Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories • Hacker News Board

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#171

Post by gozur88 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:18 AM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #142

tikhonj wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This question comes up in most discussions about finance and trading. I think it's the wrong question to ask. Academic research jobs, despite poor pay and conditions, are still some of the hardest positions to get . The demand for those jobs far, far outstrips supply. It's hard to get into a decent PhD program and then basically impossible to get a decent faculty position (or join MSR or whatever). Candidates aren't…

> Academic research jobs, despite poor pay and conditions, are still some of the hardest positions to get. The demand for those jobs far, far outstrips supply. Well that's exactly the problem. We as a society have decided that our brightest minds should be working in finance. I think that's outrageous, and that we should be utilizing their minds for the greater good instead. In other words, we need to increase the su…

>Well that's exactly the problem. We as a society have decided that our brightest minds should be working in finance.

That's not it at all. The best and brightest people have decided what they'd really love to do is take a tenured position at a prestigious university and do research.

Since finance companies that need really smart people can't offer that kind of life they have to compensate with cash.

This says nothing about what "we as a society" have decided. What this tells us is finance is boring.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#172

Post by fsloth » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:46 AM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #170

fsloth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing philosophising about a better way to live with knowledge of empirical results in politics and economy. I know very well communism as such does not work, and that at our current stage of development we need prices and markets for resource optimization. And laws and judicial systems and so on. But. The play chips are imaginary. We play by the rules due to convention, not due to a law of nature. The ri…

I hate to bust yer bubble :) , but the Founders were largely deeply indebted aristocrats who felt mostly a slight to their honor. That is largely why the Revolution happened. The British Empire continued into the "sun never sets" level. The effects of the British Empire on the colonies has been a mixture of good and bad. They thought about it hard, in a John Stuart Mill way about it. They were often wrong, many were…

"I hate to bust yer bubble :) , but the Founders were largely deeply indebted aristocrats who felt mostly a slight to their honor. That is largely why the Revolution happened."

Sorry, I was a bit hyperbolic. I did not claim the founding fathers were anything but what you say.

From historical perspective, what they achieved, was an exceptionally good outcome. Namely - they created a new system of government that did not degenarate into a dictatorship despite the tumultuous beginnings and enormous popular and military support for some of it's leaders (e.g. Washington).

My purpose was to point out that designed changes on how a society operates can be implemented and the change can be implemented in good form. The USA was perhaps a bit too extreme example, as there are many others, less radical as well.

"I'd also dump Maslow soon. There's too much hubris amongst the rich and powerful for it to work well."

I've found the hierarchy of needs a fantastic model in simplicity and power in exploring human condition. What specifically is wrong with it?

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#173

Post by fsloth » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:57 AM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #169

fsloth wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is wishing for a world where it would be better to help eradicate suffering rather than work to accumulate imaginary play chips bad?

The best ( biggest impact ) ways in which human suffering has been relieved have largely been A Whole Lot about people accumulating imaginary play chips. An example - Alexander Fleming and penicillin - getting penicillin to large scale production and to market was a huge task. Most things are like that.

Yes - as I stated in another comment we need prices and markets for resource optimization.

The comment to which I replied chaffed at thinking there could be any other system than what there currently is. To me this is a dangerously rigid way to view the human life. Everything should be questioned, if only to find answers.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#174

Post by fsloth » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 9:55 AM UTC

jawilson2 wrote: post #64

fsloth wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because biology does not stop? The older the parents the riskier having kids becomes. The last time I looked at science there was no vow of staying childless required.

I kind of like the irony of the scientific "class" becoming childless, like a priesthood. It's probably not too far from the truth. Kind of like the two couples in Idiocracy.

Yes. Especially since historically the idea of a childless priesthood is a stopgap to stop too much wealth and power accumulating for the priestly class through inheritance.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#175

Post by consz » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 10:59 AM UTC

JDiculous wrote: post #151

tikhonj wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, we need to increase the supply of these research jobs, and make them more attractive then working in finance. That's a fair summary. My core point was that it's far more a matter of constrained research positions rather than finance being so alluring. It's not hard to make a research position more attractive to most bright minds than finance: you just have to offer autonomy, a bit of prestige and wo…

I agree. Regarding prop trading, prop trading itself is the betting of the firm's own money for profit. I equated it to gambling because that's what it is. On a net basis, this doesn't really benefit society because it's essentially a zero sum game. Market making on the other hand does benefit society by providing/ensuring liquidity.

