Patrick Collison on Innovation and Scientific Progress [audio](econtalk.org)
econtalk.org
Patrick Collison on Innovation and Scientific Progress [audio]
http://www.econtalk.org/patrick-collison-on-innovation-and-scientific-progress/
51 comments
(Throwaway since I know a lot of the Stripe folks.)
Agreed -- I'm disappointed to see this from pc. This piece reeks of the "Andy Grove Fallacy", as described by to Derek Lowe ([1] and [2]).
It's one thing to be a mastercard middleman -- it's completely different to create new fundamental knowledge about the world.
[1] "Andy Grove: Rich, Famous, Smart and Wrong" http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2007/11/06/and...
[2] "Silicon Valley Sunglasses" http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/04/02/sil...
Agreed -- I'm disappointed to see this from pc. This piece reeks of the "Andy Grove Fallacy", as described by to Derek Lowe ([1] and [2]).
It's one thing to be a mastercard middleman -- it's completely different to create new fundamental knowledge about the world.
[1] "Andy Grove: Rich, Famous, Smart and Wrong" http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2007/11/06/and...
[2] "Silicon Valley Sunglasses" http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2015/04/02/sil...
I worked with pc a little (and observed him make lots of decisions). His biggest strength IMO is entering a domain where he has no experience whatsoever, and very rapidly building up correct intuition on how to operate in that domain. There are very, very few people who can do it as well as he can.
I think being "mastercard middleman" is disingenuous. Firstly, because doing that well breaks down into getting good at many domains (software, finance, management, regulatory, sales, recruiting, fundraising, etc. etc. etc.), and secondly because Stripe is far more than that.
At the very least, his intuition on these issues is very likely to be much, much better than random chance.
I think being "mastercard middleman" is disingenuous. Firstly, because doing that well breaks down into getting good at many domains (software, finance, management, regulatory, sales, recruiting, fundraising, etc. etc. etc.), and secondly because Stripe is far more than that.
At the very least, his intuition on these issues is very likely to be much, much better than random chance.
We should listen to him not as a Stripe founder, but as a smart guy. But he's being interviewed because he's a Stripe founder.
I read the article from The Atlantic instead. While I disagree with their analysis, where I can't help thinking that they are just measuring the "wow-factor" which would diminish as more people are working on something in a more iterative fashion, the middle part of the article is quite interesting. I also appreciate that they left it rather open ended especially since I assume we wouldn't come to the same conclusion.
One thing they are at least implying, but I think they could have explored more is implementations. While you can argue whether there are less scientific breakthroughs or not, we certainly have less implementations. Were I assume I differ from their view is that I think this have to do with diminish returns for the implementations themselves.
To some extent it becomes meaningless to "cure cancer" when we have preventable diseases and situations killing people every day. So there can't realistically be a goal to do it. (Which isn't intended as an argument about the value of each). As I insinuated earlier I think a breakthrough is really in the eye of the beholder. Society these days doesn't really provide a platform for creating and implementing breakthroughs. The ambition get lost in the noise.
I think people assume when watching utopian science fiction that science resulted in society. Maybe in reality it is the other way around. Once you decide that everyone deserves e.g. housing the result becomes worth it and the science follows. That is certainly what happened in the ~60s in many parts of the world. If no one thinks that this is a worthy breakthrough why would anything happen in the first place today?
[What I really wanted to say was that I found the middle part of article surprisingly interesting].
One thing they are at least implying, but I think they could have explored more is implementations. While you can argue whether there are less scientific breakthroughs or not, we certainly have less implementations. Were I assume I differ from their view is that I think this have to do with diminish returns for the implementations themselves.
To some extent it becomes meaningless to "cure cancer" when we have preventable diseases and situations killing people every day. So there can't realistically be a goal to do it. (Which isn't intended as an argument about the value of each). As I insinuated earlier I think a breakthrough is really in the eye of the beholder. Society these days doesn't really provide a platform for creating and implementing breakthroughs. The ambition get lost in the noise.
I think people assume when watching utopian science fiction that science resulted in society. Maybe in reality it is the other way around. Once you decide that everyone deserves e.g. housing the result becomes worth it and the science follows. That is certainly what happened in the ~60s in many parts of the world. If no one thinks that this is a worthy breakthrough why would anything happen in the first place today?
