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If I may be so bold, it resonates (with you, with me, with most people) because the idea that one can make revolutionary discoveries that contradicts the status
by rmah 2y ago
If I may be so bold, it resonates (with you, with me, with most people) because the idea that one can make revolutionary discoveries that contradicts the status quo as an outsider is an inherently attractive idea. It scratches many emotional itches: tweaking the nose of "the man"; suspicion of institutions; being an unknown hero (before the discovery); discovering one's inherent, but unrecognized, greatness; and more.
But the reality of the matter is that for every Krapivin, there are thousands of other people who tried but did not. And more importantly, there are hundreds of others who did the work, gained the foundational knowledge, and THEN made a discovery that changed how we think about the world even if only a tiny bit. While it's not as romantic, it's the way reality works. Mostly.
It sounds like Krapivin is continuing his education. And hopefully his hard work will hone his brilliance and help him to make even more discoveries in the future.
- campbel 2y ago> because the idea that one can make revolutionary discoveries that contradicts the status quo as an outsider is an inherently attractive idea This might be satisfying if you have a grievance with the "institution" but to OP's point its also interesting because we often limit our areas of exploration to what is conventionally accepted. If you are ignorant of convention you are more likely to retread ground, but less likely to be bounded by it. As you say, conventional wisdom is conventional because its pretty dang good, so this doesn't often pay off.
- Pxtl 2y agoYeah, everybody wants to be the Karate Kid who binged karate studies in one montage and then won the tournament instead of training in the dojo for years and still having to cheat to come close to winning (and still failing) like the chumps at Cobra Kai.
- phkahler 2y ago>> Yeah, everybody wants to be the Karate Kid who binged karate studies in one montage and then won the tournament instead of training in the dojo for years and still having to cheat to come close to winning (and still failing) like the chumps at Cobra Kai. Somehow I think you missed the lesson of that movie - if there is one. It's been a long time and I can't put it into words well, but I suspect it was about someone with character and humility vs brute force and cheating. Something like that, but far different from underdog find shortcut to success.
- moomin 2y agoI think Karate Kid must win the prize for the most diegetic analysis of the original text of all time.
- Pxtl 2y agoI know it's beside the point of the film, but it's still worth thinking of what it would be like to train for years and years on end at an infamously brutal school to be handily defeated by a kid with a few months of one-on-one mentorship.
- casey2 2y agoThis exact thread was posted the last time this article was posted. Is this site all bots. Hello? any real humans?!?!
- forbiddenvoid 2y agoThat was the first thought I had, too! Glitch in the Matrix, anyone?
- fragmede 2y agosecond chance pool? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
- Arnavion 2y agoNot in this case. taylodi's comment is timestamped "2025-03-17T14:17:19 1742221039" , and lines up with Algolia's index. casey2 is presumably referring to the similar-sounding, not identical, top comment in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43002511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43002511
- bloqs 2y agoJust old farts repeating the same 4 perspective responses to each other without remembering nor caring for the last time they did it
- taylodl 2y agoHey! I resemble that remark! :)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- refulgentis 2y agoBeen here for 15 years, there's been a slight eternal summer / "YCombinator is a Thing Now" effect and a quite dramatic effect of agreeableness being rewarded --- when people hear "agreeableness", they can misread it as kindness --- on HN, a common manifestation of agreeableness is the not-even-wrong idea that physics is stuck.
- forbiddenvoid 2y agoWe can have both. I think we need both. Some problems are better suited to solutions coming from outsiders. Most are not. We don't know which are which.
- jl6 2y agoPhysics skunkworks where the inductees are purposefully shielded from status quo ideas, as a hedge against local maxima.
- PlunderBunny 2y agoSounds like a great idea for a science fiction story.
- jdougan 2y ago“The Gold at the Starbow’s End” by Frederik Pohl is in that direction. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_at_the_Starbow%27s_End https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gold_at_the_Starbow%27s_En...
- ryanmcbride 2y agoSounds like a good use for Severance (the process from the show).
- SirYandi 2y agoI find that thought reassuring. There is less of a gap between oneself and the greats than one might think.