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Elite Underproduction

troynikov.io

131–140 of 297 posts

Re: Elite Underproduction

#131
post #116

This is a good article and I disagree but in subtle and nuanced ways. For example, say that "overproduction of elites" did lead to the Civil War, well we can look to the FDR years and see that a progressive tax -- that successfully taxed the wealthiest at a rate that dissuaded concentration of wealth beyond a certain level -- actually helped: we made libraries and schools and public infrastructure in the US. So while…

> So while having too many "elites" (by which I assume "wealthy people" is meant), we have a storm brewing.

It doesn't mean wealthy people. It means people who feel they deserve to be a part of the elite, usually by virtue of their formal education. If we're "overproducing" such people, a large part of them cannot actually achieve this, because there's a lot more such people than available positions in the "true" elite (ie people having real wealth/power), which causes discontent.

Elite overproduction generally leads to more intra-elite competition that gradually undermines the spirit of cooperation, which is followed by ideological polarization and fragmentation of the political class. This happens because the more contenders there are, the more of them end up on the losing side. A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions.

This however is also not a uniquely American problem.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#132
This resonates with my own experience. It's an interesting perspective which requires a re-definition of the word 'elite'.

I think the root of the problem is that value creation and value capturing are independent from each other. A well-functioning economic system should be designed in such a way that the two are intertwined such that an individual cannot capture value from the system without first creating at least as much value for the system.

The problem we have nowadays is that the current monetary system has created opportunities for people to capture value (in the form of fiat currency) from the system whilst not creating any new value in return (in the form of useful products and services). The monetary system has even made it possible to capture value whilst actually destroying net value from the system.

As an open source developer, I got to experience the downside of this dynamic; I was able to create a lot of value but not able to capture any value in return. I know that if I had tried to capture any value back from the system, my ability to create value would have been reduced to 0 (adoption of my product would have been 0; because nobody would have paid for it; not because it doesn't add value for them, but because they needed to start using it to understand its value and they wouldn't have started using it unless it was free to begin with; simply because there is too much noise in the market place; too much cheap 'newly printed' fiat capital sloshing around advertising competitors' expensive but inferior products). The system allowed me to create value, but only on the condition that I would forfeit my ability to capture the proceeds of the value I created.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#133
post #15

> In the long run, creating more understanding of the physical world is probably more universally valuable to human flourishing than the far more parochial 'make money number go up' Citation needed. Moreover, dedicating resources to finance can be seen as dedicating resources to better dedicate resources. (I upvoted the article since it's interesting stuff)

I think the money number go up thing is not working, and I'm sure study of the physical world is part of the solution, but the biggest gains for our society seem to be in the way we structure our lifes. I think the coming decades, the study of eudaimonia will be key to our advancement as a species. I asserted that using money as a mechanism for gradient ascent is not working. I will walk you through my thinking, sinc…

> Source: List of countries by suicide rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r... (Sort by all descending)

> Thoughts?

My thought is please don't do this. You get no useful information. Wikipedia strips out all the necessary context. The source that Wikipedia uses explicitly tells you that comparing rates across countries is difficult and fraught with problems.

Heck, comparing rates across a single country - the US - is tricky because they've only just developed a unified definition of "suicide".

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide

> Globally, the availability and quality of data on suicide and suicide attempts is poor. Only some 80 Member States have good-quality vital registration data that can be used directly to estimate suicide rates. This problem of poor-quality mortality data is not unique to suicide, but given the sensitivity of suicide – and the illegality of suicidal behaviour in some countries – it is likely that under-reporting and misclassification are greater problems for suicide than for most other causes of death.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#134

I disagree with the article's premises and conclusions, my perspective is that of a physicist who also knows many lapsed physicists. The premise seems wrong in that he disagrees with the elite overproduction thesis, but the professions he lists are " lawyers, MBA holders,..." and later to finance. But these are the professions likely to be zero-sum. So to me the article really is "I agree with the elite overproductio…

> 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…

There are quite a few places like this:

* GTRI * Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab * MIT Lincoln Labs * ~All the national labs (NIST, Argonne, etc...)

They are still mostly full as I understand.

If I was to write an article on what might be improved: We need more translational research (product focused, using existing knowledge) and less academic research.

One problem I see is that there just isn't the springboard from academic research to commercialization in physics like there is in comp sci or biotech.