[What I really wanted to say was that I found the middle part of article surprisingly interesting].
A key point of that piece in the Atlantic, if I remember correctly, was that there are no breakthroughs now because we already know, for the most part, what is there to be known. We know the most important ideas/theories about the world we live in (evolution, the standard model, general relativity, etc.) and so the 'rest is detail' now.
I've reached a similar conclusion about fundamental physics. At the very least we are stuck with what we have for a very long time.
This may seem to be anti-scientific or anti-progress but who proved that scientific progress is unbounded?
I've reached a similar conclusion about fundamental physics. At the very least we are stuck with what we have for a very long time.
This may seem to be anti-scientific or anti-progress but who proved that scientific progress is unbounded?
> we already know, for the most part, what is there to be known
This is also what what generally believed about physics in the 1890s, right before everything exploded with Relativity and Quantum Physics.
"it was generally accepted that all the important laws of physics had been discovered and that, henceforth, research would be concerned with clearing up minor problems and particularly with improvements of method and measurement"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_physics#20th_centur...
This is also what what generally believed about physics in the 1890s, right before everything exploded with Relativity and Quantum Physics.
"it was generally accepted that all the important laws of physics had been discovered and that, henceforth, research would be concerned with clearing up minor problems and particularly with improvements of method and measurement"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_physics#20th_centur...
Yes, that is essentially the main point. I am just not sure it is that relevant. Even if science is getting harder, so is the utility by itself. Transportation is very useful everyday, going to the moon is (while impressive and inspiring) useful mostly once. On the other hand I am not sure it has become harder to make science useful as such. Every incremental step in e.g. transportation can potentially matter a lot. So I have a bit of a hard time connecting that science would be harder and that it doesn't serve us. I am sort of left wondering what the agenda would be.
>> I think a breakthrough is really in the eye of the beholder . Society these days doesn't really provide a platform for creating and implementing breakthroughs.
If you'd ask yuval-noah harari, an historian, he'll say that with today's and tomorrow's innovation in AI and robotics , we're at unprecedented era in history.
If you'd ask yuval-noah harari, an historian, he'll say that with today's and tomorrow's innovation in AI and robotics , we're at unprecedented era in history.
I don't know much about him, more than what I could find on Wikipedia. I just don't think most of these people have a significant enough hypothesis to warrant the expectation of breakthrough. If someone can propose the specific way AI will change e.g. medicine once it reaches a certain level, that might be something. At least if the difference is great enough. "It will change society", doesn't have so much standing in my opinion. I guess if you are a historian it probably does. Until someone start spending money for something specific (which might already be happening) I wouldn’t expect a breakthrough, because it doesn’t really matter.
Impact on society doesn't mean impact on science. What scientific breakthroughs were due to the internet? Yet, the internet had/has an unprecedented impact on history.
On the other hand, when someone starts having public opinions on pretty much anything (from buddhism to AI), I tend to be very suspicious about their expertise.
On the other hand, when someone starts having public opinions on pretty much anything (from buddhism to AI), I tend to be very suspicious about their expertise.
> What scientific breakthroughs were due to the internet?
Many, many, many. But it’s hard to pinpoint them.
Lower-friction communication between researchers and better access to published science is an incredible catalyst for every kind of advance (from trivial incremental improvements through to new paradigms) in every field.
Many, many, many. But it’s hard to pinpoint them.
Lower-friction communication between researchers and better access to published science is an incredible catalyst for every kind of advance (from trivial incremental improvements through to new paradigms) in every field.
Better/faster communication can facilitate work, but it's not the same as causing a breakthrough like say new data/theory. In that regard, English as a unified scientific language has probably a bigger impact than the internet.
I've read two of his books. He's an amazing historian and writer, but I'm not a fan of his futurology. Studying history is important but it certainly doesn't predict the future.
The transcript appears to be "highlights" (i.e., excerpts with gaps between), and so it wouldn't be surprising if it jumps around.
I am studying your book on DL right now. I came here to have a short break ... and there you are :-)
Thanks for the book. It's great!
Thanks for the book. It's great!
Today's milieu is exploiting existing technology, which has raced ahead, affecting our perception of technology in general.
