For what it's worth, I currently have the top comment in the thread defending the point of computer science. I'm an undergrad studying in India. My exams in co

For what it's worth, I currently have the top comment in the thread defending the point of computer science. I'm an undergrad studying in India. My exams in college have not been about rote memorization. I've written quite a bit of code, and taken down quite a bit of notes for them. It totally depends on where someone studies in India. I do concede that the vast majority of college in India outside the "top 20" or so do seem to rely heavily on rote memorization. - My notes taken for university: https://github.com/bollu/notes https://github.com/bollu/notes - Code I wrote for university: https://github.com/bollu/IIIT-H-Code https://github.com/bollu/IIIT-H-Code > Stuff like the atom bomb are entrepreneurial triumphs by people who happened to be academics. This seems like an odd position to defend. The mathematics that was necessary to even begin this line of investigation was worked out in academia by pure mathematicians and theoretical physicists. The "steelman" version of your argument I would phrase as thus: > Academia does not have the incentive and funding structure to pull of projects such as the Manhattan project, and thus had to occur as a government project with unlimited funding. I will gladly accept this. Unfortunately, it's not just academia that suffers from this. I don't think a lot of startups do useful research either. Most of the "original research" that I am aware of occurs at extremely well funded government labs, or lately the large tech companies that are pouring billions into AI.