Granted I'm biased. I founded my company (zeroK NanoTech) to capitalize on laser cooling research. Two Nobel prizes and countless professors pushing the boundaries on this stuff since the 90's. And my little company is going to be the first to deliver a product that's a black box to the user wrt to the science but delivers some new capabilities. The ion trap quantum computing may yet pay (much larger) dividends to society and those guys are also now making big pushes as well. Might be fair to count the resurgence of rocketry and fusion in this category as well.

So maybe things *are* looking up after all!

Re: Elite Underproduction

#135

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…

Entry level at Google is SDE III. According to levels.fyi the average total compensation for that is $191,860. There are lots of people making $200,000 straight out of undergrad. CMU, MIT, Berkeley and Stanford do not graduate enough students every year to fulfil Google's demand, never mind FAANG's and the same would be true if you expanded hiring to the top 20 CS universities.

https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

Re: Elite Underproduction

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the money number go up thing is not working, and I'm sure study of the physical world is part of the solution, but the biggest gains for our society seem to be in the way we structure our lifes. I think the coming decades, the study of eudaimonia will be key to our advancement as a species. I asserted that using money as a mechanism for gradient ascent is not working. I will walk you through my thinking, sinc…

i think you're absolutely right. one issue here is kind of 'streetlight' problem. money gets you a crude, and perhaps a counterproductive way of measuring value. but what other metric are you going to use? not an anti-communist, but so far central planning has shown itself to be equally ripe for corruption.

I'm not ready to pose a solution (to the problem, of 'what metric do we follow?'), but I agree, central planning is gross. Its likely that there is no numerical method that is going to map to human happiness, and perhaps that's a good thing.

I believe that balancing our minds and our heart's influence on our decision is how we should proceed.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#137
> In the long run, creating more understanding of the physical world is probably more universally valuable to human flourishing than the far more parochial 'make money number go up' type of work lapsed physicists slinging JavaScript in the MAGMA[1] mines are doing for us now. If nothing else, it creates new and more interesting ways of making number go up.

I don't know that much about quants and trading, but I do know something about startups. Ten years ago, most of the startups I encountered were pets.com 2.0 — with crazy ideas that were supposed to change the world but turned out just being batshit crazy.

But now, most startups I encounter are about doing the same thing that existed for a long time, but more effectively. And a lot of them succeed. It's not exciting, but this JS code often replaces a lot of manual clerk labour, and allowing the same people to do more.

It's certainly not the zero-sum game OP is trying to make it look like. It's exactly the kind of grinding, boring work on everyday things that make humanity better as a whole.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#138
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the money number go up thing is not working, and I'm sure study of the physical world is part of the solution, but the biggest gains for our society seem to be in the way we structure our lifes. I think the coming decades, the study of eudaimonia will be key to our advancement as a species. I asserted that using money as a mechanism for gradient ascent is not working. I will walk you through my thinking, sinc…

> Source: List of countries by suicide rate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_r ... (Sort by all descending) > Thoughts? My thought is please don't do this. You get no useful information. Wikipedia strips out all the necessary context. The source that Wikipedia uses explicitly tells you that comparing rates across countries is difficult and fraught with problems. Heck, comparing rates across…

Ok, so besides my use of data which is very difficult to collect and verify, do you disagree with my statements of money failing to map to love and dignity?

Re: Elite Underproduction

#139
post #38
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> These are arguably even less valuable than the cultural norms of Bible-thumping small towns. Since you seem to be a fan of intellectual rigor, can you describe the process by which you arrive at the relative worth of (apparently) social science programs vs. small town social behavior? Can that method also tell us whether citrus flavors are more valuable than ballet?

Nothing he said referenced the social sciences in any way. He referred to * Studies. The Social Sciences all aim at truth in some way, whether you're talking about Sociology, Anthropology, Economics or Political Science.

Re: Elite Underproduction

#140
post #102
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What is the likelihood of discovering a new phenomena or largely unexplored field of science akin to the discovery of electricity and electrochemistry? There may be a finite amount of works on physics that we can do, or technological niches that we can exploit thanks to discoveries in physics or any relevant field of knowledge. The well of discoveries isn't running dry today, but it may in future generations.

Well, maybe we won't find anything akin to electricity again; the electroweak force is one of the three fundamental interactions we know affect matter in the universe, and knowledge of electricity as such dates back at least to Plato, 2500 years ago. It was unified with magnetism in 01873, and unified with the weak force in the 01970s. Maybe we'll find a fourth one; maybe we won't. (Gravitational waves weren't observed until 02015, and they solved the mystery of short gamma-ray bursts in 02017.) Here's a list of candidates for similarly fundamental discoveries:

1. Maybe we'll find a fourth fundamental force that we just haven't noticed yet. This sounds stupid until you realize that we hadn't noticed Archaea until 01977 or dark matter (85% of matter in the universe) until 01980 (though the phrase is from the 01930s), and we still know almost nothing about the behavior of dark energy, the existence of which wasn't known until 01992.