A deeper cause is mathematics taught as a trade to technicians, when Euclid and geometry stopped being central. Instead of a way to think, to prove, to investigate, we have tools for jobs.
A deeper cause is mathematics taught as a trade to technicians, when Euclid and geometry stopped being central. Instead of a way to think, to prove, to investigate, we have tools for jobs.
The transcript is a poorly done summary.
I remember being a bit surprised when I read this (the Atlantic article much of the convo is focused on) back in December, that there was no mention of Thomas Kuhn's perspective on the structure of scientific progress. Maybe I'm out of date on the consensus views though.
Personally I would find it more surprising if there were not diminishing returns on investments on scientific inquiry, than (as presented in the article) if there are. Kuhn's paradigms offer the escape maybe, ROI diminishing within one paradigm, and then increasing rapidly within some new paradigm.
Personally I would find it more surprising if there were not diminishing returns on investments on scientific inquiry, than (as presented in the article) if there are. Kuhn's paradigms offer the escape maybe, ROI diminishing within one paradigm, and then increasing rapidly within some new paradigm.
The Atlantic article: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminish...
Patrick Collison is always interesting to read, but the 103 occurrences of "kind of" and 54 of "you know" remind me why I tend to avoid podcasts.
The 'you know' is a filler we use for traffic regulation. We use these fillers subconsciously to take micro breaks while speaking, to verbalize our thoughts and to indicate to the listener not to interrupt as we aren't done speaking yet.
Polish of delivery is just a nice to have feature, substance matters most of all.
I've attended public speaking courses, which tend to emphasize polish, but seeing some of the most effective speakers using fillers like 'ums' 'ahs' and 'you know' just goes to show polish doesn't matter all that much. Reality supersedes theory.
Polish of delivery is just a nice to have feature, substance matters most of all.
I've attended public speaking courses, which tend to emphasize polish, but seeing some of the most effective speakers using fillers like 'ums' 'ahs' and 'you know' just goes to show polish doesn't matter all that much. Reality supersedes theory.
The fact it's annoying to listen to "ums", "you knows" and "kind ofs" is very much a reality. Polish and content aren't an either-or thing.
Instead of saying "you know" just stay silent. Makes your speech much better. You don't have to fill every bit of silence with words.
As a counterpoint, if a talk lacks the natural "kind of"s and "ummm"s, my charlatan radar turns on--people who are too polished often get megaphones because of their polish rather than substance. Most of the smartest people I know lean on these verbal crutches and I don't fault them one bit for it.
I think that's pushing it a bit too far. Many people whose job is speaking can say very interesting things without any crutches like those (writers, professors, etc.). I do not "fault" them either (except for poor delivery that could be fixed fairly easily), but I'd just rather see their thoughts in writing.
I don't fault them either, I'm just saying my charlatan detector goes on high alert.
It is possible for someone to put deliberate practice and care into learning basic public speaking skills without being a charlatan.
> Most of the smartest people I know lean on these verbal crutches
Yes, “most” smart people never spend much deliberate effort on improving verbal communication. (Just like “most” smart people never put deliberate effort into their cooking skills, or their running form, or their mental calculation speed, or their tree climbing, or their drawing, ....)
There are a lot of skills people might choose to work on, and only so much time, and if you pick any particular one (unless it is something unavoidable for most adults like eating or reading), you will find most people to be unpracticed at it.
But that doesn’t mean intellectuals shouldn’t work on verbal communication skills.
> Most of the smartest people I know lean on these verbal crutches
Yes, “most” smart people never spend much deliberate effort on improving verbal communication. (Just like “most” smart people never put deliberate effort into their cooking skills, or their running form, or their mental calculation speed, or their tree climbing, or their drawing, ....)
There are a lot of skills people might choose to work on, and only so much time, and if you pick any particular one (unless it is something unavoidable for most adults like eating or reading), you will find most people to be unpracticed at it.
But that doesn’t mean intellectuals shouldn’t work on verbal communication skills.
> It is possible for someone to put deliberate practice and care into learning basic public speaking skills without being a charlatan.
I never suggested otherwise.
I never suggested otherwise.
The interesting part is not in the reading of the words but the understanding of the concepts.
I listened to this podcast and rarely read transcripts. When listening to podcasts, at least for me, the "umms" and "awws" allow me time to think about what is being said.
