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All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

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Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#111

Post by danking00 »

frossie wrote: post #58
patio11 wrote: post #24

My mother, who was disabled by a stroke some years ago, relies on no non-medical technology as much as she relies on Facebook. It is how she keeps up with the family, who are scattered across the country (and, er, world), without which she would never get to talk to aunts/uncles/cousins since they see each other only at events/reunions and she often isn't well enough to travel. I respect that folks don't find a lot o…

To be fair to the OP, their argument isn't "since I don't use it, nobody uses it". Their argument was a (totally defensible IMHO) personal expression of disappointment about all the brain work going into something whose impact seems to have peaked (in that those who want it already have it, and the rest of us don't have a problem it can solve). Sure, Facebook is a utility to millions or even billions of people, but s…

I know three very bright, young graduates who have decided to enter the Financial industry (i.e. Algorithmic Trading). One has a Bachelor's in Physics & CS, another a Bachelor's in Physics & Math, and the other is finishing a PhD in Astrophysics. They view the Financial industry as an intellectually stimulating game (I don't disagree), and an opportunity to make 6-figures in their early 20s.

This really disappoints me. Sure, somebody needs to work in Finance for the sake of liquidity and other things I don't understand. But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research. I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life.

My perspective is that of a Junior CS & Physics major reaching towards grad school and some sort of research be it academia or elsewhere.

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#112

Post by wolfgangK »

dekayed wrote: post #8

I was reminded of the following article when I read this blog posting: http://greaterseas.com/2011/05/the-future-of-innovation/ There's a great quote by Jeff Hammerbacher (an ex-Facebooker) that is great: “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks.”

Indeed. Not speaking about Facebook (no first hand experience to judge from) , but I 'm depressed by the amount of brainpower and wealth that our societies spend on zero-sum games such as high frequency trading and seo (I'm fully aware of there useful byproducts, but can't help to think that we'd be much better off with globally useful activities in the first place).

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#114

Post by scythe »

danking00 wrote: post #111
frossie wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair to the OP, their argument isn't "since I don't use it, nobody uses it". Their argument was a (totally defensible IMHO) personal expression of disappointment about all the brain work going into something whose impact seems to have peaked (in that those who want it already have it, and the rest of us don't have a problem it can solve). Sure, Facebook is a utility to millions or even billions of people, but s…

I know three very bright, young graduates who have decided to enter the Financial industry (i.e. Algorithmic Trading). One has a Bachelor's in Physics & CS, another a Bachelor's in Physics & Math, and the other is finishing a PhD in Astrophysics. They view the Financial industry as an intellectually stimulating game (I don't disagree), and an opportunity to make 6-figures in their early 20s. This really disappoints m…

>This really disappoints me. Sure, somebody needs to work in Finance for the sake of liquidity and other things I don't understand. But, 35% or so of my social group that are pursuing degrees in Physics are headed to Finance instead of research.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and this one is as bright as it gets. Until the rise of e.g. finance and actuarial science, getting a physics or math degree meant just going into academia. Now, with more demand for math or physics majors, there will be more demand for physics or math professors, which ultimately means more money going into math and physics research.

The existence of the medical and legal professions contributes vastly to the funding of schools of medicine and law, and this is no different. It's good, not bad, that there are other things you can do with a degree in advanced mathematics besides "teach grad students advanced mathematics and vie for increasingly-scarce federal grant money".

>I'd much rather seem them expand human knowledge than profit and live an easy life.

It's too bad we don't live in a country full of self-sacrificing saints, huh?

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#115

Post by wolfgangK »

mhansen wrote: post #93
tybris wrote: post #69

What are "useful" jobs?

Any job that someone's willing to pay to have done - by paying for the job, they indicate that it's worth that much money, and hence at least as useful as that money was.

That something is valuable to someone does not mean that it is useful for society as a whole cf. zero sum games or worse: Think about the guy whose job was to hide defects in nuclear power plant : certainly valuable for tepco, but for society as a whole? http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-23/fukushima-engineer-...

