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wedrifid comments on Rationality Quotes June 2012 - Less Wrong
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-Vincent Baker
No. If I want something to exist I'll offer a reward or plain and simple pay someone to build it.
Perhaps by "it", he meant money.
Doubtful. Money already exists, but it doesn't exist my pocket.
If what you want is difficult to explain, it might be as easy to do it yourself.
I read the quote as "make it (exist)!", instead of "create it". But whether that's what was meant or not, I think that to the basic idea, it doesn't matter all that much whether you cause it to exist directly or via someone else.
As an addition: when I come up with something cool that I wish existed, my first step is to google around if someone else has ever invented it and sells it. : ) Twice so far the answer has been yes.
Nowadays I actually get annoyed when I think up something that's an obvious combination of existing components and I can't immediately find it online. It doesn't happen very often.
Dean Ing, The Ransom of Black Stealth One
Exactly. Buying things is far more practical, harnessing the power of specialization and comparative advantage. Building the thing yourself is almost always the incorrect decision. Build it yourself if you are good at building that kind of thing and, more importantly, suck at doing other things that provide more (fungible) value.
Or if you enjoy the process of building it. Or if the process of building it will help you relax or something so that you'll be able to do more things-that-provide-more-value later. Or if you're trying to impress someone. Or any other of the reason people have hobbies. (Also, “suck” suggests a much lower threshold than there actually is, especially in times of unemployment and recession. Telling people who have to cook because they can't afford eating at restaurants twice a day that they “suck” at making money sounds bad to me.)
Those are all reasons to build things. But not the subject of the context.
Closely related principle: Purchase Fuzzies and Utilons Separately.
I can't afford to pay someone to do cognitive science, so I'd better try to do it myself.