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Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

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Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#321

Post by tempguy9999 »

nradov wrote: post #274
tempguy9999 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the sound of a door being slammed very hard with no consideration of what you may get back in return. The whole model of giving people tax money to do work is called research and is quite a large area and has produced some amazingly valuable things that you benefit from. BTW I do see what you mean, but I have been trying to start a company for ages and getting the money together is just incredibly hard. It's a…

I support government funding for basic research as long as there is proper oversight and accountability. That's a totally different situation.

That's a good point, upvoted, however in my one experience of a government funded R&D project many years ago I was involved in, a bunch of universities was asked to produce a product.

There was no proper oversight. We produced nothing of value (and I'd like a post-mortem of why, but never got one). That was UK £2 million wasted.

I've no reason to suppose that company funded R&D is any better than govt. funded though.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#322

Post by fuzzfactor »

burntoutfire wrote: post #320
fuzzfactor wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. A naturally unfair advantage at the type of research that involves experimentation and/or discovery is a characteristic that most PhD's do not actually have. Plenty still do, but most do not. But without a PhD you will need to work your way up to outperforming those with credentials by a factor of 10x to 20x. Forget working in academia, but you will be expected to hang with them and make progress that they c…

In most cases, successful inventors of the past didn't have access to capital either. It often took decades of relentless dedication for their ideas to come to life. Sometimes, they even straight up risked their lives (like doctors trying out new therapies on themselves). You could say that's unfair, but it kind of makes sense - this way, only people with a singular focus and huge drive make it to the other end - and…

Another advantage of strong individual focus is you can end up owning your own inventions rather than having them assigned away to some extent.

Living off your own technology is not for everyone. Most innovation is not ground-breaking or is so marginal that it actually needs to be highly leveraged to achieve the benefits of scale. Without a large research group to support it is possible to get by on the lesser advances, and if momentum can be built from that it can allow the time and space to gravitate to more potentially impactful approaches compared to modern or established institutional trends.

In many situations it can be a lot easier and less costly & time-consuming to invent another sure-fire energy-saving device for instance, than it would be to risk the resources seeking eminence. You can end up with an unfair advantage at the inventing itself compared to those who divert any effort away from the task, simply because you can not afford to take that kind of risk.

You also have the unfair disadvantage relative to those who basically just toot their own horn, but everybody has that.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#323

Post by thrower123 »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #315
thrower123 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not socialist, necessarily, but it's definitely blank-slatist, and the two are often stablemates.

I’m far from a blank slatist or a socialist, but as someone who is generally considered “untalented” on the HN scale of things please continue. What is objectionable about this viewpoint?

To be honest, I find the blank slate model just cruel, because it shifts blame for failure to achieve results onto either a personal failure to work hard enough, or some ill-defined societal boogieman of oppression or structural isms. Which tends to need massive amounts of money or power in the hands of someone to try to rectify.

In reality, you just can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit, no matter how hard you try.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#324

Post by jhayward »

thrower123 wrote: post #284
alchemism wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the many regulations in American society, there is usually a dead body buried underneath, possibly many dead bodies, including those of women and children, etc. For each and every one, someone suffered terribly or died.

Unfortunately, many times, the dead body belonged to an idiot, whose foolishness won them a Darwin Award, and the legacy of inconveniencing millions of people. We place too high a value on human life, and it's no wonder that we can't accomplish anything when a non-zero level of risk is unacceptable.

> We place too high a value on human life, and it's no wonder that we can't accomplish anything when a non-zero level of risk is unacceptable.

This is too close to another formulation of the same thought: "we should allow corporations to kill people for profit, with impunity" for comfort.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#325

Post by thrower123 »

jhayward wrote: post #324
thrower123 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, many times, the dead body belonged to an idiot, whose foolishness won them a Darwin Award, and the legacy of inconveniencing millions of people. We place too high a value on human life, and it's no wonder that we can't accomplish anything when a non-zero level of risk is unacceptable.

> We place too high a value on human life, and it's no wonder that we can't accomplish anything when a non-zero level of risk is unacceptable. This is too close to another formulation of the same thought: "we should allow corporations to kill people for profit, with impunity" for comfort.

