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akshatrathi comments on Rationality Quotes November 2009 - Less Wrong
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I don't see how this reveals his motive at all. He could easily be a person motivated to make the best contributions to science as he can, for entirely altruistic reasons. His reasoning was that he could make better contributions elsewhere, and it's entirely plausible for him to have left the field for ultimately altruistic, purely non-selfish reasons.
And what is it about selfishness exactly that is so bad?
He may have, for his own reasons, not been happy with the ease with which he achieved something great. His selfishness at this point is not for the fact that he may still be able to contribute to the field and yet he chooses not to but for the fact that he will be happier if he had to work harder on something before achieving greatness. That is his value system. I think his choice is justifiable.
Sure, but it's also reasonable for him to think that contributing something that was much harder would be that much more of a contribution to his goal (whatever those selfish or non-selfish goals are), after all, something hard for him would be much harder or impossible for someone less capable.