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Two things: first, without having a recipe for very productive people, our best option is fostering fertile environments for development and then seeing who com

by tbihl 5y ago

Two things: first, without having a recipe for very productive people, our best option is fostering fertile environments for development and then seeing who comes out, and that's very much a numbers game of getting as many entrants as possible. Second, the trail of supporting cast for any technological development is enormous, and we're making a huge mistake when we forget that. Not just the people who clean the streets and the buildings, but the people who build them, design them, maintain them, create the organizational and financial structures that keep them operating, and so on. And a few of those roles aren't very low end, just to keep the static pieces of the built environment from falling apart, just so you can get to the point where there's somewhere to live for the people fixing bugs and writing documentation for the the libraries you want to use multiple times a day, quite likely for free, without asking anyone for them or even giving a second thought. And it's not like those were written for you: there are dozens of implementations in as many languages, just waiting to be picked up. Things get massively more difficult for you if those tools are being produced for you specifically (that's what military procurement projects tend to have.) That obviously does nowhere near justice to even a simple software project. Now take that x1000 for any hardware project, where the raw materials, processing, and logistics circle the globe several times on their way to you.

imtringued 5y ago
> Two things: first, without having a recipe for very productive people, our best option is fostering fertile environments for development and then seeing who comes out, and that's very much a numbers game of getting as many entrants as possible. I don't see the connection. Why do you need to get many entrants as possible? Why not do the obvious thing and create those fertile environments instead of letting random chance decide everything? All I am seeing here is the argument that given a high enough population fertile environments don't matter. No matter how difficult you make it for fertile environments to exist a higher population will always cancel it out.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  > All I am seeing here is the argument that given a high enough population fertile environments don't matter. This is the exact opposite of what I read GP to say. They were making the point that for every “genius” driving innovation, there is a long trail of people necessary to support and foster such innovation. This is not an “innovation by numbers” argument.
- tbihl 5y ago
  You need as many entrants in those fertile environments as possible because humans and societies are complex, leading to unpredictable outcomes as results of factors that anyone raising kids may have discounted, not known about, or been unable to measure. You can't just make a perfect path and then get exactly the super-offspring you want. Thinking you can is literally the founding story of Buddhism (not discounting the significance of Buddhism, but his father was shooting for a perfect ruler, not an enlightened-but-impoverished visionary.) Edit to add: A side effect of all those people just barely going astray is that you get improvements in thought and technology across a span of many fields, which in turn brings future great achievements nearer to our reach.

by tbihl 5y ago

imtringued 5y ago

> Two things: first, without having a recipe for very productive people, our best option is fostering fertile environments for development and then seeing who comes out, and that's very much a numbers game of getting as many entrants as possible. I don't see the connection. Why do you need to get many entrants as possible? Why not do the obvious thing and create those fertile environments instead of letting random chance decide everything? All I am seeing here is the argument that given a high enough population fertile environments don't matter. No matter how difficult you make it for fertile environments to exist a higher population will always cancel it out.

ashtonkem 5y ago
> All I am seeing here is the argument that given a high enough population fertile environments don't matter. This is the exact opposite of what I read GP to say. They were making the point that for every “genius” driving innovation, there is a long trail of people necessary to support and foster such innovation. This is not an “innovation by numbers” argument.
tbihl 5y ago
You need as many entrants in those fertile environments as possible because humans and societies are complex, leading to unpredictable outcomes as results of factors that anyone raising kids may have discounted, not known about, or been unable to measure. You can't just make a perfect path and then get exactly the super-offspring you want. Thinking you can is literally the founding story of Buddhism (not discounting the significance of Buddhism, but his father was shooting for a perfect ruler, not an enlightened-but-impoverished visionary.) Edit to add: A side effect of all those people just barely going astray is that you get improvements in thought and technology across a span of many fields, which in turn brings future great achievements nearer to our reach.