31–40 of 128 posts
Speaking of bullshittery, I don't really appreciate it's little game when it comes to trying to convince me to turn off JavaScript. It knows when you see it and you'll know when you see it.
Once upon a time academic reputations were generally ex-
pected to be based upon the productions of books, studies, mono-
graphs—in sum, upon the production of ideas and scholarly
works, and upon the judgment of these works by academic col-
leagues and intelligent laymen. One reason why this has been so
in social science and the humanities is that a man’s competence
or incompetence has been available for inspection, since the older
academic world did not contain privileged positions of compe-
tence. It is rather difficult to know whether the alleged compe-
tence of a corporation president, for example, is due to his own
personal abilities or to the powers and facilities available to him
by virtue of his position. But there has been no room for such
doubt about scholars working, as old-fashioned professors have
worked, as craftsmen.
However, by his prestige, the new academic statesman, like the
business executive and the military chieftain, has acquired means
of competence which must be distinguished from his personal
competence—but which in his reputation are not so distinguished.
A permanent professional secretary, a clerk to run to the library,
an electric typewriter, dictating equipment, and a mimeographing
machine, and perhaps a small budget of three or four thousand
dollars a year for purchasing books and periodicals—even such
minor office equipment and staff enormously increases any
scholar’s appearance of competence. Any business executive will
laugh at the pettiness of such means; college professors will not
—few professors, even productive ones, have such facilities on a
secure basis. Yet such equipment is a means of competence and
of career—which secure clique membership makes much more
likely than does unattached scholarship. The clique’s prestige
increases the chance to get them, and having them in turn in-
creases the chance to produce a reputation.Using a throwaway for this comment, but my first experience with this kind of thing was in 2013 when I joined a major international company with over 100k employees worldwide and realized that there were entire departments and organizations dedicated to delivering no value at all. Departments with 100s of people, with middle managers making several times the average salary in my country, where after years of work not…
We need more leaders like that.
Haven't thoroughly read this article but these passages from C. Wright Mill's The Sociological Imagination (1959) immediately come to mind: Once upon a time academic reputations were generally ex- pected to be based upon the productions of books, studies, mono- graphs—in sum, upon the production of ideas and scholarly works, and upon the judgment of these works by academic col- leagues and intelligent laymen. One rea…
Yes, this is a totally new phenomenon which has never ever been the case at literally every point in human history.
I blame the ML engineers who work on these recommendation systems. They chase simplistic objectives like CTR, time spent, and so on, which can be gamed by this kind of content. This creates huge positive feedback loops in which popular content becomes even more popular and forms “metas,” while models train on clickstream data they themselves have influenced. They could try to fix this, but they won’t, because no one…