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Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

erikhoel.substack.com

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Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#21

Post by humanistbot »

hans1729 wrote: post #5

This is ridiculous. We’re seeing innovation EVERYWHERE, and looking back, this will be a golden age for progress (if the species makes it far enough to look back, that is). Think of it like this: we invented personal computers. At the time, only nerds had access to computation. These days, all kinds of scientists just script up things in python. We have how many million people who are able to code? I don’t even care…

You're absolutely right, although on a completely different topic: I'd argue that most of the things you mentioned might not be good for society, especially when combined with the view that most technological development takes place in publicly traded companies whose primary obligation is to maximize quarterly profits. I guess it is innovation when a personalized recommender system is able to pick exactly the right conspiracy video to HD stream to someone's phone that will get them to keep watching videos on an ad-supported platform. But not exactly society "blooming" in my view.

Edit: Obligatory "I saw the greatest minds of my generation destroyed by advertising KPIs" reference

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#22

Post by Victerius »

hans1729 wrote: post #5

This is ridiculous. We’re seeing innovation EVERYWHERE, and looking back, this will be a golden age for progress (if the species makes it far enough to look back, that is). Think of it like this: we invented personal computers. At the time, only nerds had access to computation. These days, all kinds of scientists just script up things in python. We have how many million people who are able to code? I don’t even care…

Are we really seeing a lot of innovation? The last technological breakthrough was the smartphone.

We still don't have space stations that can accommodate more than a half dozen people (spoiler: I want to live on Cloud City). We don't have Moon colonies. We don't have 3D holograms (not the ones that rely on spinning a stick really fast and using a projector). We still don't have a cure for any type of cancer. No warp drives. No anti-grav. No 200 year life expectancy. No human cloning. No $25 000 flying cars. No mass produced technology or consumer products using graphene.

We make smaller chips, miniaturized computers, made fancier looking user interfaces, made rocket boosters reusable, and video game graphics are approaching photorealism. Great.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#23

Post by jmyeet »

This is an interesting analysis. I see a number of factors in play:

1. Population size: the more people you have, the more likely you are to make "geniuses". The genius chart late in the piece maps with this hypothesis;

2. Baseline education: the idea here is that geniuses are less of a gap if the normal level of education and competency is higher;

3. Low-hanging fruit: things seem obvious in hindsight of course but it's also true that some of the big jumps in certain fields come down to what were fairly simple ideas. Those who come up with them are typically labelled "geniuses". That may or may not be the case. But the point is that progress in fields isn't smooth. We've now been in a period in physics where for decades now we've simply confirmed what we already suspected. Useful of course. As is disproving various theories (which is constantly happening).

But the 20th century had 2 massive jumps forward in physics: namely relativity (obviously) and the various quantum mechanics related fields (QFT, QCD, etc). This isn't my area of expertise but my understanding is that a big part of this was realizing just how deeply tied physics and certain areas of mathematics are.

Oh and for the record, I'm really talking about fundamental physics here. Other fields like condensed matter physics are a completely different beast.

But is the 20th century typical? It's hard to say. I suspect it isn't. I once heard research described as spending years of your life working on a problem and your reward is you get to throw a few pebbles on a pile. Eventually that pebble pile becomes a mountain. Someone throwing more than a few pebbles on is realtively inrequent.

I'm not sure how much "aristocratic teaching" really has to do with it.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#25

Post by rustybolt »

mschuster91 wrote: post #20
hans1729 wrote: post #5

This is ridiculous. We’re seeing innovation EVERYWHERE, and looking back, this will be a golden age for progress (if the species makes it far enough to look back, that is). Think of it like this: we invented personal computers. At the time, only nerds had access to computation. These days, all kinds of scientists just script up things in python. We have how many million people who are able to code? I don’t even care…

The problem is, we could be doing so much better as a species, but our best minds are either selling ads or working in finance. Neither of which creates real progress for the masses. Not to mention that the government and the military have all but scrapped their research programs - a lot of the progress of the last decades has fundamental roots there (most notably the Internet). Instead, we let private companies like…

> The problem is, we could be doing so much better as a species, but our best minds are either selling ads or working in finance. Neither of which creates real progress for the masses.

So what does create real progress to the masses?

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#26

Post by yetihehe »

humanistbot wrote: post #6

I think this is more of a version of the "why have we stopped making good music/movies, almost everything today is garbage?" issue. With the benefit of hindsight, we only remember the greats (and the very worst villains) from past eras. While if we look around today, we see all the people who will never make it into the history books, just like we see all the songs and movies that will never become "classics." Edit:…

I agree. It's just that there is so much innovation everywhere, that those geniuses of old are not THAT outstanding. There are many geniuses, who make big contributions, but they don't work by themselves, so their contributions are not seen as advancing a field by one big leap. The same with music. You just need to search more. Youtube and spotify made this easier, I discover totally new astounding music authors and songs almost every month. Yeah, not everyone likes my music taste, but I see that many people also find new music they love. We just have so much variety now, that there is no single commonly recognisable genius.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#27

Post by jzellis »

We don't have Einsteins because the brightest people don't work on astrophysics because there's no money in it. Instead, they're figuring out how to use AI to sell more dick pills and artfully distressed furniture to people devoid of erections and taste on the goddamn Internet, for more money in a year than Einstein saw in a decade.

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#28

Post by DrBazza »

I'd argue that the low-hanging fruit of science has been picked. That's why we're not seeing "Einsteins" everywhere.

In fact, there's an Asimov short story (I can't recall the name) where certain members of society exist only to make connections between unrelated fields because the knowledge of humanity has become so vast. In fact, I'd say we're not far from that now, as there are more and more stories along the lines of "an obscure corner of maths has been found to explain 'X' in physics".

Re: Geniuses of the past were aristocratically tutored

#29

Post by XorNot »

Technology is not a linear or even guaranteed path.

Asking "why don't we have more Einstein's?" ignores that Einstein's great contributions could only have been made at the point in history he existed: without the Michelson-Morley experiment, a fixed speed of light was not a known problem in physics.

Today in particle physics though we lack such an experiment - there are no substantial inconsistent results which can form the basis of new theory: no results which conclusively point to any of the myriad new theoretical approaches being right.

If such a result is found, then it's likely a theoretical basis which has already been written will prove successful in helping explain and develop a new theory to extend our understanding, and some Nobel prizes will be given. Is it's developer an accomplished scientist? Yes. But were there peers and competitors somehow not as talented? Maybe, but more likely they simply weren't first - and weren't lucky enough.

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