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I’m imagining this thread if it were particle physicists and cosmologists arguing about the difficulty of the traveling salesman. I’m not convinced we hobbyist

I’m imagining this thread if it were particle physicists and cosmologists arguing about the difficulty of the traveling salesman. I’m not convinced we hobbyist physicists have anything to add to this topic. ;)

kgwgk 7y ago
Physicists are qualified to tackle every subject: https://www.xkcd.com/793/ https://www.xkcd.com/793/
- sampo 7y ago
  Also https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21
dnautics 7y ago
I have definitely observed physicists opining about machine learning and biology, especially biology in embarrassingly clueless ways.
tus88 7y ago
What have physicists done in the last 70 years...
mindcrime 7y ago
I’m not convinced we hobbyist physicists have anything to add to this topic. ;) On average, I'd say that's a safe premise to adopt. But I'd add two things to that: 1. The question "is that the point?" That is, cutting edge cosmological research isn't (AFAIK) generally done on HN. The "real experts" probably aren't coming here looking for new insights, and the rest of us idling around chewing the cud on this isn't really hurting anything. 2. That said, this "cud chewing" may be beneficial to the participants in the conversation, or perhaps - in a "long game" sense - to science at large. If somebody reading all this is inspired to take up physics as a career field, or just learns something that they turn around and use as metaphorical inspiration in some seemingly unrelated field, well... maybe that makes it all worthwhile. Anyway, at worst this is entertainment, and arguably of a higher quality than watching the latest episode of the sit-com de jour.
- sparker72678 7y ago
  For sure. If I didn’t totally agree with you I’d never read anything on HN. Entertainment indeed!
- mncharity 7y ago
  > us idling around chewing the cud on this isn't really hurting anything Or... maybe it _is_ hurting? Junk may displace quality. An HN page filled with low-quality comments may discourage people with expertise from contributing. "Eternal September" and "Someone on the internet is wrong!" being less engaging than informed (or even just not energetically misguided) discussion. I certainly have a predicate of "ok, there's no point in my commenting on this HN post; it's 'gone bad'; there's now an inverse correlation between people having a clue and their being likely to wade through all this and potentially see my comment". There's also "You play like you practice", and this is negative training on ignoring the criticality of recognizing expertise and its limits. A bar discussion with an expert can go like a seminar. Or if without, yet with experienced people, like a panel. But as the available expertise declines, things can rapidly collapse towards a stereotype of a DC cocktail party, with nonsense lapped up and shared due to an inability to judge expertise and its limits. You get bad reddit, with babbled nonsense undergoing memetic selection largely disconnected from reality. FOX News, and the NYTimes's deemphasis of the role of political and economic interests, also come to mind. > chewing the cud [...] isn't really hurting anything So perhaps, alternately, it might be viewed as a intellectual integrity fail? One with civilizational impact? > Anyway, at worst this is entertainment, So then... its like HN and US public discourse about trade wars, sanctions and shooting wars and their civilian casualties, regulatory capture and industrial policy, education, public health, ... and so on? All sort of a reality tv show? /end snark :) Hmm, random thought... my fuzzy impression is that views on lies are bimodal, with camps of "white lies are necessary social lubricant; to think otherwise is to be immature and inconsiderate" and "all lies are toxic; to think otherwise is to be oblivious to unintended and broader impacts". I wonder if there's a similar divergence of views with respect to comment and thread intellectual hygiene? Ideally, we would have more flexible discussion fora. Discussion preferences vary among people, topics, times of day, etc. Sometimes I enjoy reddit pun chains, sometimes I find them an annoying distraction. It'd be nice to be able to toggle seeing them, rather than everyone getting a similar view all the time. But for now... I think of HN discussion as "breaking down" as topics become distant from tech.

kgwgk 7y ago

Physicists are qualified to tackle every subject: https://www.xkcd.com/793/ https://www.xkcd.com/793/

sampo 7y ago
Also https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2012-03-21

dnautics 7y ago

I have definitely observed physicists opining about machine learning and biology, especially biology in embarrassingly clueless ways.

tus88 7y ago

What have physicists done in the last 70 years...

mindcrime 7y ago

I’m not convinced we hobbyist physicists have anything to add to this topic. ;) On average, I'd say that's a safe premise to adopt. But I'd add two things to that: 1. The question "is that the point?" That is, cutting edge cosmological research isn't (AFAIK) generally done on HN. The "real experts" probably aren't coming here looking for new insights, and the rest of us idling around chewing the cud on this isn't really hurting anything. 2. That said, this "cud chewing" may be beneficial to the participants in the conversation, or perhaps - in a "long game" sense - to science at large. If somebody reading all this is inspired to take up physics as a career field, or just learns something that they turn around and use as metaphorical inspiration in some seemingly unrelated field, well... maybe that makes it all worthwhile. Anyway, at worst this is entertainment, and arguably of a higher quality than watching the latest episode of the sit-com de jour.

sparker72678 7y ago
For sure. If I didn’t totally agree with you I’d never read anything on HN. Entertainment indeed!
mncharity 7y ago
> us idling around chewing the cud on this isn't really hurting anything Or... maybe it _is_ hurting? Junk may displace quality. An HN page filled with low-quality comments may discourage people with expertise from contributing. "Eternal September" and "Someone on the internet is wrong!" being less engaging than informed (or even just not energetically misguided) discussion. I certainly have a predicate of "ok, there's no point in my commenting on this HN post; it's 'gone bad'; there's now an inverse correlation between people having a clue and their being likely to wade through all this and potentially see my comment". There's also "You play like you practice", and this is negative training on ignoring the criticality of recognizing expertise and its limits. A bar discussion with an expert can go like a seminar. Or if without, yet with experienced people, like a panel. But as the available expertise declines, things can rapidly collapse towards a stereotype of a DC cocktail party, with nonsense lapped up and shared due to an inability to judge expertise and its limits. You get bad reddit, with babbled nonsense undergoing memetic selection largely disconnected from reality. FOX News, and the NYTimes's deemphasis of the role of political and economic interests, also come to mind. > chewing the cud [...] isn't really hurting anything So perhaps, alternately, it might be viewed as a intellectual integrity fail? One with civilizational impact? > Anyway, at worst this is entertainment, So then... its like HN and US public discourse about trade wars, sanctions and shooting wars and their civilian casualties, regulatory capture and industrial policy, education, public health, ... and so on? All sort of a reality tv show? /end snark :) Hmm, random thought... my fuzzy impression is that views on lies are bimodal, with camps of "white lies are necessary social lubricant; to think otherwise is to be immature and inconsiderate" and "all lies are toxic; to think otherwise is to be oblivious to unintended and broader impacts". I wonder if there's a similar divergence of views with respect to comment and thread intellectual hygiene? Ideally, we would have more flexible discussion fora. Discussion preferences vary among people, topics, times of day, etc. Sometimes I enjoy reddit pun chains, sometimes I find them an annoying distraction. It'd be nice to be able to toggle seeing them, rather than everyone getting a similar view all the time. But for now... I think of HN discussion as "breaking down" as topics become distant from tech.