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> Srinivasa Ramanujan So, about a century ago. That'd be my estimate as well. And only if are on the "otherworldly genius" level as Ramanujan was. > Dismissin

> Srinivasa Ramanujan So, about a century ago. That'd be my estimate as well. And only if are on the "otherworldly genius" level as Ramanujan was. > Dismissing this author for a lack of affiliation is probably accurate I'm not really dismissing him just for lack of affiliations. That's just one of several "smells" that point towards the crackpotedness of the whole thing: single author, personal self-promoting website, lack of peer-review, vague non-mainstream-academia language, selling own ideas as generally scientifically accepted ones, and, yeah, lack of affiliations. To me, that's too many strikes to dismiss the whole thing outright. > to improve the public discourse with engagement with ideas that arrive in it I would really like to improve the public discourse here. The problem with your proposed approach is that it doesn't account for Brandolini's law. People with overinflated egos can and will generate bullshit faster than actual experts would be able to disprove it.

motohagiography 4y ago
This is quite fair, and I suspect where I diverge is I don't think bullshit is as intrinsically harmful to a discipline as a practitioner who stakes their entire career and reputation on every word, because as we have seen in every other boom, it is only from shit that anything can grow. The systems evolved for punishing failure in academia have created a pathological risk aversion that may be hamstringing our species. If we do get a layer of bullshit, we also get more minds mining it for nuggets of gold and nourishment. I don't think either of us are right or wrong on this, and I think the difference is in a respective orientation to risk. Finding a way to add more risk taking to academia is the general problem that I think I am advocating indulging some bullshit in support of, so it's only one of many possible solutions.

motohagiography 4y ago

This is quite fair, and I suspect where I diverge is I don't think bullshit is as intrinsically harmful to a discipline as a practitioner who stakes their entire career and reputation on every word, because as we have seen in every other boom, it is only from shit that anything can grow. The systems evolved for punishing failure in academia have created a pathological risk aversion that may be hamstringing our species. If we do get a layer of bullshit, we also get more minds mining it for nuggets of gold and nourishment. I don't think either of us are right or wrong on this, and I think the difference is in a respective orientation to risk. Finding a way to add more risk taking to academia is the general problem that I think I am advocating indulging some bullshit in support of, so it's only one of many possible solutions.