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> Actually there's three domains of interest here. None of which, as far as I can tell, are "the real world". So there is obviously a fourth domain that you di
by pdonis 3y ago
> Actually there's three domains of interest here.
None of which, as far as I can tell, are "the real world". So there is obviously a fourth domain that you didn't cover (although you briefly described some aspects of it).
And that kind of disconnect is what I was talking about. Abstractions are all very well, but unless they ultimately bottom out in something getting improved in the actual real world (not "academia" or "industry" or "game theory", but the world of Favelas and terminal cancers and battlefields and so on), they are useless.
- nonrandomstring 3y agoYou're right and I enjoy this conversation. How do we focus minds on beneficent applications instead of "museums of ideas for loafers in the garden of knowledge" and cheap, ignorant industrialism for it's own sake? I've taught thousands of students now, and looking back I'm haunted by their intelligent enthusiasm and burning passion for real-world problems. Those kids education totally failed. By the time they were only 25, and had been through the "university" system, they were beaten down by the need to shoehorn brilliant ideas into merely profitable ones, and "Make a living" despite their higher talents and God given rights, and prove themselves to gatekeepers of mediocrity and the status-quo. Business, academia, knowledge, money, prestige; all of these are insufficient drives for the emerging generations.