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#116

Post by dynosaur »

" When it comes to content, I much rather rely on the editorial board of the New York Times for my news, than what my “friends” find interesting. "

Relying on strangers for information while deriding one's peers as a source of information doesn't strike me as a wise course of action.

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#117

Post by JasonMoyMN79 »

patio11 wrote: post #24

My mother, who was disabled by a stroke some years ago, relies on no non-medical technology as much as she relies on Facebook. It is how she keeps up with the family, who are scattered across the country (and, er, world), without which she would never get to talk to aunts/uncles/cousins since they see each other only at events/reunions and she often isn't well enough to travel. I respect that folks don't find a lot o…

It's totally pathetic. All those clearly very intelligent people at Facebook, and they are working on what is basically a dating site, where you can poke people. Come on retards (yes you can be intelligent but still be a complete fucking idiot), why don't you go solve real problems in the world? Seriously.

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#118

Post by JasonMoyMN79 »

frossie wrote: post #58
patio11 wrote: post #24

My mother, who was disabled by a stroke some years ago, relies on no non-medical technology as much as she relies on Facebook. It is how she keeps up with the family, who are scattered across the country (and, er, world), without which she would never get to talk to aunts/uncles/cousins since they see each other only at events/reunions and she often isn't well enough to travel. I respect that folks don't find a lot o…

To be fair to the OP, their argument isn't "since I don't use it, nobody uses it". Their argument was a (totally defensible IMHO) personal expression of disappointment about all the brain work going into something whose impact seems to have peaked (in that those who want it already have it, and the rest of us don't have a problem it can solve). Sure, Facebook is a utility to millions or even billions of people, but s…

IAll those clearly very intelligent people at Facebook are totally pathetic. They are working on what is basically a dating site, where you can poke people. Come on retards (yes you can be intelligent but still be a complete fucking idiot), why don't you go solve real problems in the world?

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#119

Post by aristus »

pagefruit wrote: post #54
aristus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think that you'd not make it in? I'm a community college dropout. Research the company, check out some of the "easy" puzzles, etc. And send me an email if you are interested.

Just curious, how has your experience been getting jobs as a dropout? I dropped out of college a couple years ago as well, but found that a lot people wouldn't even talk to me simply because I didn't have a degree (or stopped talking once I told them), so I graduated eventually.

Lots of luck and some hard work. At the time (mid 90s) the job market was much better and everyone was hiring people to build ecommerce sites. It's harder in some ways now to get that entry level job. On the other hand it's phenomenally easier to start your own projects and get experience and attention. In the early 2000s I did a few open source projects which helped a lot. In 2007 or so I started writing articles on a regular basis, basically patching up holes in my education by taking on some subject and trying to explain it. If you lack one social signal ("he went to MIT") you can replace it with another ("he started the foobar project" or "he wrote that post about xyz").

Re: All these Brilliant People at Facebook Make Me Sad

#120

Post by georgieporgie »

gubatron wrote: post #77
georgieporgie wrote: post #43

Random prediction: ten years from now, a student in China will connect with a student in Germany over Facebook (or whatever mass-appeal social site rises to power). A friendship will grow into a partnership, yielding some of the greatest advances in energy technology of the century.

They'd be more likely to connect on StackOverflow or GitHub than Facebook. Facebook is a place where you go to chill and waste time, connect with old friends, check pics of old crushes, catch up on gossip, play games, or share links. The last thing you'd do there would be to search for another student, it's not built for that.

I suspect that Facebook -- and its use -- will continue to change over the course of the next decade. Currently, it looks like the most promising technology for mass user interaction that has been developed.

StackOverflow is basically a high signal-to-noise ratio content farm. It sells the illusion of fame in exchange for generating content. There is no meaningful social aspect to it. I don't see any signs of it evolving over time, as it seems to exist for a very specific purpose.

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