unfulfilled person is really low, let alone the cure of cancer.
Cancer is just one disease among many, making life worth living is a higher priority so that even those who die from cancer enjoy their time on this planet. Curing cancer might not mean much if the elderly are lonely and have nothing to look forward to.
There is a reason that the economy treats art like a luxury to be reserved for the wealthy - for most of those artists, it is a luxury and we only put up with it because they are wealthy.