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This is a nice article with some good guidelines but I have to point out a bit of irony, just for fun: > Filter #1: Are they free to speak their minds? > If t

This is a nice article with some good guidelines but I have to point out a bit of irony, just for fun: > Filter #1: Are they free to speak their minds? > If they are in an institution – who funds it? > If they are in a company - what are the incentives of the company? > As an individual, what are their incentives? This is great advice. In the case of this article, according to the "About" info, one of the authors works for a VC-funded tech company who's making an online game platform. Would they be incentivized to write about a BS filter that denigrated venture capital, tech, or online gaming specifically? > Filter #2: Does their livelihood depend on being right? From the "About" info, that doesn't appear to be the case here. But still, I tend to agree. > Filter #3: Do they take cyberspace seriously? This is where working for a VC-backed online gaming startup may activate filter #1, given the author lists examples that neatly support the industry they're in. I'm not convinced this filter belongs with #1 and #2, and because of #1 and #2, I'm skeptical of #3. But I liked the article, thanks for sharing!

wtracy 6y ago
I really feel like #3 really means "Do they take my field of expertise seriously?" The author's field of expertise is software, therefore only people who take software seriously are worth listening to.
- 3pt14159 6y ago
  I respectfully disagree. When I was a structural engineer (Ontario EIT) I did not think that buildings were going to change the world dramatically. I thought software, biotech, and nanotech would. And so far, it's been software that has been leading the way with biotech coming second. Software is huge. We've only had the internet for a few decades and it's already dramatically changed almost anything I can think of. Politics (including war, espionage, campaigning, propaganda), the economy (gig economy, AirBnb / Outdoorsy, high frequency trading, remote work), society / culture (including the quality range of damn near everything from shows on Netflix to music to even food), funding (Kickstarter, cryptocurrencies). Like, I struggle to even comprehend how many decisions are made by computers around the world each second. Cyber is the number one issue on the DNI report on global security. It's a big deal.
  - jdauriemma 6y ago
    This is a stronger argument than that in the article. Still, you could make a strong argument for a variety of important industries/fields. Agriculture? Climate science? Edit: I see everyone's latching onto agriculture as a literal suggestion rather than a rhetorical device, sorry for the confusion. I think it's valid to treat agriculture as seriously as cyberspace but honestly I don't know enough about the former to respond to the good scrutiny in this thread.
    - 3pt14159 6y ago
      Agriculture is important, and software is driving most of the innovation. Whether its better software to design the machines that harvest crops, more efficient futures markets for selling grain in advance of harvest, better watering scheduling, self-driving harvesters, a basis of information for farmers to learn about advances in farm tech, computers that enable genetics research for better genetically modified crops. Put another way, it isn't like the head of cabbage I ate six months ago has me writing better code then or today. But the script I wrote to make my development loop faster still does. The system is chaotic and interdependent, but the flows of causation are still broadly understandable. It even makes sense on a philosophical level. Humans were once the only agents in the economy with decision making power. Now a human writes some code and the code operates long after the human that wrote it has gone. Output is no longer tied to attention. Furthermore, we happen to live in an existence where information transfer is extremely, extremely, cheap from a resource standpoint. So the software doesn't just scale attention on the one computer it was written on, it scales for everyone! An upgrade to Microsoft Excel helps millions of people all at once! We can even use software to make better computers and software! It's naturally self-building, and the main reason why I think it will continue to lead biotech until biotech merges with software.
    - nawgz 6y ago
      Agriculture is clearly a need but doesn't have a huge impact on society. It's not like there's multiple gardens in everyone's home, and even if it was they still lack some key capabilities software&internet combine for Climate science is clearly being overwhelmed by bad actors, generally exerting their influence thru bot & troll farms, communicating thru various software&internet platforms

wtracy 6y ago

I really feel like #3 really means "Do they take my field of expertise seriously?" The author's field of expertise is software, therefore only people who take software seriously are worth listening to.

3pt14159 6y ago
I respectfully disagree. When I was a structural engineer (Ontario EIT) I did not think that buildings were going to change the world dramatically. I thought software, biotech, and nanotech would. And so far, it's been software that has been leading the way with biotech coming second. Software is huge. We've only had the internet for a few decades and it's already dramatically changed almost anything I can think of. Politics (including war, espionage, campaigning, propaganda), the economy (gig economy, AirBnb / Outdoorsy, high frequency trading, remote work), society / culture (including the quality range of damn near everything from shows on Netflix to music to even food), funding (Kickstarter, cryptocurrencies). Like, I struggle to even comprehend how many decisions are made by computers around the world each second. Cyber is the number one issue on the DNI report on global security. It's a big deal.
- jdauriemma 6y ago
  This is a stronger argument than that in the article. Still, you could make a strong argument for a variety of important industries/fields. Agriculture? Climate science? Edit: I see everyone's latching onto agriculture as a literal suggestion rather than a rhetorical device, sorry for the confusion. I think it's valid to treat agriculture as seriously as cyberspace but honestly I don't know enough about the former to respond to the good scrutiny in this thread.
  - 3pt14159 6y ago
    Agriculture is important, and software is driving most of the innovation. Whether its better software to design the machines that harvest crops, more efficient futures markets for selling grain in advance of harvest, better watering scheduling, self-driving harvesters, a basis of information for farmers to learn about advances in farm tech, computers that enable genetics research for better genetically modified crops. Put another way, it isn't like the head of cabbage I ate six months ago has me writing better code then or today. But the script I wrote to make my development loop faster still does. The system is chaotic and interdependent, but the flows of causation are still broadly understandable. It even makes sense on a philosophical level. Humans were once the only agents in the economy with decision making power. Now a human writes some code and the code operates long after the human that wrote it has gone. Output is no longer tied to attention. Furthermore, we happen to live in an existence where information transfer is extremely, extremely, cheap from a resource standpoint. So the software doesn't just scale attention on the one computer it was written on, it scales for everyone! An upgrade to Microsoft Excel helps millions of people all at once! We can even use software to make better computers and software! It's naturally self-building, and the main reason why I think it will continue to lead biotech until biotech merges with software.
  - nawgz 6y ago
    Agriculture is clearly a need but doesn't have a huge impact on society. It's not like there's multiple gardens in everyone's home, and even if it was they still lack some key capabilities software&internet combine for Climate science is clearly being overwhelmed by bad actors, generally exerting their influence thru bot & troll farms, communicating thru various software&internet platforms