solveit

56 ms·

571.
by solveit 6y ago
I'm enthusiastic about this idea, with the caveat that I worry filtering for passion will be much harder (given that we must assume candidates will actively seek to hack the filtering process) than filtering for ability.
572.
by solveit 6y ago
Fwiw, NP includes P, so it's not true that problems in NP are hard to solve, easy to verify. You want to limit the statement to NP-complete problems. Even then, it's only true that solving the problems in full generality is (conje
573.
by solveit 6y ago
It doesn't have to be the best, merely better than what is used now. And what is used now is some obfuscated proxies of socioeconomic status.
574.
by solveit 6y ago
I'm specifically not talking about the SAT and ACT since they're widely used by elite universities. Those tests top out way too early and can't reliably distinguish between the top 1% and the top 0.1% (The fraction of perfect
575.
by solveit 6y ago
> Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. This is by design. There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. Elite US universities go out of their ways to not use them
576.
by solveit 6y ago
> Even if you take tests at face value, do you accept the student who aces math but bombs literature, or the student who is merely above average in both? This is the kind of tradeoff I'd be happy to see colleges worried about. Compl
577.
by solveit 6y ago
Of course it exempts real estate...
578.
by solveit 6y ago
> if you judge everyone by (objective) standard tests, Goodhart's Law takes effect, and we breed a generation of highly optimized test takers. As opposed to a generation of people highly optimized for a fuzzier metric that neverthel
579.
by solveit 6y ago
Explain the spectral theorem for compact self-adjoint operators to me as if I'm an undergrad and then I'll take you seriously.
580.
by solveit 6y ago
Collider, happens with lots of good things that correlate. To put it rather bluntly, if they were both competent and sharply dressed, they'd have a better job.
581.
by solveit 6y ago
QC seems more like the next, next, next big thing. We've only just got a POC for quantum supremacy. It'll be a while until QC outperforms classical in any practical problem, and longer until it becomes useful enough to get big.
582.
by solveit 6y ago
I do feel the need to add that these examples of people who were too brilliant to need degrees are not very useful answers for the OP, as amusing as the anecdotes may be.
583.
by solveit 6y ago
Barry Mazur, who is a professor of mathematics at Harvard, also only has a PhD. He left the Bronx High School of Science in his junior year to attend MIT without a diploma. He then neglected to complete an ROTC requirement at MIT, but he wa
584.
by solveit 6y ago
> Keep in mind this is a large public university charging $40k/year. Funny enough, that grad student was almost certainly making less than that. Universities are screwed up.
585.
by solveit 6y ago
I really don't see armed revolt going well in any scenario.
586.
by solveit 6y ago
Does the Cauchy distribution ever actually show up?
587.
by solveit 6y ago
This is beautiful
588.
by solveit 6y ago
Colleagues, sure. Patients, NO. Especially since this will harm even potential patients who would have had no problem with Scott. The problem isn't that patients will read SSC, decide that Scott isn't cool, and Scott loses busines
589.
by solveit 6y ago
So Scott the psychiatrist's reputation can take a hit? If Scott Alexander writes shitty stuff, Scott Alexander's name will take a hit. And there's nothing wrong with that, because his future work will also be published under
590.
by solveit 6y ago
I see no particular reason to believe that the piece was going to be positive.
591.
by solveit 6y ago
Hanson explicitly disagrees, to quote: >Yet it is easy to show that we can both have more money and save more lives if we are more consistent about the price we pay for lives in the many different death-risk-versus-cost choices that we m
592.
by solveit 6y ago
Sure, so give me a number. Eventually somebody [1] has to make a high-level decision on which strategy to pursue. And they have to give directives that can be followed by people who don't know your entire thought processes. That'
593.
by solveit 6y ago
Can someone get me an actual number so I know what to think?
594.
by solveit 6y ago
I don't know about a source, but Conway had been compiling knot tables since high school, and as a knot with only 11 crossings, the Conway knot is certain to have been on his radar. It's just such a simple knot, and sliceness such
595.
by solveit 6y ago
If you're arguing about whether some weapon is a WMD after the fact, good faith isn't really something we can count on. The whole point of precise definitions is eliminating subjectivity. Anyway, that definition includes cruise mi
596.
by solveit 6y ago
It's hard to accidentally insider trade and very hard to get prosecuted for accidental insider trading in the United States. Europe, maybe. But not the US.
597.
by solveit 6y ago
> I have a problem with copyright being transferable. The purpose of copyright is to encourage the creators. If you transfer a copyright or license it out, its term should get shortened dramatically. "Congratulations--you got a payo
598.
by solveit 6y ago
I am saying your definition of evidence is overly strict and at odds with both how we use the term in common speech and with what is useful. My definition of evidence for A is an observation B such that P(A|B)>P(A), and with this definit
599.
by solveit 6y ago
Lack of evidence is always weak evidence for evidence of lack, and pretty strong evidence if you've looked hard enough. If you've trawled through loch Ness with a fine toothed comb for decades and haven't seen Nessie, well th
600.
by solveit 6y ago
HN is more libertarian than conservative. The libertarianism often aligns HN with conservatives, but HN and conservatives diverge wildly when it comes to government overreach, whether that be police brutality, cryptography regulation, or th

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