2. Maybe we'll find a way to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics ("quantum gravity").

3. Maybe quantum computers won't work, demonstrating a flaw in the assumptions of quantum theory in the same way that the Michelson-Morley failure to detect an ether wind demonstrated the flaw in the assumptions of Newtonian physics that Einstein resolved with special relativity. More likely, they will work, and this will change a lot of things; their computational power is still poorly understood. They were originally proposed (by Feynman) as an engine for simulating quantum physics.

4. Maybe dark matter and dark energy don't involve a fourth fundamental force like the strong force, gravity, or the electroweak force, but we still know almost nothing about how they behave. So almost everything about them is unknown. Can we use them for communication, propulsion, computation, energy sources, mass sources, etc.?

5. General relativity hasn't been shown to conserve energy or (equivalently) momentum. Does that mean reactionless drives and perpetual-motion machines are possible, or (more likely) that there's a more subtle symmetry to GR that hasn't yet been discovered?

6. Where does consciousness come from? It's the most perceptually salient phenomenon in the entire universe, but we don't have any convincing account of what it is.

7. We know very little about plasma dynamics. We don't know how to make a usable plasmoid gun, we don't know how ball lightning works (or even if it belongs in this item), and although we know they're a magnetohydrodynamic phenomenon, we don't know how solar prominences are formed, and similarly for solar flares, which accelerate some particles to GeV speeds by means we don't understand at all. We don't know why the solar cycle happens. Coronal waves weren't discovered until 01995. We don't know how to stabilize fusion plasma in a tokamak. We don't know if there are significant magnetohydrodynamic phenomena at scales larger than a star, much less larger than a galaxy. We don't know what heats the corona. This is important because a large majority of the matter in the universe is plasma, and our understanding of it is mostly just empirical, like stamp collecting. We're used to thinking of plasma as an undifferentiated homogeneous continuum like a well-mixed liquid, where nothing interesting happens, quite unlike all our complicated organic molecules (which can't survive in it), but obviously from looking at the sun that isn't the case; we really have no idea about the possible complexities. Is this where the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall comes from? Perhaps more excitingly, if MHD makes stable structures possible in large-scale plasma systems (as it evidently does in the sun), are there analogous phenomena that can occur in a quark-gluon plasma?

8. Forget about magnetohydrodynamics for a moment. We don't even understand regular hydrodynamics. Tao's most famous result (02014) was a finite-time blowup in a version of the Navier-Stokes equation, for which he had to use results from automata theory: https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/finite-time-blowup.... What this means in practice remains unclear (Tao: "In principle, it might even be possible in this case that the speed and the wave number both go to infinity in finite time, a scenario known as finite-time blow-up. Of course, such blow-up does not mean that a physical fluid such as water can exhibit this behaviour, but it does mean that the Navier–Stokes equations cease to be an accurate model for such a fluid in these cases."), but it's clear, if Tao's result can be extended to the real Navier-Stokes equations, that it means we don't have an adequate model for fluids in such cases.

9. Okay, and what's up with the profusion of apparently random physical constants? Could they have been different? Are they different elsewhere in the universe?

10. How did the universe start out with such low entropy? Equivalently (or possibly not, depending on the nature of CP violation), why is the past different from the future?

11. Is spacetime continuous, or is it like a sort of foam? Is the foam size really of the Planck-length scale, or is it much larger, as the holographic principle suggests? What happens when you approach that scale? Fundamental particles like protons are far too big to do experiments like this, but in theory we ought to be able to make black holes that are much, much smaller than protons to do these experiments. (You think NIMBY is bad now...)

12. String theory posits a number of other spatial dimensions. Is spacetime really only four-dimensional?

Quite aside from these fundamental problems, any one of which promises a "largely unexplored field of science akin to the discovery of electricity", there are a huge number of things we can create that don't even require discoveries of fundamental new phenomena like those above. Electrochemistry, to take one of your examples, is extremely underexploited because in most cases we don't know what conditions we have to control in order to make our experiments reproducible, and of course medicine is full of unknowns.

Of course anything could happen in future generations, but there's nothing to suggest that your prediction will happen. Rather the other extreme: the well of discoveries is overflowing today, but may become a geyser in future generations.

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