‘ We should free them from rote menial work, prevent them from being overexpose…’
Simple solution, stop all Government research grants, then young minds will not be drawn to areas which are fashionable, hot issues for politicians and the activist/lobby industry and where the money is.
How much talent is diverted and engaged in finding ‘green solutions’ for this and that simply to duplicate technology we already have which serves well, and with what added benefit?
For example. What is the benefit to our society and economy from huge amounts of capital and resources going into development (fat chance) of enormous, expensive batteries to store wind/solar generated electricity?
I just finished reading Robert Greene's _Mastery_ last night, and the book's broad themes matched to some degree the quote Arnold provided. However, the book concludes that mastery of this type is not a miracle, and ends with this Nietzsche quote that I liked:
"Genius too does nothing but learn first how to lay bricks then how to build, and continually seek for material and continually form itself around it. Every activity of man is amazingly complicated, not only that of the genius: but none is a 'miracle.'"
You may like bitcoin or not, but that seems the way Satoshi Nakamoto used to build bitcoin. Focusing intensely on this problem, combining existing mathematical tools to produce a novel solution that kickstarted an industry worth mroe than 1tn. We'll never know if (s)he was young (I think not) but this is the only parallel of a "miracle year" i can think of.
I sympathize with how stifling PhD programs can be. On the other hand, productive genius is rare and unpredictable, and PhD programs need to have stable and predictable outcomes, at least insofar as they are intended for more than the midwifery of genius. Are there ways to identify the most promising and give them more leeway? Sounds more like a job for wise mentors (i.e., too hard to 'mechanize'). Still, PhD programs could be made less stifling for the non-geniuses as well, though it is far from obvious that optimizing for the benefit of non-geniuses automatically optimizes for the geniuses.
‘ We should free them from rote menial work, prevent them from being overexpose…’
Simple solution, stop all Government research grants, then young minds will not be drawn to areas which are fashionable, hot issues for politicians and the activist/lobby industry and where the money is.
How much talent is diverted and engaged in finding ‘green solutions’ for this and that simply to duplicate technology we already have which serves well, and with what added benefit?
For example. What is the benefit to our society and economy from huge amounts of capital and resources going into development (fat chance) of enormous, expensive batteries to store wind/solar generated electricity?
I just finished reading Robert Greene's _Mastery_ last night, and the book's broad themes matched to some degree the quote Arnold provided. However, the book concludes that mastery of this type is not a miracle, and ends with this Nietzsche quote that I liked:
"Genius too does nothing but learn first how to lay bricks then how to build, and continually seek for material and continually form itself around it. Every activity of man is amazingly complicated, not only that of the genius: but none is a 'miracle.'"
You may like bitcoin or not, but that seems the way Satoshi Nakamoto used to build bitcoin. Focusing intensely on this problem, combining existing mathematical tools to produce a novel solution that kickstarted an industry worth mroe than 1tn. We'll never know if (s)he was young (I think not) but this is the only parallel of a "miracle year" i can think of.
I sympathize with how stifling PhD programs can be. On the other hand, productive genius is rare and unpredictable, and PhD programs need to have stable and predictable outcomes, at least insofar as they are intended for more than the midwifery of genius. Are there ways to identify the most promising and give them more leeway? Sounds more like a job for wise mentors (i.e., too hard to 'mechanize'). Still, PhD programs could be made less stifling for the non-geniuses as well, though it is far from obvious that optimizing for the benefit of non-geniuses automatically optimizes for the geniuses.