No, it's really, really not. It would be nice if we could have a discussion of acceptable levels of risk versus inefficiency without immediately taking a left turn into "Soylent Green is People!" territory.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#326

Post by chiefalchemist »

lopmotr wrote: post #295
chiefalchemist wrote: post #281

> "The list of innovations we need is long: clean and cheap energy, better crops, interventions to help against the diseases that shorten and impair our lives. This, and much more besides, is needed to make progress against the big problems we face. But while the demand for innovation is large, its supply is limited." Yes and no. What we need is better problem identification and more appropriate priorities. For examp…

Reducing waste can only go so far - zero waste - and worse, it has diminishing returns. Improving technology, on the other hand, has no upper bound and builds on itself to enable even more improvements. Imagine if people had just reduced food waste instead of inventing fertilizer? We probably wouldn't have western civilization.

Perhaps. But that's not the point. The waste isn't limited to food itself, but the resources to grow it, transport it, and even dispose of it.

The solution of "make more" doesn't actaully address the problems

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#327

Post by jhayward »

thrower123 wrote: post #325
jhayward wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We place too high a value on human life, and it's no wonder that we can't accomplish anything when a non-zero level of risk is unacceptable. This is too close to another formulation of the same thought: "we should allow corporations to kill people for profit, with impunity" for comfort.

No, it's really, really not. It would be nice if we could have a discussion of acceptable levels of risk versus inefficiency without immediately taking a left turn into "Soylent Green is People!" territory.

The "lefty" epithet, how handy.

You could start by telling us why the statements aren't the same, using examples and facts.

You seem to want to have an abstract, bloodless, clinical discussion of when it is acceptable to kill people in the name of "efficiency" (I will interpret this as "profit").

I can tell you that is a dishonest discussion, if that's what is intended. If you want to have it honestly you will have to first indicate an understanding of exactly, in detail, the most evil things that will happen as a result. Also the most devastating things that will happen and be protected from proportionate legal recourse under your proposed or imagined regime.

It won't be a bloodless conversation.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#328

Post by NHQ »

burntoutfire wrote: post #197
NHQ wrote: post #188

I have tech talents that maybe a few thousand people in the world have, and research ability to move the needle (maybe even novel ideas in the field, if you ask me). I can't work in academia (no Ph.D), find capital (no connections), and the software job market is a crazy stupid PITA (no thanks). I know it's me, that I can have what I want if I really go for it, and that is what I do by living simply and continuing my…

> obviously talented The only "obvious" proof of talent that will convince anyone is having impressive accomplishments in a given field. Do you have any?

Depends what you call an accomplishment. I guess my fields are "web development", music, and deep learning.

I've published over 100 open source modules and projects across the "full stack". I have "live-coded" dozens of musical compositions (mathy algo music).

I haven't published any proofs or arxiv papers (yet), but I can both engineer data pipes and code deep learning models from scratch. That is to say, I'm a good programmer, I learned the math, grokked the principles, and can actively stay on top of the latest research and implementations. Who knows, maybe I have good ideas in this wide open field, too.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#329

Post by NHQ »

codingdave wrote: post #265
NHQ wrote: post #188

I have tech talents that maybe a few thousand people in the world have, and research ability to move the needle (maybe even novel ideas in the field, if you ask me). I can't work in academia (no Ph.D), find capital (no connections), and the software job market is a crazy stupid PITA (no thanks). I know it's me, that I can have what I want if I really go for it, and that is what I do by living simply and continuing my…

It is easy to find teaching work. The educational system needs good teachers. And many districts even have programs to bring new teachers up to speed, without a degree in education. (Assuming you have a degree of some kind.) Likewise, the public sector would love to find talented people willing to do the tech work required, for the salaries they can afford. There are always opportunities to be found. If you aren't do…

You say easy, but I know it's not easy, and it's also not very rewarding the way they use you. I'm not a beginner to working for schools, cities, or the tech industry. If it was easy, they would look at my resume, check my references, grant me what i need to do the work, and then set me free to do it.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#330

Post by kortilla »

eaenki wrote: post #135
kortilla wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t need $1m to see if an idea is feasible. Budget isn’t the issue for those programs, it’s getting enough applicants with ideas that are even reasonable in the first place.

Oh yes, you do, in the current envoirement. You compete for the same attention from retail consumers and enterprises. The price to reach said consumer gets ever higher + the usual monetary inflation. That's why every company is raising $1MM+ in seed nowdays while decent ones are raising $3MM+. Also, most of the times far fetched things require a lot of time and money by it's own virtue because they're hardware and re…

If you’re already trying to reach customers it sounds like you’ve already built a product. Make up your mind.
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