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Dr. Kuipers was my grad school advisor at the University of Texas. I found his adherence to principles of pacifism and nonviolence, rooted in Quakerism, to be
by bgribble 11y ago
Dr. Kuipers was my grad school advisor at the University of Texas. I found his adherence to principles of pacifism and nonviolence, rooted in Quakerism, to be very inspirational.
Certainly, as a graduate student, I would have had an easier time if we could take DARPA money instead of only applying for grants from civilian institutions (NSF, NASA, etc). I don't regret it.
Yes, many (most?) of our technological advances have come from military motivations. But people like Kuipers who take principled positions of nonviolence help create a vision of a society where that's not true any more. We may never get there, but that doesn't matter.
There's a definitely similarity between Kuipers and Richard Stallman in that regard... taking a strong principled position, even if it's not "practical", can be very important. And both of them came out of the MIT AI lab at about the same time :)
Kuipers trivia: he implemented the Common LISP "print" facility's ability to render numbers as Roman numerals, as a joke, and submitted it to Guy Steele, who was working on "Comon LISP: The Language". Steele included it in the book and now it's part of LISP forever.
- andremendes 11y agoI have never heard of Quakerism before and found it to be very inspirational too! I also see similarity between Stallman and Kuipers and I think it's because they both are very coherent to their beliefs. They strongly hold personal values and apply them in day-to-day living, they are able to professionally reproduce their core, personal beliefs.
- sitkack 11y agoI think of it as the American version of a Christian-Buddhist sect. Look for a "Society of Friends" meeting in your area.
- simonebrunozzi 11y agoWhat are the principles behind getting DARPA grants?
- sitkack 11y ago> many (most?) of our technological advances have come from military motivations. If this is true, it is only true because that is where the budget has been. The military doesn't magically beget better more efficient engineering. Look at the wikipedia page for (D)ARPA, there has been a long fight over what it should fund, war or more broadly applicable research. Some of the defense research labs fund quite a bit of renewable energy, carbon mitigation, etc. How much scientific advancement could we have paid for with the trillions we spent on wars in the middle east?