Most market makers are prop trading firms, though -- I think it's incorrect to act like these classifications aren't highly correlated.

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#176

Post by Chinjut » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 11:09 AM UTC

xamuel wrote: post #160

Pure math phd here, now working in finance. On a personal level I wish I could've been a research professor. But on an objective level, in pure math the invisible hand of the market is acting correctly. There's already so much amazing pure math published, you could devote your whole life just to understanding 1/100th of the math published in the 1990s, to say nothing of the stuff published in 2016. We don't need more…

Do we need more finance people? I wouldn't say we "need" much of anything; we could go any which way.

So who says the invisible hand of the market is acting correctly if it makes your life dream of being a research professor crumble and forces you into finance work instead?

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#177

Post by jawilson2 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:12 PM UTC

gozur88 wrote: post #171

JDiculous wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Academic research jobs, despite poor pay and conditions, are still some of the hardest positions to get. The demand for those jobs far, far outstrips supply. Well that's exactly the problem. We as a society have decided that our brightest minds should be working in finance. I think that's outrageous, and that we should be utilizing their minds for the greater good instead. In other words, we need to increase the su…

>Well that's exactly the problem. We as a society have decided that our brightest minds should be working in finance. That's not it at all. The best and brightest people have decided what they'd really love to do is take a tenured position at a prestigious university and do research. Since finance companies that need really smart people can't offer that kind of life they have to compensate with cash. This says nothin…

> The best and brightest people have decided what they'd really love to do is take a tenured position at a prestigious university and do research.

Except we are slowly getting rid of tenure, and "that kind of life" is in no way glamorous for 99% of researchers. You have to be passionate about research to the detriment of nearly every other aspect of your life, or independently wealthy, so live comfortably (again, for most people).

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#178

Post by jawilson2 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:18 PM UTC

reverend_gonzo wrote: post #161

Chinjut wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about standard issue ad-driven, marketing-driven software engineering jobs? Wasn't the alternative in this case brain/epilepsy neurology research?

I think everyone would agree that saying "I can't believe you work at Google/Facebook/Twitter instead of curing cancer" would be ridiculous. Yet, every time finance work is mentioned, someone brings up "I can't believe you work in finance instead of curing cancer." Guess what? I don't want to work on curing cancer. I used to. I went to school for biomedical engineering and wanted to work on big problems. I realized I…

I begrudgingly agree. It is similar to me to a star athlete making millions. Most people aren't happy that we value athletes over teachers, but free market, yada yada yada. I get paid well to solve puzzles every day. It's fun, and I can buy groceries without using a credit card. I wish I could make a living with a reasonable amount of stress doing research, but we have arrived at the point where we can't do that. Supply is out-stripping demand for PhDs, so prices fall.

tl;dr - Go short on PhD salaries!

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#179

Post by Bartweiss » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 3:21 PM UTC

dilemma wrote: post #159

T-A wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any…

He sounds bitter.

Not so - he turned down the IAS long before writing that!

The full context there is that he spent a semester exempt from teaching to have more time for research. He produced very little and was deeply embarrassed, until he eventually realized that many of his insights came from rehearsing fundamentals and talking to people in other subfields.

So he returned to teaching, and when the IAS came knocking he refused on the grounds that it was the worst environment for him to work. Certainly I think he's overgeneralizing (the IAS has seen some pretty good results since that time), but this wasn't about jealousy!

Re: Young, talented and fed-up: scientists tell their stories

#180

Post by jawilson2 » Fri, Oct 28, 2016, 4:31 PM UTC

neuromantik8086 wrote: post #157

jawilson2 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Working in finance and sponsoring science aren't mutually exclusive. Some open source tools that are now mainstays in the scientific Python stack originated in finance (pandas is perhaps the most prominent example). It's highly doubtful that any of these tools would have been funded using traditional grants, so... positive externalities ahoy! Furthermore, firms such as DE Shaw and Renaissance Technologies directly im…

A lot of neuroscience and financial analysis algorithms are borrowed or transitioned from one another, e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granger_causality. That is a big reason why the transition was so easy for me. If you can develop models to use brain signals as features and predict where the arm will be in 500ms, you can do the same thing with market data.