If you prefer reading. Read the article that the interview is based upon: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminish...
And Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen: https://www.amazon.com/Stubborn-Attachments-Prosperous-Respo...
I listened to this podcast and rarely read transcripts. When listening to podcasts, at least for me, the "umms" and "awws" allow me time to think about what is being said.
If you prefer reading. Read the article that the interview is based upon: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/11/diminish...
And Stubborn Attachments by Tyler Cowen: https://www.amazon.com/Stubborn-Attachments-Prosperous-Respo...
Sure, and things like "you know", "umm" etc. are not concepts. They're just noise. They could be edited out of the transcript and no value would be lost.
I did read the article when it came out. The interesting part here is the way the presenter might challenge some of the contents of the article.
I did read the article when it came out. The interesting part here is the way the presenter might challenge some of the contents of the article.
Scientific Growth != Societal Growth &&
Technological Growth != Social Growth
I definitely see your point, but if you view science and technology as aspects of culture, then your statement is false.
That’s a semantic issue. And a big if.
No, it's not a semantic issue, but to someone who doesn't see it that way, sure it's a big if. Technology is developed in response to the pain points a given people might feel and represent their beliefs just as clearly as a drum beat.
The benefits of productivity growth are normed to the size of the economy, so the relevant comparison is R&D spending as a percentage of GDP to productivity growth. As fas as I know, R&D spending as a percentage of GDP has been relatively flat for a long time. See [1] for data for a bunch of countries going back to 1996. So this is much less dramatic than the claims of, e.g., 50x growth in spending on scientific research that he mentions in the podcast.
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS
[1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS
Love seeing so much Patrick Collison content (should I say PC content?) lately. His Tim Ferriss podcast was thought provoking. I think that's what's important - he has new ideas and he's talking about them.
I think it all comes down to one thing:
There is no Income-As-A-Service available on the internet or in industrialized society.
Real technology liberates people from labor and minutia. What we have today could be thought of as phantom technology (similar to phantom wealth) in that it gives the appearance of providing labor-saving devices and software without actually providing such things:
http://neweconomy-wg.thenextsystem.org/visions/living-wealth...
Under our current capitalist system, no amount of income frees someone from the daily obligations and distractions that slowly drain away the time that each of us is allotted. So we end up with millionaires that have less time than ever, or that feel undignified that they can't get out of The Matrix, who then impress their toxic worldview on things like our political system, perpetuating servitude on the masses and future generations.
The vast majority of people working in technology are underemployed. University researchers spend too much time raising funding. Internet startups can raise millions and even billions of dollars if they find creative ways to turn dollars into profit, but there seems to be no funding to permanently solve problems like energy, hunger, disease, etc etc.
People have tried to create their own off-the-grid societies, but these have so far been mostly unsuccessful. I'm not aware of any similar online groups that one could join and obtain a stipend just by being a member. Open source or crowd funding could possibly go this direction someday, feeding profits back into the groups instead of siphoning them off to private shareholders.
IMHO the way to solve this is to get back to a grant-based system. Give researchers, hackers and makers the funding they need to solve the real problems facing the world, and we'd see outsized returns on investment almost overnight. That's why I'm a huge proponent of UBI. And also why I think the entrenched forces of the status quo will never let it happen.
There is no Income-As-A-Service available on the internet or in industrialized society.
Real technology liberates people from labor and minutia. What we have today could be thought of as phantom technology (similar to phantom wealth) in that it gives the appearance of providing labor-saving devices and software without actually providing such things:
http://neweconomy-wg.thenextsystem.org/visions/living-wealth...
Under our current capitalist system, no amount of income frees someone from the daily obligations and distractions that slowly drain away the time that each of us is allotted. So we end up with millionaires that have less time than ever, or that feel undignified that they can't get out of The Matrix, who then impress their toxic worldview on things like our political system, perpetuating servitude on the masses and future generations.
The vast majority of people working in technology are underemployed. University researchers spend too much time raising funding. Internet startups can raise millions and even billions of dollars if they find creative ways to turn dollars into profit, but there seems to be no funding to permanently solve problems like energy, hunger, disease, etc etc.
People have tried to create their own off-the-grid societies, but these have so far been mostly unsuccessful. I'm not aware of any similar online groups that one could join and obtain a stipend just by being a member. Open source or crowd funding could possibly go this direction someday, feeding profits back into the groups instead of siphoning them off to private shareholders.
