All the best scientists release their work on Joe Rogan and threaten to sue anyone who criticizes their work.
The contrarian physics podcast subculture
101–110 of 269 posts
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#102I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…
My observation is that anybody who engages a lot on social media is at a very high risk of losing their mind over time. They get caught up in these weird bubbles of constant controversy and group think bubbles . I have seen this with friends but also with more famous people. For content creators there is a lot of economic incentive. Real science is kind of boring and mundane while controversy is exciting and sells.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It was a clock that was powered by daily changes in barometric pressure. That sounds awesome, but it also sounds like it's conflating two things: (1) the physically impossible perpetual motion of popular understanding, e.g. machine that operates at 100% energy efficiency in perpetuity from an initial one-time energy input and (2) a machine with automatic passive energy draw from ambient sources, but with the usual i…
Drebbel patented his device as a "perpetuum mobile." However, the definition of a perpetual motion device as a "machine that operates at 100% energy efficiency in perpetuity from an initial one-time energy input" — well, that idea came hundreds of years later. Obviously, Drebbel was on the scene long before the laws of thermodynamics... so my upshot is definitely not that we should reconsider entropy because of his p…
The history books you're talking about were presumably written hundreds of years later (e.g. the 19th century), which would mean thermodynamics had been established. So I don't think they would have scrubbed him on the grounds that his perpetual motion machine was a threat to their orthodoxy.
So I'm not sure what the the upshot was of suggesting he was "scrubbed from the history books because everyone knows perpetual motion is impossible" if it wasn't implying some kind of institutional conspiracy that wrongly dismissed "perpetual motion", which only works if you treat (1) and (2) the same.
Moreover we're discussing this in 2025 and in this context we normally mean (1), and it was in response to a comment about (1) that you entered Drebbel's invention as if it belonged to that category.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#104I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…
Sabine papers, those in "her area of expertise" were pretty bad, at least those I read. We reviewed several of them out of curiosity in several journal clubs. She is pure show.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#105I have written previously about Sabine. I think it's fascinating to follow her trajectory. Initially I quite liked her show and my impression was that it gave valuable insights and critique of some branches of modern theoretical physics. At some point I noticed that her shows were starting to significantly diverge from her area of expertise and she was weighing in on much broader topics, something in her early shows…
My observation is that anybody who engages a lot on social media is at a very high risk of losing their mind over time. They get caught up in these weird bubbles of constant controversy and group think bubbles . I have seen this with friends but also with more famous people. For content creators there is a lot of economic incentive. Real science is kind of boring and mundane while controversy is exciting and sells.
It’s one of those “the house always wins” setups. For a while if you have success and integrity, you wag the algorithm. Eventually though, the algorithm always ends up wagging you.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#106At first I downweighted this article the way we usually do with internet dramas, but on a second look, I think it perhaps deserves better. However, the title is too high-octane (too sensational and personality-focused) to have a good effect on an HN thread. I've therefore changed it to a different phrase from the article body, which is more neutral and more about the underlying phenomena. It's not a perfect swap, so…
Thank you, Mr. Defender of Curiosity on Hacker News.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
My observation is that anybody who engages a lot on social media is at a very high risk of losing their mind over time. They get caught up in these weird bubbles of constant controversy and group think bubbles . I have seen this with friends but also with more famous people. For content creators there is a lot of economic incentive. Real science is kind of boring and mundane while controversy is exciting and sells.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audience_capture
> The term was coined by Eric Weinstein in 2018.
Coincidence or intentional? Either way, nice
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#108From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Weinstein :
"In April 2021, Weinstein self-published a paper on Geometric Unity and appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss it. In the paper, Weinstein stated that he was "not a physicist" and that the paper was a "work of entertainment"."
It all seems very odd.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
i kinda think we should blame the youtube alg for this, the algs set incentives which shape behavior at scale, and it’s not like one can make a living doing actual physics these days
By default, people have moral agency for what they do. Exceptions exist, of course, but “I wanted to make more money” is not one of them.
Actually, taking someone’s livelihood hostage is a great and time-proven way to rob initially decent people of their moral agency. The case studies are everywhere.
Re: The contrarian physics podcast subculture
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
>It was a clock that was powered by daily changes in barometric pressure. That sounds awesome, but it also sounds like it's conflating two things: (1) the physically impossible perpetual motion of popular understanding, e.g. machine that operates at 100% energy efficiency in perpetuity from an initial one-time energy input and (2) a machine with automatic passive energy draw from ambient sources, but with the usual i…
In 1598, physics had not yet developed to the point of articulating modern thermodynamics.
All the more reason not to treat his invention as if it belongs to that modern category.