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Crazy New Ideas

paulgraham.com

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Re: Crazy New Ideas

#591

Post by bonoboTP »

Laremere wrote: post #355
II2II wrote: post #43

The reference to the Copernican Model of the solar system is an interesting one since it produced less accurate predictions than the Ptolemaic Model. Improving the predictions of the Copernican model initially involved the introduction of epicycles, diminishing the value of the crazy new idea. It took the work of Kepler (elliptical orbits) and Newton (a physical basis for elliptical orbits) to elevate the heliocentri…

To add to this: He lists two reasons why people want to dismiss "crazy new ideas": envy, and the desire to seem sophisticated. Using Copernicus as an example simply does not fit these claims. Reasons to dismiss Copernicus's ideas: 1. They were worse predictions, so for all 'practical' purposes of the day (essentially, only knowing where the wandering stars would be), adopting his ideas would be poor. 2. Most crazy ne…

> heliocentrism has no practical affect on life even today

I disagree. These discoveries (showing that we aren't "special" or at the "center") had huge religious/philosophical implications and through some intermediate steps ultimately led to the kinds of secular states we (most of us) spend our every day in practice.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#592

Post by ammar_x »

The main idea of the article is that when someone who is a domain expert proposes an idea that seems wrong, there is a chance that this idea is a great idea because why would a smart person proposes a stupid idea? They must've known something.

He says that in history, great ideas started like that. But he didn't provide examples. I didn't find the article practical because of that. It would have been a lot more useful if it provided contemporary examples that support the claims made.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#593

Post by e12e »

BurningFrog wrote: post #135
vishnugupta wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was this product[1] to browse internet offline by downloading something called “Web Packs”. This was back in 2005 just when I was graduating when I spoke to the founding team. They were naturally quite confident about the product taking off. Something seemed off to me I couldn’t point out what so I didn’t take the job offer. After all these years I realized the source my discomfort. They were actually betting a…

The Mighty model is timesharing CPUs. At least 80% of the time my computer isn't even used. And when I use it, I doubt average load is over 25%. So the Mighty model has a 20x utilization advantage by those numbers. That should easily support twice the peak CPU power for me when I need it. Another thing is that the Mighty CPUs will (presumably) be upgraded continuously, while my laptop CPU gets no faster after purchas…

> The Mighty model is timesharing CPUs.

Yeah, but I think it's better to think about it like virtual/remote desktops, where the granularity is a browser tab.

At least, that's the only way it makes sense to me. I might understand that to do 4k high res 3d on my phone - my phone will need help. And once that "help" is available - my TV, and my tablet and my smart watch can make use of it.

But I'm not generally willing to trade latency for cpu time sharing. What is interesting is an always on, always working desktop session. It's why I like screen/tmux and ssh, rdp - and would consider running a Linux terminal server, so my laptop(s) and desktop(s) could be a disk less, stateless thin client.

Make the observation that the browser tab is the new process/application granuality - and it makes sense to host tabs in the cloud.

Personally I'd want to self host it - but the idea doesn't sound quite so inane.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#594

Post by mikesabbagh »

geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

u r talking about the small changes that can be disruptive. This is different than the crazy ideas mentioned in the article. Ideas like the earth is round or that a large mass can bend light.

I guess Clayton Christensen explains the difference best in his youtube videos. Also Peter Thiel talks a lot about the difference of ideas in his talks on youtube!!

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#595

Post by paulryanrogers »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #587
geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

I think of this as my "Kardashian problem". I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works. This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works. This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-m…

Luck seems to play a big role in the celebrity market

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#596

Post by d_burfoot »

bestinterest wrote: post #4

Very interesting. This sounds like a response to the Mighty [0] launch which Paul Graham has been defending on twitter recently after an outcry from some of the 'hardcore' developers such as Jonathan Blow [1] and Casey [2]. [0] https://www.mightyapp.com/ [1] https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Blow/status/1387101172230672389 [2] https://twitter.com/cmuratori/status/1387645578067124224

I follow Blow's work and opinions quite closely. I am quite confident he was NOT criticizing Mighty specifically. Instead he was deploring the state of software engineering in general and web programming in particular. He is saying something like "I can't believe web engineering sucks so bad that a tool like Mighty actually makes sense". See his talk about preventing the end of civilization (!!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pW-SOdj4Kkk

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#597

Post by regextegrity »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #587
geebee wrote: post #388

Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…

I think of this as my "Kardashian problem". I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works. This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works. This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-m…

I think your problem is treating the success of the Kardashians as deterministic

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#598

Post by dools »

The most important idea like this in the world right now is expounded in the book The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton which everyone should read. MMT fits this article exactly except for the fact that PG says it doesn’t extend beyond “hard sciences”. It also extends to the dismal science

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#599

Post by dvt »

sirsinsalot wrote: post #579
dvt wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. This is basically putting the cart before the horse and pretty much the definition of hindsight bias. We all know the BrandonM/Dropbox quip, but that's just a fun anecdote, not som…

> but if it succeeds, good on Suhail! Well, not exactly. There's plenty of people who have been successful at, frankly horrible things. I count this kind of "not your computer, ours" rent seeking change as "bad if successful".

I don't really buy this. A lot of complaints are about the privacy of the whole ordeal. That's kind of moot considering Google has access to all of my banking emails, Dropbox has access to all of my invoices, Apple has access to all of my photos, and Equifax already leaked my SSN years ago.

Most of my life already doesn't happen on my personal locked-down device.

Re: Crazy New Ideas

#600

Post by mikesabbagh »

The problem with education is that u r always taught to look for the right answer someone else discovered long time ago. Coming up with crazy ideas means u were either a bad student, or u have a post-doctoral education. It is hard for anyone in the middle to come with crazy ideas (unless u worked with someone crazy coming up with crazy ideas requires a certain training or exposure, it is very difficult to learn on ur own
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