IMHO the way to solve this is to get back to a grant-based system. Give researchers, hackers and makers the funding they need to solve the real problems facing the world, and we'd see outsized returns on investment almost overnight. That's why I'm a huge proponent of UBI. And also why I think the entrenched forces of the status quo will never let it happen.
> The vast majority of people working in technology are underemployed.
I am not of the "startups do everything better" variety, but I do agree that a ton of effort goes into upgrading yesterdays ideas. Without going to political I really think it has to do with the ownership model. It is the owners that hold the position in the market. Today we aren't seeing that many spinoffs anymore either from what I can tell. In fact most acquisitions are the opposite. And I know many people think startups are a solutions, but it is really a big barrier to overcome and especially to go on to become an independent company.
I am not of the "startups do everything better" variety, but I do agree that a ton of effort goes into upgrading yesterdays ideas. Without going to political I really think it has to do with the ownership model. It is the owners that hold the position in the market. Today we aren't seeing that many spinoffs anymore either from what I can tell. In fact most acquisitions are the opposite. And I know many people think startups are a solutions, but it is really a big barrier to overcome and especially to go on to become an independent company.
Scott Alexander over at SlateStarCodex has a rational take on this: https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/11/26/is-science-slowing-dow...
Sadly, Patrick Collison does not have relevant experience in these areas.
"Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I think it's very reasonable for someone to raise an eyebrow at this, though I'd love to know where I'm wrong rather than just lacking in relevant experience.
More importantly, though, the article I was being interviewed about is one I cowrote with Michael Nielsen, who does have a lot of first-hand experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Nielsen. (And, as part of writing it, we spent time discussing the questions with many practicing scientists across a lot of different fields.)
More importantly, though, the article I was being interviewed about is one I cowrote with Michael Nielsen, who does have a lot of first-hand experience: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Nielsen. (And, as part of writing it, we spent time discussing the questions with many practicing scientists across a lot of different fields.)
If science is more inefficient, what are some ideas to make it less so? I work at a top research university in the US, and have thought about this quite a bit (I don't really disagree). I'm curious to hear what you and Michael think are some good approaches. I genuinely care about this problem, and I am working on some things myself.
My personal take:
There are plenty of ways to improve research productivity on the margin, but I don't think that's the point of the argument here. The argument isn't that research productivity is getting worse because of X, and to solve it we need to do Y. The argument is research productivity is getting worse because of X, and because X is 'the laws of physics', this slowdown is a feature of the universe, not a feature of our poor research methodologies. It's inherently unavoidable, to some extent.
The plain fact is that everything we do is limited by (1) the laws of physics and (2) the space of possible inventions. In the early days of the industrial revolution, we didn't really know the laws of physics and we hadn't mapped out the space of possible inventions. But today is qualitatively different. Broadly, research productivity is hitting diminishing returns. The key questions here are (1) how do we know this to be true? and (2) why is this happening?
(1) is touched on by a number of books and papers. You can look at progress in transportation. The gains of today are pitiful compared to the gains of 1800-1950, where we went from horses to steam locomotives to airplanes to rockets. You can look at progress in medicine. We made progress earlier by discovering that germs existed and that we should wash our hands. Equivalent gains today now take billions in drug R&D. Really the only sector where we've been doing well over the past few decades is IT, and now even that's maturing. Moore's law is dead, the gold rush for the web is over, and smartphone penetration is approaching its natural limit of 100%.
The two key readings I would recommend here are Robert Gordon's 'The Rise and Fall of American Growth' and Nicholas Bloom et al.'s 'Are ideas getting harder to find?'
On (2), I think it's worth emphasizing that electromagnetism was mostly figured out in the late 1800s. Quantum mechanics was mostly figured out in the early 1900s. The essentials of nuclear energy were figured our in the early to mid 1900s. Even though we know gaps in our physics knowledge remain, these gaps are not going to overturn what we already do know. And what we already do know really constrains the efficiency of our designs. We're not gonna make engines that beat the Carnot limit. We're not gonna make vehicles that are simultaneously (1) fast, (2) energy efficient, and (3) move through the atmosphere. We're not gonna find chemical fuels that are denser than hydrocarbons. We're never going to beat entropy in improving the energy efficiency of ore smelting. Etc.
