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I've said it all before but here we go again

backreaction.blogspot.com

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Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#101

Post by boltzmann-brain »

ageitgey wrote: post #96
perihelions wrote: post #11

Twitter seems so persistently corrosive and unhappiness-inducing. Why is it? The author's complaints are about other physicists' behaviors and attitudes to her writing, but it looks like much of it is specifically about Twitter interactions: about unhappy, defective people on Twitter (smart physicists, even) drawing other people into their miasma. These are people using Twitter with good intentions : smart people who…

> Twitter seems so persistently corrosive and unhappiness-inducing. Why is it? > These are people using Twitter with good intentions I've seen a few good articles on the phenomenon, but I think it boils down to the fact that Twitter encourages/rewards constant conversation and anyone can pop up in any conversation. As a result, it rewards the most abrasive people who tweet the most. No sane, well-adjusted person with…

Wow, I was just writing the same reply. I started writing it before you made yours. It's uncanny.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33006788

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#102

Post by mola »

As someone who has no skin in the game at all, I find her way of presenting criticism very contrarian argumentative and snarky. She might be completely right, but I can definitely understand the reluctance to hear her out on merit of style.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#103

Post by bowsamic »

boltzmann-brain wrote: post #94
bowsamic wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully politicians don't think of science in terms of "return on investment" Obviously it must be justified as scientifically important, but they do not expect "something back". Government agencies generally take a more blurry and general approach to R&D, since you cannot predict what comes out of a given experiment. No one predicted an absolute revolution in squeezed light from gravitational wave detection for e…

After fifty years and $x T of investment you can easily tell that something's a waste of money. I say that as someone with background in physics. This is another "industry for its own sake", just like the nasa/aerospace/boeing industrial complex, which was clearly so terrible that people decided to overthrow it, and in 10 years we've reached more progress than those people did since the 70s.

But no one who actually controls any money thinks that LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA or LHC or whatever were wastes of money

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#104

Post by boltzmann-brain »

bowsamic wrote: post #103
boltzmann-brain wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After fifty years and $x T of investment you can easily tell that something's a waste of money. I say that as someone with background in physics. This is another "industry for its own sake", just like the nasa/aerospace/boeing industrial complex, which was clearly so terrible that people decided to overthrow it, and in 10 years we've reached more progress than those people did since the 70s.

But no one who actually controls any money thinks that LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA or LHC or whatever were wastes of money

Which is a fair observation because that's exactly the crux of the problem.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#105

Post by ageitgey »

boltzmann-brain wrote: post #101
ageitgey wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Twitter seems so persistently corrosive and unhappiness-inducing. Why is it? > These are people using Twitter with good intentions I've seen a few good articles on the phenomenon, but I think it boils down to the fact that Twitter encourages/rewards constant conversation and anyone can pop up in any conversation. As a result, it rewards the most abrasive people who tweet the most. No sane, well-adjusted person with…

Wow, I was just writing the same reply. I started writing it before you made yours. It's uncanny. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33006788

I guess we have both wasted too much time on Twitter:)

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#106

Post by Joker_vD »

vonwoodson wrote: post #93

“More importantly, everyone can see that nothing useful is coming out of particle physics, it’s just a sink of money.” -cry of a (wo)man hypnotized by capitalism. You cannot waste money, we made it up and can make more. Alternatively, you can explore the universe. I would be more open to the idea that the only reason some people want to understand anything is because they want control over it. Here we see that the au…

Fine, not "money", "human effort" and "material goods" (although those are in essence mostly human effort as well) — those things you absolutely can waste. And surprise! those things are measured in money.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#107

Post by bowsamic »

boltzmann-brain wrote: post #104
bowsamic wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But no one who actually controls any money thinks that LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA or LHC or whatever were wastes of money

Which is a fair observation because that's exactly the crux of the problem.

I don't understand why you think it's a problem

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#108

Post by bowsamic »

JackFr wrote: post #95
bowsamic wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) If you aren't diplomatic while telling people their work is stupid and pointless then no one will listen to you. If no one will listen to you you may as well not talk. 2) No, you can't, or at least, your uninformed "opinion" is worthless. To clarify, Sabine's is not worthless, since she is actually a theoretical particle physicist. A lay person's opinion on the matter is worth nothing.

> A lay person's opinion on the matter is worth nothing. And yet they still want my money. Weird.

Well that's not your choice to make, that's how taxation works. The government choose how to manage and spend a portion of your money. Do you think your opinion matters in deciding if a hospital should be built? Or if we should pay for a new vaccine? No, because you don't know anything about those things. And neither do I.

So yes, I will take your money and build my big experiment, and I don't feel bad about it, because I am the expert.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#109

Post by qsdf38100 »

qsdf38100 wrote: post #61
quantum_mcts wrote: post #48

Quoted post unavailable.

Yeah she sounds like a frustrated person seeking revenge. Because someone has to be responsible for her frustration, right? To be fair it’s a trend we see a lot currently. Angry people seeking revenge because they feel their life didn’t go as well as they deserve.

I’d appreciate feedback from people downvoting. I don’t care about HN karma, I’m just curious as to why denouncing her unconstructive and angry takes on particule physics is frowned upon.

Re: I've said it all before but here we go again

#110

Post by bitwize »

perihelions wrote: post #11

Twitter seems so persistently corrosive and unhappiness-inducing. Why is it? The author's complaints are about other physicists' behaviors and attitudes to her writing, but it looks like much of it is specifically about Twitter interactions: about unhappy, defective people on Twitter (smart physicists, even) drawing other people into their miasma. These are people using Twitter with good intentions : smart people who…

The Great Banality Laser focuses and amplifies banality because... laser gonna lase.
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