91–100 of 186 posts
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Yes!!! You will undoubtedly make a greater impact by earning as much as you can and donating it to causes later in life. Some people think research or science is the only path to a better society but in all honesty it may just take paying people in a poor country to plant trees.
Linus Torvalds. Richard Stallman. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nikola Tesla. Dr. John Snow.
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Do you ever feel that maybe you shouldn't talk about things you don't understand? Working a prop trading firm is nowhere near "making rich people richer via gambling in the financial markets". Furthermore, the majority of software/engineering jobs out there are not doing "something more beneficial to society". How many companies are really just ad-driven, marketing-driven. Yes, it would be nice if the entire world co…
Yes!!! You will undoubtedly make a greater impact by earning as much as you can and donating it to causes later in life. Some people think research or science is the only path to a better society but in all honesty it may just take paying people in a poor country to plant trees.
That said, research is seriously underfunded.
I'm curious why this field hasn't been "privatized" to some degree. Why doesn't division of labor apply? Why not have scientists go off and do their research and rely on a team that is skilled at hoarding grants or publishing works from raw data? I imagine it's probably due to some institutional barriers (e.g. you can't get funding outside of a university context). I imagine the reason is as always - our leaders are…
Partly because science is very specialized. If I work on something new, then it's possible there is very few people in the world that know it or will easily understand it. I couldn't have someone else write a paper or grant proposal based on it - either they wouldn't understand it, or they are a fellow scientist who wouldn't want to do it either.
The mistake, in my opinion, is making the number of papers published a metric on which you determine a scientist's worth. Just like most metric-ization of society today, it's a bad idea.
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I hope you aren't downvoted for this, as this is basically my exact thought process for the last few years. > make rich people richer It is prop trading, so we are making ourselves richer, technically. We do a lot of charity work and donations with schools, etc. > Doesn't it feel like a waste of your talents Absolutely. However, I also like not having to beg my toddler to eat the food in front of him because payday i…
The cost of education (Fees) are going higher. Research/Researchers are not getting funded. Where is the money going to? Infrastructure of the universities?
"if you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to…
You can always do some variant of "we tried this, it didn't work; in the future, you no longer have to spend money to see if this will work." Right?
[1] Removing the triple negative: it should always be possible to prove the money accomplished something.
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Why is wishing for a world where it would be better to help eradicate suffering rather than work to accumulate imaginary play chips bad?
Wishing for unrealistic fantasy to become reality is just that, unrealistic. Anecdote: Many of my high school friends and peers went on to pursue medicine. I pursued engineering. Multiple times I was asked by these people, "You're smart so why aren't you spending your life making a difference?" Your comment and its ilk remind me of that question.
"if you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to…
Sorry if I'm missing the point of this quote, but it seems wrong to me that you "can't point to something to prove the money wasn't wasted".[1] You can always do some variant of "we tried this, it didn't work; in the future, you no longer have to spend money to see if this will work." Right? [1] Removing the triple negative: it should always be possible to prove the money accomplished something.
"if you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to…
Sorry if I'm missing the point of this quote, but it seems wrong to me that you "can't point to something to prove the money wasn't wasted".[1] You can always do some variant of "we tried this, it didn't work; in the future, you no longer have to spend money to see if this will work." Right? [1] Removing the triple negative: it should always be possible to prove the money accomplished something.
[Of course, some may disagree with this assessment; just throwing it in for your consideration.]
"if you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to…
There was a point where this made inherent sense - no one but research experts could educate new students, and students were attempting to quickly reach the state of the art. That's long past - a complex analysis expert with no training in education is a terrible candidate to teach basic multivariable calculus.
And yet the whole thing makes a sick sort of sense, because paying and tenuring a professor to teach classes justifies their presence without demanding publications. They'll muddle through intro classes without causing any real problems, and can go back to being brilliant on no particular schedule in between lectures.
Or, on the flip side, set up something like the Institute for Advanced Study. It only took already-proven brilliance, so it could justify paying people for years without any breakthroughs to justify it.
"if you pay a man a salary for doing research, he and you will want to have something to point to at the end of the year to show that the money has not been wasted. In promising work of the highest class, however, results do not come in this regular fashion, in fact years may pass without any tangible result being obtained, and the position of the paid worker would be very embarrassing and he would naturally take to…
I've seen this used to explain the odd dovetailing of research and lecturing. There was a point where this made inherent sense - no one but research experts could educate new students, and students were attempting to quickly reach the state of the art. That's long past - a complex analysis expert with no training in education is a terrible candidate to teach basic multivariable calculus. And yet the whole thing makes…