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Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#41

Post by boredemployee »

issa wrote: post #28
boredemployee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Statistically, the opposite is happening: human knowledge is becoming deeper. Do you have a source to point to? (honestly wondering) >> to converse intelligently about things outside one's area of expertise Just had this conversation the other day. 90% of my old college teachers (engineering) could talk about and explain in depth many many topics out of their field (philosophy, history, geography and what not). Th…

I think it is important to remember not to value judge these sorts of widespread skills. Does it matter today that I can't shape a flint or ride a horse?

There's this common sense that creativity and great ideas come when you gather two "unrelated topics", maybe riding a horse can spark some new idea in a new field (ie. robotics)

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#42

Post by Kye »

Syonyk wrote: post #9

The tech industry has "eaten its young." By this, I mean that it has systematically destroyed the source of people who grow up with the passion to learn tech at the deep levels that make for the people the tech industry likes to hire for the core, foundational stuff that makes things run. About a decade ago, I understand Google's SRE hiring pipeline was struggling, because Google had singlehandedly destroyed their be…

I watched this happen in real-time, though not at a university. I graduated with a network admin degree (AAS) right around the time the market was collapsing in 2008/2009. I watched as all the in-house IT jobs vanished and were replaced with cloud offerings as I worked on my degree. They had to cut costs, I get it, but it meant I couldn't actually do anything with the degree. All that was left were outsourcing firms that wanted lots of experience if they were hiring at all.

Good thing a state scholarship paid for most of it. I did at least get a little better at math and a lot better at writing while getting an introduction to economics. Those non-tech prerequisites fixed a lot that K-12 broke. I lost all interest in a tech career as my confidence in other areas grew. Tech was just the obvious track after running the family's network at home.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#44

Post by whimsicalism »

bawolff wrote: post #36

I think the obvious answer is "no the world isn't" Do you have any evidence that young people are significantly different than people of the past that is not ancedotal? I would suggest you probably just have nostalgia for an imaginary past which never existed. You remember the impressive people of your youth and forget all the mediocre ones.

Yes if anything the evidence suggests that the younger are smarter, more literate, etc. on aggregate than past generations, esp. when controlling for other factors like family income, etc. When you expand to a global view, this is undoubtedly true.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#45

Post by paulpauper »

woodruffw wrote: post #12

Statistically, the opposite is happening: human knowledge is becoming deeper . The arc of human knowledge throughout history bends towards specialization : never before in human history have so many people been educated in so many different subdomains, each different in methodology, discipline, and scope. This is evinced by rising numbers of postgraduate degrees, increasing diversity in academic specialization, etc.…

Except perhaps theoretical physics and maybe pure math. You have to pretty much know everything of equal depth to make progress in those domains. You cannot specialize, you have to know it all.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#46

Post by boredemployee »

spoonjim wrote: post #33
boredemployee wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Statistically, the opposite is happening: human knowledge is becoming deeper. Do you have a source to point to? (honestly wondering) >> to converse intelligently about things outside one's area of expertise Just had this conversation the other day. 90% of my old college teachers (engineering) could talk about and explain in depth many many topics out of their field (philosophy, history, geography and what not). Th…

College professors are like the academically top 1% of CS graduates. Are you comparing apples to apples?

I didn't come from CS :)

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#47

Post by franciscop »

I would argue that people who go deep are invisible for most of their early career to the general public, and only become famous (if ever) once they use this knowledge years later, at which point someone might ask about their past and they could explain how many thousands of hours they spent holed up learning.

Even within your extended local social graph this is likely to be the case, imagine if your e.g. neighbor's teen spends years learning about any topic, if you ask your neighbor then they're not likely to tell you (might not even know!) about this, instead would tell you the typical "oh you know he's a teenager and hangs out with his friends and is all day playing videogames" or might tell you on the surface "he's interested in science". You might only get a more accurate picture within a close social graph, but then it's statistically very unlikely that any of those are one of those dig-deep geniuses.

I've seen at least 3 examples in the Open Source/DIY communities of news about some popular-ish people who shocked everyone when they revealed their age and were teenagers. Some times they hid it intentionally to avoid being judged against, some times they just never mentioned.

BTW, the more generic "young people are lazy/don't want to put effort" is a meme that has been said for literally centuries by the respective older generations:

https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/407/503/119...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2013/05/me-me-me-generation-...

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#48

Post by mrwnmonm »

scrollaway wrote: post #40

OP, you will likely be interested in this talk by Bert Hubert: How Tech Loses Out over at Companies, Countries and Continents: On how companies lose deep knowledge and stop innovating https://berthub.eu/articles/posts/how-tech-loses-out/ As a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQccNdwm8Tw

Thanks

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#49

Post by senectus1 »

Not sure i agree... I've been watching my kids find a subject on youtube and delve deeeep into it. My boy (14) has spend the last 2 years solid teaching himself to program almost exclusively through youtube videos to a point where he is way ahead of his schools ability to keep up with him.

He's not going to coder dojo and finding that he's so far ahead of those kids that the leaders are asking him to train some of the other kids.

My daughter is more art focused and spends hours watching art tutorials.

The kids are specializing in my corner of the world. Not sure what you're seeing.

Re: Ask HN: Is the world suffering from shallow knowledge?

#50

Post by nbzso »

whimsicalism wrote: post #32
nbzso wrote: post #29

There is no stopping of "current" mode. Yet. When presenting my PD work for the young guns, I UX them to unconsciousness:) Scratching the surface of a given topic and focusing on comfortable for them communication is the key. I always let the door be open for the deeper questions without selling my "extra" knowledge or experience. They have to be the stars in the room, knowledgeable professionals have a critical way…

Generalizing about the younger generation, a tale as old as time. You are so much smarter and wiser than all of them, good job.

Actually, yes. The tech industry has a strong fetish for "young and capable" and a proven record of ageism and undervaluation of professionals.

I have taken my share on both sides of the spectrum.

And I understand your "reactive" reaction perfectly. And approve it wholeheartedly, but we are reaching the point where things are looking scary and someone must take "the burden" and share honestly. Self-censoring is a real thing.

With all this "political correctness" we forget that this friction between "young and old" when managed properly can make the world a better place.

By the way, I respect and work with a lot of young people and regularly listen carefully for inspiration and fresh points of view from them.

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