As one demonstrates more and more competency, society should withdraw its challenges to permit original paradigm-changing thought. What is actually done is very close to the exact opposite, in which more skilled people are simply given more and more work.
Granted, if you’re motivated enough, it doesn’t matter what society does; you’ll create a lot of work for yourself regardless. But at least it would be original work.
There seems to be a high degree of homophily, particularly in terms of race and culture, in student/faculty pairings.
This may lead to an admissions bias, among other things.
After seeing how faculty are hired in academia, I realize that all of my problems were predetermined as soon as I wrote the word “Algorithms” on my personal statement for grad. school.
I hypothesized that most executives have names near the beginning of the alphabet. I decided to check this hypothesis on Google’s list of executives (sample size 42; I left out the board of directors), ran a simple linear regression analysis, and found a trendline:
y=-.106x+3.089
Where x=1 signifies ‘A’, x=2 signifies ‘B’, etc. Given that the maximum bin range (one bin per alphabetic character) was 4 and the domain contains 26 variables, this is a decently significant trend. (This is a cursory analysis; I’m not doing anything particularly powerful, so pardon the lack of t-tests and other heavy-duty analysis techniques).
There were 27 executives with last names in the range A-L and 16 with last names in the range M-Z. The graph was trimodal, with peaks in C-D, L-N, and S-T.
People behave more like dogs than sheep; please adjust your idioms accordingly 🙂
“Big brother” isn’t a person, but a family. We are big brother.
Here’s a response to a comment on Slashdot that explains my perspective of collective superficiality and the need for a demagogue to influence policy. Even better if this demagogue could be a scientist, but I don’t believe scientists possess the qualities required to be effective demagogues (skepticism and propaganda don’t mix):
Keep in mind that global warming, despite being well-known decades ago (and theorized since the 1820s!) did not become a mainstream issue until Al Gore stepped in. Individually, many people will agree with you, but collectively, society is fairly indifferent to this reasoning. Even now, everyone is becoming “carbon neutral” (often by simply slapping some money down for “offsets”) because it’s the fashionable thing to do. I’m starting to see “green” banners sprouting up on websites and advertisements indicating that an operation offsets its carbon production, but I’m not seeing any real work going into eliminating the source of the problem (emissions). Even the “fashionable” attempts at new fuel sources (Ethanol, Biodiesel, etc.) arose from ideas recently popularized by the Bush administration and rely on combustion of organic matter. These reactions are going to release chemicals into the atmosphere, and even if they are as innocuous as water vapor, we cannot predict what their environmental effects will be when emitted in large quantities (as evidenced by the fact that there is still a debate on the role of CO2 in the atmosphere). After all, even water vapor is a greenhouse gas, although drawing it from the atmosphere and putting it back later is probably fairly inconsequential. Ultimately, what we require is energy, not fuel, and it would be great if we could popularize the search for more efficient forms of renewable energy capture that do not rely on combustion of organic matter.
But that requires a demagogue, because while individuals are capable of thinking beyond the surface issues presented to them, the masses, collectively, are not. The “Support the Troops” phenomenon is another example of this: everyone loves to put stickers on their cars, but without action, that’s simply grasping the message without understanding its meaning. The message can’t only be about global warming, but must also be about the dangers of adopting nonrenewable energy sources. Similarly, the message can’t be about “supporting the troops” in some vague way, but must be about preserving their lives, however that end goal may be accomplished.
The fact that an entire industry has built up around the concept of fueling also doesn’t help. I don’t believe that this industry is holding back the solution, per se, but they are not helping: the researchers these companies employ are not going to be interested in, say, solar power, unless there was some way for the company to maintain its viability in an economy dominated by that form of energy.
But at least what society is doing now might serve as a temporary measure. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any measure of transience to society’s current plan; whatever methods of energy production we select in the near future, they are going to be used for quite some time and we are going to devote significant amounts of resources to their production, as with oil.
Even when global warming finally comes to society’s attention (it only took 180 years!), people still think they can “solve” the problem by burning up as much greenhouse gas as they like and simply paying someone to “offset” the carbon. The methods being used to do so are laudable (planting trees, investing in cleaner forms of power, etc.), but these things should be done anyway. And people are brandishing their “carbon neutral” logos around as if the fact that they’re too lazy to do more than throw money at the problem is something to be proud of! It’s better than doing nothing, I suppose, but one really should be taking proactive steps to actually reduce one’s emissions in the first place.
And it’s only being done at all because it’s popular. The underlying environmental consequences behind the actions have either escaped the public altogether or the public simply does not care because the consequences most likely will not be paid in this generation. Otherwise they would have started doing this fifteen years ago when the alarm started to be seriously sounded. No, it took a politician who at this time has every right to sit back and laugh at society as it founders to get people to move… not a scientist or even the “scientific community” as a whole. Thus, it should be no surprise that the meaning behind the action is lost.
Certain people function as “social magnets”, for lack of a better phrase. They’ll walk into a room and bring the party with them. (In Soviet Russia, the Party walks YOU into a room! …Sorry, couldn’t resist). They tend to attract people in two topologies: mesh (small groups of people interacting with each other) or star (everyone talking to the “magnet”). When they walk into a quiet room and their entourage begins to build, the former inhabitants of that room (who are almost certainly all introverts) will look for an excuse to leave.
This takes place in cities too, except that now we have groups rather than individuals:
Suppose a group of, say, famous musicians decides to buy houses in a specific area (say, Rumson, NJ). The entire town will attract fans of the group, who will find common ground interacting with each other about the musicians, or will interact with the musicians themselves.
This is a recurring motif on all levels of social organization, and might be worth thinking about in more depth.
When making a decision that would presumably cause distress to someone, it is common practice in society not to disclose the reasons for the decision.
This is stupid. As I said in my Treatise on the Objective Reality of Ideas, “Those who prefer ignorance to knowledge are fools. It can never be otherwise.” That includes when the knowledge may hurt one’s feelings.
Because I cannot obtain feedback regarding my Google interviews, I can only continue to assume that a single bad interview cost me the job. From an objective standpoint (how many problems I solved within the allotted time), that’s the only conclusion that makes sense.
And if this isn’t true, then it’s a very bad conclusion to allow someone to think they’ve reached regarding the company. Such things breed discontent.