Now, I don't mean to establish a straw man that progress is over, that innovation is impossible, etc. But I really do believe that design space is finite and there are diminishing returns in its exploration. Before you believe it, it sounds crazy and defeatist, but after you believe it sounds banal and obvious.
There are plenty of ways to improve research productivity on the margin, but I don't think that's the point of the argument here. The argument isn't that research productivity is getting worse because of X, and to solve it we need to do Y. The argument is research productivity is getting worse because of X, and because X is 'the laws of physics', this slowdown is a feature of the universe, not a feature of our poor research methodologies. It's inherently unavoidable, to some extent.
The plain fact is that everything we do is limited by (1) the laws of physics and (2) the space of possible inventions. In the early days of the industrial revolution, we didn't really know the laws of physics and we hadn't mapped out the space of possible inventions. But today is qualitatively different. Broadly, research productivity is hitting diminishing returns. The key questions here are (1) how do we know this to be true? and (2) why is this happening?
(1) is touched on by a number of books and papers. You can look at progress in transportation. The gains of today are pitiful compared to the gains of 1800-1950, where we went from horses to steam locomotives to airplanes to rockets. You can look at progress in medicine. We made progress earlier by discovering that germs existed and that we should wash our hands. Equivalent gains today now take billions in drug R&D. Really the only sector where we've been doing well over the past few decades is IT, and now even that's maturing. Moore's law is dead, the gold rush for the web is over, and smartphone penetration is approaching its natural limit of 100%.
The two key readings I would recommend here are Robert Gordon's 'The Rise and Fall of American Growth' and Nicholas Bloom et al.'s 'Are ideas getting harder to find?'
On (2), I think it's worth emphasizing that electromagnetism was mostly figured out in the late 1800s. Quantum mechanics was mostly figured out in the early 1900s. The essentials of nuclear energy were figured our in the early to mid 1900s. Even though we know gaps in our physics knowledge remain, these gaps are not going to overturn what we already do know. And what we already do know really constrains the efficiency of our designs. We're not gonna make engines that beat the Carnot limit. We're not gonna make vehicles that are simultaneously (1) fast, (2) energy efficient, and (3) move through the atmosphere. We're not gonna find chemical fuels that are denser than hydrocarbons. We're never going to beat entropy in improving the energy efficiency of ore smelting. Etc.
Now, I don't mean to establish a straw man that progress is over, that innovation is impossible, etc. But I really do believe that design space is finite and there are diminishing returns in its exploration. Before you believe it, it sounds crazy and defeatist, but after you believe it sounds banal and obvious.
I do think it is a bit ironic that it is, at least partly, economist raising these issues. Since in my view it is partly the misuse of economics as a way to decide things, rather than as a way to perform what is decided, that have left us here. And by that I don't mean you shouldn't consider economics. It is just that in an ideal world, you do things that are worth it anyway.
1. I think you could to some extent William Gibson this though. "The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed". Maybe we have made less progress, but it also looks far less because it isn't being obviously distributed. (I guess in regards to Moore's law you can remove "not evenly" from the quote).
2. I agree. I wonder if this doesn't have a lot to do with misguidance. Basically a lot of our ideas of the future are old. Therefor we want self-driving cars, even though we know cars are limited in the sense that they have non-specific applications. So a lot of what people see as the future is a non-starter from the beginning.
I will have to read some of that material. I do think that science could be getting harder. On the other hand I am not sure we are even making the effort. Space exploration is something that get really hard really quick. But there are certainly a bunch of things you could at least try to explore in our solar system. But I guess that progress can be hard to quantify as well.
1. I think you could to some extent William Gibson this though. "The future is already here — it’s just not evenly distributed". Maybe we have made less progress, but it also looks far less because it isn't being obviously distributed. (I guess in regards to Moore's law you can remove "not evenly" from the quote).
2. I agree. I wonder if this doesn't have a lot to do with misguidance. Basically a lot of our ideas of the future are old. Therefor we want self-driving cars, even though we know cars are limited in the sense that they have non-specific applications. So a lot of what people see as the future is a non-starter from the beginning.
