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Academia WAS designed to be an insulated castle from all that, that's why Newton lived in a shitty apartment while getting money from his mom. The institution o

Academia WAS designed to be an insulated castle from all that, that's why Newton lived in a shitty apartment while getting money from his mom. The institution of research was supposed to be a rich man's game, people who didn't give a shit about practicality, just one upping each other. Once people realized academics could be leveraged to do cool shit like build A-Bombs, it was over.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
> Once people realized academics could be leveraged to do cool shit like build A-Bombs, it was over. Arguably, it's the opposite. Once people realized academics could do this kind of cool shit, they got showered with money and told to do whatever the they want. That's how we got the incredible scientific and engineering advances of the second half of 20th century. Then the beancounters started asking questions about what the money actually buys, and research quickly turned into another short-term, self-contained, profit-chasing game, starved for resources and only occasionally producing something actually useful.
- achillesheels 5y ago
  Nyquist, Bode, Shannon, etc. didn’t need an A bomb to advance their research which is the bedrock of the digital control systems that microcomputers are.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Yes. They also didn't need to spend 90% of their time chasing grant money and publishing papers. As it is, if our researchers are spending almost all their time thinking about and doing things other than research, what do we expect? On a tangent, software industry has a bit of similar problem, with the best developers being forced to enter management roles[0] instead of solving technical problems. That is, a developer progresses from doing shoddy work to doing mediocre work and then, just as they start doing high-quality work, they get told to manage a new cohort of juniors doing shoddy work instead. I wonder if that's why so much software is hot garbage these days. -- [0] - Whether proper ones on management path, or "fake" ones like principal developer, where you get all the managerial responsibilities with none of the authority.
achillesheels 5y ago
>The institution of research was supposed to be a rich man’s game, people who didn’t give a shit about practicality, just one upping each other. Thaaaaannnkkk you. It has technically been reserved for Christian Aristocracy, which is practically a world where there is no desperation for calories. Instead many of the greats had an anxiety of their immortality (see Fourier).

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> Once people realized academics could be leveraged to do cool shit like build A-Bombs, it was over. Arguably, it's the opposite. Once people realized academics could do this kind of cool shit, they got showered with money and told to do whatever the they want. That's how we got the incredible scientific and engineering advances of the second half of 20th century. Then the beancounters started asking questions about what the money actually buys, and research quickly turned into another short-term, self-contained, profit-chasing game, starved for resources and only occasionally producing something actually useful.

achillesheels 5y ago
Nyquist, Bode, Shannon, etc. didn’t need an A bomb to advance their research which is the bedrock of the digital control systems that microcomputers are.
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  Yes. They also didn't need to spend 90% of their time chasing grant money and publishing papers. As it is, if our researchers are spending almost all their time thinking about and doing things other than research, what do we expect? On a tangent, software industry has a bit of similar problem, with the best developers being forced to enter management roles[0] instead of solving technical problems. That is, a developer progresses from doing shoddy work to doing mediocre work and then, just as they start doing high-quality work, they get told to manage a new cohort of juniors doing shoddy work instead. I wonder if that's why so much software is hot garbage these days. -- [0] - Whether proper ones on management path, or "fake" ones like principal developer, where you get all the managerial responsibilities with none of the authority.

achillesheels 5y ago

>The institution of research was supposed to be a rich man’s game, people who didn’t give a shit about practicality, just one upping each other. Thaaaaannnkkk you. It has technically been reserved for Christian Aristocracy, which is practically a world where there is no desperation for calories. Instead many of the greats had an anxiety of their immortality (see Fourier).