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I connected with this, I've had many of the same thoughts lately. It's a thoughtful essay and I have no idea why it's been flagged? > When fewer than 5,000 pro

by jhp123 3y ago

I connected with this, I've had many of the same thoughts lately. It's a thoughtful essay and I have no idea why it's been flagged? > When fewer than 5,000 programmers existed, they built Lisp (1960) and APL (1966) and sketchpad (1963). With over 5 million programmers today, the best we can do is Rust and React. It feels like this has worsened even just in the last 15 years. When I started in the industry (2008ish) it felt like there was a lot of experimentation and new ideas compared to today. Memes like "language wars" and "javascript framework of the week" come from the recent past when there was not the same monoculture of like 3 big JS frameworks, 5 big languages, etc

000ooo000 3y ago
It has a distinctively LinkedIn style of writing, e.g. many one-sentence paragraphs. Could be why.
rramadass 3y ago
> It feels like this has worsened even just in the last 15 years. It is a question of Statistics/Probability and similar to statements like "The End of Science"(see John Morgan's book) i.e. all the main/major aspects of knowledge are already known. IMO the following are the reasons; 1) In the early days the field was populated with experts and the quality of the output was high. There was also a lot of unknowns to be mapped out and hence the quality and importance of inventions/discoveries were startling. 2) Once you have the fundamentals of a Scientific Theory with Principles and Guidelines laid out for a particular field almost all future developments in applications can be anticipated and will seem like "nothing new". Our very advances in Mathematics and Sciences negate future novelty. One good example is the current advances in AI/ML which is merely a hodge-podge of Statistical techniques/Computation models and lots of power. 3) With the rise of the Internet/other forms of content delivery, a very large number of non-experts now have access to a bullhorn to spread noise and amplify it in very many dimensions in the service of vested interests like business/power/money/etc. Hence the s/n ratio is very much diluted i.e. there is now a lot of junk to wade through. 4) Finally; Social mores, norms and values are very different today and hence discovering/inventing Knowledge has been made subservient to other goals/needs.
- rramadass 3y ago
  Errata/Addendum to above: It is John Horgan (and not Morgan) and the book is "The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age".

by jhp123 3y ago

000ooo000 3y ago

It has a distinctively LinkedIn style of writing, e.g. many one-sentence paragraphs. Could be why.

rramadass 3y ago

> It feels like this has worsened even just in the last 15 years. It is a question of Statistics/Probability and similar to statements like "The End of Science"(see John Morgan's book) i.e. all the main/major aspects of knowledge are already known. IMO the following are the reasons; 1) In the early days the field was populated with experts and the quality of the output was high. There was also a lot of unknowns to be mapped out and hence the quality and importance of inventions/discoveries were startling. 2) Once you have the fundamentals of a Scientific Theory with Principles and Guidelines laid out for a particular field almost all future developments in applications can be anticipated and will seem like "nothing new". Our very advances in Mathematics and Sciences negate future novelty. One good example is the current advances in AI/ML which is merely a hodge-podge of Statistical techniques/Computation models and lots of power. 3) With the rise of the Internet/other forms of content delivery, a very large number of non-experts now have access to a bullhorn to spread noise and amplify it in very many dimensions in the service of vested interests like business/power/money/etc. Hence the s/n ratio is very much diluted i.e. there is now a lot of junk to wade through. 4) Finally; Social mores, norms and values are very different today and hence discovering/inventing Knowledge has been made subservient to other goals/needs.

rramadass 3y ago
Errata/Addendum to above: It is John Horgan (and not Morgan) and the book is "The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age".