I will have to read some of that material. I do think that science could be getting harder. On the other hand I am not sure we are even making the effort. Space exploration is something that get really hard really quick. But there are certainly a bunch of things you could at least try to explore in our solar system. But I guess that progress can be hard to quantify as well.
Yes, technology is limited by physics, but by many measures it's still very far from the limits. We build tons of things out of steel, ferchrissakes. Computers use many orders of magnitude too much power, even neglecting reversibility. They don't even use the third dimension!
Most perspectives on science highlight the hierarchical nature of the process, and how successive layers are built on previous ones. I largely agree with this, and Sean Caroll outlines it in 'The Big Picture', but many have pointed this out before. Before I'm willing to throw in the towel, let's at least figure out what biology is all about :) For this task, we'll likely use a tremendous amount from fundamental physics, and then we may need to invent what's next (or not, I'm sure you are well aware of the view that physics was 'solved' in the late 1800's.....but leave it to the Germans to need a more efficient lightbulb).
In addition, from my perspective, research isn't just about what we find out in an isolated field, but also the interplay of discoveries and knowledge between fields. This latter view, 'integration', is largely unexplored at scale, though lip service is constantly being given to it. I think there is a tremendous amount we can do here, and it's not just marginal. Overall, I am more optimistic I think, perhaps to an unwarranted degree :)
I also think that language is important, especially in the service of scientific understanding and progress. In this respect, I think category theory is poised to play a major role as a language for the sciences, and particularly integrative science in the 21st century.
I've been working on this in my spare time: https://www.eonias.org/, which I definitely hesitate to link to here because it's unfinished, but I figure I might as well start putting it out there. I think there are lots of ways to improve the way we go about research, having been in the grind for a few years now. There are tons of different opinions on this, but I just wanted to do something.
In short, I personally am not concerned whether 'research productivity is getting worse because of X, and because X is "the laws of physics"' is actually true or not (this is a complicated question, and the relevant question is whether 'productivity' can go up again--I think it can). I believe there's plenty left to do, and we need far more people doing it than we have engaged now. After all, should we move the money from the budget of the NSF into tax incentives for football stadiums? From my perspective, I think the NEH should have a much larger budget, which in and of itself is an interesting topic of debate. I mean, where have the humanities gone?? I'm f@#C!ing tired of AI and robots already. ;)
In addition, from my perspective, research isn't just about what we find out in an isolated field, but also the interplay of discoveries and knowledge between fields. This latter view, 'integration', is largely unexplored at scale, though lip service is constantly being given to it. I think there is a tremendous amount we can do here, and it's not just marginal. Overall, I am more optimistic I think, perhaps to an unwarranted degree :)
I also think that language is important, especially in the service of scientific understanding and progress. In this respect, I think category theory is poised to play a major role as a language for the sciences, and particularly integrative science in the 21st century.
I've been working on this in my spare time: https://www.eonias.org/, which I definitely hesitate to link to here because it's unfinished, but I figure I might as well start putting it out there. I think there are lots of ways to improve the way we go about research, having been in the grind for a few years now. There are tons of different opinions on this, but I just wanted to do something.
In short, I personally am not concerned whether 'research productivity is getting worse because of X, and because X is "the laws of physics"' is actually true or not (this is a complicated question, and the relevant question is whether 'productivity' can go up again--I think it can). I believe there's plenty left to do, and we need far more people doing it than we have engaged now. After all, should we move the money from the budget of the NSF into tax incentives for football stadiums? From my perspective, I think the NEH should have a much larger budget, which in and of itself is an interesting topic of debate. I mean, where have the humanities gone?? I'm f@#C!ing tired of AI and robots already. ;)
Sadly, Patrick Collison had no experience in payments before starting Stripe.
Some things that define society, or at least peoples views, have also just been getting harder. You can't really do something as obviously meaningful in space as the moon landing. You can do many other things if you change your frame of reference, but we are not going interstellar anytime soon.
If there is any observation I would make it is that the way innovation is made seems to have changed. It used to be you had some sort of goal and then tried to get the best technology to do that. Today, it seems like companies, and societies, are sitting around waiting for technologies to exploit. One day self-driving cars, 3d printed houses and AI enabled health scanners are going to save us all. We aren't really sure how, why or if there is even much worth saving at that point, but it will surely happen?