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I don't disagree with you - I just mean something else by ambitious projects. Take politics for instance - can anyone under 30 accomplish anything ambitious in

I don't disagree with you - I just mean something else by ambitious projects. Take politics for instance - can anyone under 30 accomplish anything ambitious in politics? Probably not. The brilliant minds who've contributed to math/science I imagine oftentimes had great teachers along the way. Not always. The ambitious projects I have in mind go beyond solving a previously unsolved math problem - I am thinking of something more calculated and long-term like wikipedia. If we can give a lot of people in the world the best educational materials by the best teachers - that's a massive win. If we can secure funding for people who show promise and let them affect the real world, not just 'do research' - that's a massive win. In other words - the problems we're facing are not really science problems, they're philosophical and societal problems that require a willingness of the current ruling class to say ok, this isn't working, let us try something new here. That'd be nearly unprecedented - another smart kid solving another science riddle, that's cool too :)

BinaryIdiot 11y ago
Okay we're mostly agreeing here just one point > Take politics for instance - can anyone under 30 accomplish anything ambitious in politics? Probably not. Maybe? It's hard to say considering we have laws preventing the young from getting into politics. President / Vice President have to be 35, 30 to be a senator and 25 for the house of representatives. Most states also have age restrictions for many other political offices that I'm too lazy to look up (some are similar to the federal ones, some are simply 21). Making it not possible for them to do it doesn't mean they couldn't if given the ability. Many politicians are career politicians. That may not be good but the young folks can't be career politicians, at least not right away. I would be very curious to see the data if we removed all agent restrictions then let 1-2 generations go by and see if the demographic changes much / some / none.
- alexashka 11y ago
  It's nice to agree sometimes :) I'd say moreso than the laws, is just the hierarchies entrenched in every sphere of life are the real mechanisms preventing any real change. On one hand, stability is good, but at what cost, right? Something as small as the apple app store - everyone knows it's bad, nothing has been done about it for years. If Apple tomorrow, came to HackerNews and said hey, we know the app store sucks, we are going to hire a 20 person team of stars to re-build it. We will give you full autonomy, high paycheques, lots of publicity and a full year to do it. Wouldn't that be an overwhelmingly positive move? Even if a year later, the team failed to deliver, at the very least it'd generate a ton of enthusiasm and new ideas. This is a small example of big companies not willing to do anything outside the stale old box, even when there is absolutely no downside. It's those old, bored farts earning a paycheque that are the problem every time. Apple has the money, just not the wisdom to go outside the box every now and again. Politics is 1000x worse I imagine.

BinaryIdiot 11y ago

Okay we're mostly agreeing here just one point > Take politics for instance - can anyone under 30 accomplish anything ambitious in politics? Probably not. Maybe? It's hard to say considering we have laws preventing the young from getting into politics. President / Vice President have to be 35, 30 to be a senator and 25 for the house of representatives. Most states also have age restrictions for many other political offices that I'm too lazy to look up (some are similar to the federal ones, some are simply 21). Making it not possible for them to do it doesn't mean they couldn't if given the ability. Many politicians are career politicians. That may not be good but the young folks can't be career politicians, at least not right away. I would be very curious to see the data if we removed all agent restrictions then let 1-2 generations go by and see if the demographic changes much / some / none.

alexashka 11y ago
It's nice to agree sometimes :) I'd say moreso than the laws, is just the hierarchies entrenched in every sphere of life are the real mechanisms preventing any real change. On one hand, stability is good, but at what cost, right? Something as small as the apple app store - everyone knows it's bad, nothing has been done about it for years. If Apple tomorrow, came to HackerNews and said hey, we know the app store sucks, we are going to hire a 20 person team of stars to re-build it. We will give you full autonomy, high paycheques, lots of publicity and a full year to do it. Wouldn't that be an overwhelmingly positive move? Even if a year later, the team failed to deliver, at the very least it'd generate a ton of enthusiasm and new ideas. This is a small example of big companies not willing to do anything outside the stale old box, even when there is absolutely no downside. It's those old, bored farts earning a paycheque that are the problem every time. Apple has the money, just not the wisdom to go outside the box every now and again. Politics is 1000x worse I imagine.