4 ms·

This required grant money to study? I’m not sure what the payoff is here. Or maybe it was simply that... a payoff. If the article is going to claim that social

This required grant money to study? I’m not sure what the payoff is here. Or maybe it was simply that... a payoff. If the article is going to claim that social networks have a huge influence on the mechanics of the game of naming, they should at least seek to explain how. All I got from the text was “We tried it and it just worked”.

jarenmf 5y ago
This offer a more elaborate analysis in the original paper [1] which seems much more interesting than the article. And BTW, they mention they did not receive any funding :) [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13385 https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13385
- sharklazer 5y ago
  Fair enough. I made an assumption, most stuff gets funded by grants directly or indirectly. On the paper note. Thanks for the link, couldn’t seem to find it... I was genuinely curious about how network theory changed the results, more than “made them better”
imgabe 5y ago
Not all research is going to pay off and it’s never going to be obvious ahead of time which research will lead to important discoveries. I think if you’re funding research correctly you should be giving grant money to things that end up being a silly waste of time in retrospect. Not that this was, necessarily, but in general giving grants to research that ends up being useless shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. It’s part of the cost of searching for new knowledge. Sometimes you’ll go down a dead end, but you still have to check there.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Feel free to donate your money to frivolous research.
  - imgabe 5y ago
    I will!
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Good! Since I also do frivolous research, I'll be expecting a check from you at any moment!
      - imgabe 5y ago
        Send me your research proposal. I have to make sure you're not trying to cure cancer or anything that isn't sufficiently frivolous.
        WalterBright 5y ago
        My proposal intends to answer the burning question: "do people like ice cream?" Send money now!
        pmdulaney 5y ago
        Upvote for humor!
PopeUrbanX 5y ago

jarenmf 5y ago

This offer a more elaborate analysis in the original paper [1] which seems much more interesting than the article. And BTW, they mention they did not receive any funding :) [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13385 https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.13385

sharklazer 5y ago
Fair enough. I made an assumption, most stuff gets funded by grants directly or indirectly. On the paper note. Thanks for the link, couldn’t seem to find it... I was genuinely curious about how network theory changed the results, more than “made them better”

imgabe 5y ago

Not all research is going to pay off and it’s never going to be obvious ahead of time which research will lead to important discoveries. I think if you’re funding research correctly you should be giving grant money to things that end up being a silly waste of time in retrospect. Not that this was, necessarily, but in general giving grants to research that ends up being useless shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. It’s part of the cost of searching for new knowledge. Sometimes you’ll go down a dead end, but you still have to check there.

WalterBright 5y ago
Feel free to donate your money to frivolous research.
- imgabe 5y ago
  I will!
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Good! Since I also do frivolous research, I'll be expecting a check from you at any moment!
    - imgabe 5y ago
      Send me your research proposal. I have to make sure you're not trying to cure cancer or anything that isn't sufficiently frivolous.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        My proposal intends to answer the burning question: "do people like ice cream?" Send money now!
      - pmdulaney 5y ago
        Upvote for humor!

PopeUrbanX 5y ago