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Elite Underproduction

troynikov.io

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Re: Elite Underproduction

#51

Post by kodah »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #43
finexplained wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think the connection you're trying to draw follows immediately. There are very strong domestic students, probably enough to fill all the top PhD programs. The calculus for pursuing a PhD is different if you're a domestic vs international student. If you're international and want to move to and eventually live in the US, where some of the highest paying jobs in the world are available, then first gettin…

If that was the case then FAANG wouldn't be filled with Asians and engineers from ex-Soviet countries. The makeup of high paying tech companies does not represent in any way the makeup of the American population. I posit the reason this is the case is American culture and anti-intellectualism. If you look at top public school undergrad programs that don't practice affirmative action (UC's, UW) the programs are almost…

I don't know that America is anti-intellectual beyond a facade. It's easy to not like something that you'll perceivably never have or can manage to live without. Education is mainly reserved for the select few, and those select few aren't so revered anymore. People all want the same opportunities, but they're definitely not anywhere close to universally attainable. If you give people access to those things then I think you'll see that facade drip away.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#52

Post by max002 »

Im curious about one thing and im self-taugh so please forgive lack of understanding of uni world. Youre saying that physicist who do machine learning should be instead trying to unserstand physical world. While not having academic background i do read a lot of science news (its my porn:D) and now and then i see stuff like "new strong material discoveded by ml", "ml speeds up discovery of composite materials" or "ml speeds up new drugs discovery" and so on. How that does not improve our understanding of physical world?

Re: Elite Underproduction

#53

Post by TigeriusKirk »

losvedir wrote: post #37

Offtopic, but the article uses and defines "MAGMA", meaning Meta, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. That actually makes a lot of sense to me. How did Netflix make it into the usual acronym and not Microsoft?

Netflix was there primarily because its compensation was in the same tier.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#54

Post by thrower123 »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #43
finexplained wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think the connection you're trying to draw follows immediately. There are very strong domestic students, probably enough to fill all the top PhD programs. The calculus for pursuing a PhD is different if you're a domestic vs international student. If you're international and want to move to and eventually live in the US, where some of the highest paying jobs in the world are available, then first gettin…

If that was the case then FAANG wouldn't be filled with Asians and engineers from ex-Soviet countries. The makeup of high paying tech companies does not represent in any way the makeup of the American population. I posit the reason this is the case is American culture and anti-intellectualism. If you look at top public school undergrad programs that don't practice affirmative action (UC's, UW) the programs are almost…

The smartest Americans go into law and medicine and banking, because the expected value is even higher for bright people in those fields than technology.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#55

Post by watwut »

rayiner wrote: post #16
civilized wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but wonder if the current economy, with all its inequality and disproportionate rewards for the highly skilled, is a necessary step on the path towards changing the anti-intellectual US culture. You get more of what you reward and less of what you don't. It's not always a pleasant truth, but it's a powerful one.

Calling it a “step” implies moving in that direction. But the problem in America is that the counter-movement against “anti-intellectualism” is just as anti-intellectual. More people are going to college, but they’re not majoring in math and science. We have an ever expanding ecosystem of non-rigorous *studies fields. These are arguably even less valuable than the cultural norms of Bible-thumping small towns. At leas…

Most college students go for practical and business majors. They literally go for what seems to promiss them money.

The *studies fields are rather small proportion of students. They also cluster mostly in top universities. It is just not true that they would dominated universities.

That one is just paranoia and blaming what you hate anyway.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#56

Post by convolvatron »

lostdog wrote: post #41
golemotron wrote: post #20

The author wants to manufacture demand. It's not that easy.

It is simple, but not easy. Just replicate DARPA+NIH+NSF, and increase the total research budget by 100x, and ensure there are stable career paths to be a researcher until retirement.

more importantly, have money in DARPA+NIH+NSF like institutions and find some success metric that lets you reward fundamental basic science rather than things that are of interest to the military or commercial establishments.

i worked on DARPA contracts for quite a number of years...they were...ok? but you still had to spend some energy talking about how this was going to benefit the warfighter or lead to something that was going to make someone alot of money

NIH and NSF are certainly better, but my impression is that you still get alot of points in NSF land for showing a path towards commericialization

Re: Elite Underproduction

#57

Post by stale2002 »

kafkaIncarnate wrote: post #24
yaacov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because of visas. In the US you can study CS at a good school now and make $200k straight out of undergrad. Makes a technical PhD a lot less tempting

Where are you getting that $200k figure? These are for not just out of college: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/computer-science-salary-S... https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Co... https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Master_of_Scienc...

The numbers you are looking for are here:

www.levels.fyi

Getting a job at Google, isn't exactly easy. But it is a far cry from "as hard as winning the lotto" that other people were implying it is.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#58

Post by Glyptodon »

I think this guy has a point, but it's not actually a rebuttal to the elite overproduction thesis, it's more like "for this one angle of one piece of the elite overproduction issue we could actually do something."

There are lots more people with PHDs that get pushed out of the academic research career direction they might have aspired to. And if more of them could successfully follow their dreams it'd probably be good. But that doesn't seem like a rebuttal to me.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#59

Post by watwut »

dash2 wrote: post #27
danny_codes wrote: post #22

I find this kind of thinking kind of insulting actually. As a guy with a physics degree who's doing machine learning (precisely what the author bemoans), I don't feel like I "lapsed". I have other interests besides physics. There's a lot of things that aren't physics. > What they're not doing is advancing the human understanding of the physical world. I don't owe you anything. If this is your dream than do it yoursel…

He didn't blame the individuals, instead he argued that there's a social problem which society needs to solve.

And countra argument is that smart capable educated people choosing to do machine learning instead of physics is not social issue. That it is them not lapsing and doing less worthy intellectual pursuit.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#60

Post by throwaway9278 »

kafkaIncarnate wrote: post #24
yaacov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because of visas. In the US you can study CS at a good school now and make $200k straight out of undergrad. Makes a technical PhD a lot less tempting

Where are you getting that $200k figure? These are for not just out of college: https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/computer-science-salary-S... https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salaries/What-Is-the-Average-Co... https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Master_of_Scienc...

You probably won't make 200k right out of undergrad in bigtech these days. But you will within 2-3 years. Most of my acquaintances in bigtech make 220-260K by age 25 doing run-of-the-mill stuff. This does not require elite level skill or knowledge - just merely bright people who put in the time and pass the filters. Most of us are fairly mediocre.
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