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The Risk of Discovery

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Risk of Discovery

#81

Post by cobbzilla »

Balgair wrote: post #78
cobbzilla wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't get stuck on semantics. When you decide to take a longer route because you think there will be less traffic, you "make a bet". You "make a bet" by deciding to go to college instead of straight into the working world. Anywhere there is a decision to be made with uncertain outcomes, you "make a bet". It doesn't have to be about money, although it often is.

Look at Newton's Early life (0) and we can see that he did not 'make a bet' with his life. Though he managed to get into Cambridge on a scholarship (an element of luck), he was considered 'undistinguished as a Cambridge student.' His 3 really big accomplishments (optics, gravitation, calculus) were generated when he was on break for 2 years from Cambridge due to plague. The question we then must ask is: what would he…

He could have chosen to focus solely on theology. He could have chosen to focus on entirely different areas that were all dead-ends. People are really getting hung-up on the word "bet"; evaluating opportunity costs is part of life. To focus on one word and miss the forest for the trees speaks more about the critic than it does of Newton.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#82

Post by nabla9 »

js8 wrote: post #48

I find it funny that capitalism requires what is essentially an irrational behavior. It seems to me that big public corporations, which avoid risk, and only buy startups once they have been established, are the rational actors. On the other hands, three guys in the garage doing a startup often do it not because they calculate expected profits, but because they want to do it for other than monetary reasons - typically…

Capitalism don't require irrational behavior. What is needed are things like comparative advantage and economic profit[1]. Someone who has capital has different incentives than someone who whose major offering is labor or expertise.

Newton's studies were motivated by his dislike of farming and need to revenge a bully. He got time for his most productive work because plague closed the University for two years.

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[1]: if you are not familiar with these terms, look up definitions, because they don't mean what you think they mean.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#83

Post by gdudeman »

An addendum to this: Many of the greatest unconventional thinkers of our time are similar to Newton in that they are right about one non-consensus thing and wrong about lots of others.

Some of those people become fantastically rich as a result of the one right thing.

Just because someone is wildly successful and right about one non-consensus bet, doesn't mean they aren't wrong about most of their other beliefs.

The occasional out-of-the-mainstream idea is a revolution, but the vast majority are just nutty and wrong.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#84

Post by ue_ »

js8 wrote: post #48

I find it funny that capitalism requires what is essentially an irrational behavior. It seems to me that big public corporations, which avoid risk, and only buy startups once they have been established, are the rational actors. On the other hands, three guys in the garage doing a startup often do it not because they calculate expected profits, but because they want to do it for other than monetary reasons - typically…

Capitalism is also quite rational - feeding human greed while exploiting the proletariat. Initially, it can be irrational to take some risk, but beyond that, it's clean-cut rationality, and a business must behave rationally (considering rising returns as a consequence of rational conduct) or be out-competed or fail.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#85

Post by empath75 »

lisper wrote: post #76

What exactly was Newton risking? An entrepreneur who quits her job and takes out a mortgage to start a business is risking her livelihood. If she fails, she and her family could end up on the street. Newton came from a wealthy family. If he failed in his intellectual endeavors the "risk" for him was to live out his life as an ordinary rich person and only ending up in the more obscure history books. I think Fredrick…

Opportunity cost

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#87

Post by ue_ »

skolos wrote: post #8
aaron-lebo wrote: post #3

I'm not seeing what the risk was. He was taking a chance that he was wrong, yes, but that was just science. Risk suggests a danger. But what was it?

Here "risk" is opportunity cost. You can spend all you life in theology and die unknown. Newton is famous only because of physics, the other fields were waste of his time. There are countless people who spend their life perusing projects that do not produce anything valuable. And then there are few that win Nobel.

>You can spend all you life in theology and die unknown.

You can do that in physics and natural philosophy too. What's your point? There are plenty of theologians. This idea that the only noble pursuit is scientific, which PG seems to be saying in this essay from my reading, and in fact other commenters, is borderline scientism.

Why would theology have been a bad thing to pursue, other than some sense of satisfaction you don't even get from people remembering you after you are dead?

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#88

Post by gizmo »

For people who wonder why YC and pg are okay with some of Peter Thiel's more extreme behavior, this is why.

It's pretty interesting that pg describes the possible outcomes of contrarian ideas as either positive for society or merely a waste of time. Even though the pursuit of risky and contrarian ideas can also be hugely harmful for society.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#89

Post by ConfuciusSay02 »

lisper wrote: post #76

What exactly was Newton risking? An entrepreneur who quits her job and takes out a mortgage to start a business is risking her livelihood. If she fails, she and her family could end up on the street. Newton came from a wealthy family. If he failed in his intellectual endeavors the "risk" for him was to live out his life as an ordinary rich person and only ending up in the more obscure history books. I think Fredrick…

Good point, and there's evidence to support the fact that the main indicator of a successful entrepreneur, is if he or his family is wealthy.

Re: The Risk of Discovery

#90

Post by goodcanadian »

rguzman wrote: post #14

also, i have the impression that alchemy's bad reputation is a bit undeserved. IIRC some alchemists believed matter was made of fundamental components and followed the scientific method well. so, that bet may be less risky than we perceive it now. this only makes pg's point stronger: it'd be the most interesting for a biography of Newton to talk about alchemy.

Indeed. Alchemy was the precursor to chemistry. The whole turning lead into gold trope was an obvious failure in hindsight, but that was not the sole point of alchemy. An awful lot was learned about chemistry and the nature of matter.
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