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Elite Underproduction

troynikov.io

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Re: Elite Underproduction

#91

Post by slt2021 »

RNCTX wrote: post #64
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. In a land where money buys everything, you think culture is the reason why a thing exists or doesn't exist? I think you're…

do you really think that FAANG companies want to pay less? they are already top paying employers, i think you are mistaken

Re: Elite Underproduction

#92

Post by nickelpro »

native_samples wrote: post #89
robbmorganf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overproduction of physics PhDs relative to academic positions available Why are positions researching physics so closely tied to academic positions? We probably don't need too many more physics professors but we sure could use more physics research. Or maybe better physics research. Either way, more/better physics discoveries. That said, our scientific communication channels seem filled to the brink. So maybe we ne…

Do we need more physics research? I guess it depends a lot on how you define physics, but it seems like outside of possibly better silicon nodes, there isn't a whole lot of low hanging fruit in physics at the moment. When physics does get research funding it gets dropped into building giant machines that, at vast expense, have discovered virtually nothing. It feels like right now most areas of academia are consuming…

An incredibly short sighted view of academic utility. Maxwell's work on radio waves took 30 years to be developed into a "useful output".

The purpose of scientific advancement cannot be understood on the timetables of capitalistic utility.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#93

Post by marcinzm »

ryandrake wrote: post #33
kafkaIncarnate wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

OP said you can make $200k straight out of undergrad, which is probably technically true, like it's technically true that I can win the lottery or get struck by lightning. There is probably a new grad somewhere making $200k in far-far right tail of the distribution. Just like it's technically true that you can make $400k (or $600k or $1M, whatever the popular number to cite is now) as a software engineer. Yes, these…

If you think it's that far in the right tail then you're really underestimating how much large tech companies pay even new grads.

edit: Also, $400k is about standard for a senior SE at a large tech company or late stage startup nowadays.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#94

Post by diognesofsinope »

bidirectional wrote: post #42
ryandrake wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP said you can make $200k straight out of undergrad, which is probably technically true, like it's technically true that I can win the lottery or get struck by lightning. There is probably a new grad somewhere making $200k in far-far right tail of the distribution. Just like it's technically true that you can make $400k (or $600k or $1M, whatever the popular number to cite is now) as a software engineer. Yes, these…

I really don't think it's that far out in the tails, especially given we're discussing top universities. If you're at MIT/Harvard/Stanford you're definitely aiming for 200k TC fresh out of undergrad.

Exactly my thought:

A CS degree from Stanford almost has to start at at least 90k.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#95

Post by Shacklz »

watwut wrote: post #59
dash2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And countra argument is that smart capable educated people choosing to do machine learning instead of physics is not social issue.

You want your brightest in society to do things that further society/humanity as a whole; playing the stock-market game or optimizing models to further consumerism (which is what most ML in the industry boils down to, let's be honest) isn't exactly doing that.

Everyone's absolutely free to work on whatever they want, that's for sure. But from a society point of view, we should ask ourselves if our system sets the right incentives.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#96

Post by native_samples »

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.

That would result in extremely large quantities of junk science of use to nobody. Increasing research funding must be entirely off the table until non-replicable research papers are no longer field-destroying problems.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#97

Post by rewq4321 »

Started off interesting (RE institutions evolving into infrastructure for supporting zero-sum games), but then devolved into some hypotheses (stated as facts) about physicists moving to computer science and machine learning being a bad thing.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#98

Post by pydry »

native_samples wrote: post #89
robbmorganf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overproduction of physics PhDs relative to academic positions available Why are positions researching physics so closely tied to academic positions? We probably don't need too many more physics professors but we sure could use more physics research. Or maybe better physics research. Either way, more/better physics discoveries. That said, our scientific communication channels seem filled to the brink. So maybe we ne…

Do we need more physics research? I guess it depends a lot on how you define physics, but it seems like outside of possibly better silicon nodes, there isn't a whole lot of low hanging fruit in physics at the moment. When physics does get research funding it gets dropped into building giant machines that, at vast expense, have discovered virtually nothing. It feels like right now most areas of academia are consuming…

"There is nothing new left to be discovered in physics now. All that is left is more and more precise measurement." -- Lord Kelvin, 1900

Re: Elite Underproduction

#99

Post by pydry »

enkid wrote: post #88
robbmorganf wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overproduction of physics PhDs relative to academic positions available Why are positions researching physics so closely tied to academic positions? We probably don't need too many more physics professors but we sure could use more physics research. Or maybe better physics research. Either way, more/better physics discoveries. That said, our scientific communication channels seem filled to the brink. So maybe we ne…

Is this actually the case? There is a lot of research that is occuring in the private sector or research labs and the such. A lot of it is being done at universities, but us there an actual quantified measure if what percentage of research is not in a teaching institution versus what is?

Instead of trying to quantify research (not really measuable in any meaningful sense) perhaps ask yourself how physics has improved your every day life and then ask yourself which improvements you think society should have given up in exchange for a greater supply of quants.

Things like the microchip, wifi, rocketry, satellites, jet engines, etc.

If the answer is "none of it" that tends to suggest underproduction.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#100

Post by Robotbeat »

cm2012 wrote: post #63
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not quite. American across the sea immigration selects for the smartest and most ambitious people in the world. It's natural that they and their descendants will outperform most Americans.

& it benefits Americans (even those whose families have been here for generations) tremendously.

I am a “native born” American, and I’ve benefited a lot from having a whole bunch of extremely smart immigrants in my field. My physics graduate school mentor was from Ukraine, my advisor was an immigrant from China. The person who hired me out of graduate school to an aerospace/materials science job was an immigrant from the Philippines. Several of the coworkers who have best coached and mentored me were immigrants from Zimbabwe and Korea. Generally more helpful and kind to me than native-born coworkers. It is as positive sum as it gets.

(although I don’t think it lasts very long past first or second generation immigrants. It’s more individual choice and family culture than anything. So the only way to keep the benefit of cherrypicking & equipping the most ambitious and brightest among the world is to continuously encourage high skilled immigration.)

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