It’s a question of resolution. Just looking at things for vibes is a pretty good way of filtering wheat from chaff, but you don’t give scarce resources like jobs or grants to every grain of wheat that comes along. When I sit on a hiring committee, the discussions around the table are usually some mix of status markers and people having done the hard work of reading papers more or less carefully (this consuming time in greater-than-linear proportion to distance from your own fields of expertise). Usually (unless nepotism is involved) someone who has done that homework can wield more power than they otherwise would at that table, because people respect strong arguments and understand that status markers aren’t everything.
Still, at the end of day, an Annals paper is an Annals paper. It’s also true that to pass some of the early filters you either need (a) someone who speaks up strongly for you or (b) pass the status marker tests.
I am sometimes in a position these days of trying to bridge the academic status system and the Berkeley-centric AI safety status system, e.g. by arguing to a high status mathematician that someone with illegible (to them) status is actually approximately equivalent in “worthiness of being paid attention to” as someone they know with legible status. Small increases in legibility can have outsize effects in how easy my life is in those conversations.
Otherwise it’s entirely down to me putting social capital on the table (“you think I’m serious, I think this person is very serious”). I’m happy to do this and continue doing this, but it’s not easily scalable, because it depends on my personal relationships.
It’s a question of resolution. Just looking at things for vibes is a pretty good way of filtering wheat from chaff, but you don’t give scarce resources like jobs or grants to every grain of wheat that comes along. When I sit on a hiring committee, the discussions around the table are usually some mix of status markers and people having done the hard work of reading papers more or less carefully (this consuming time in greater-than-linear proportion to distance from your own fields of expertise). Usually (unless nepotism is involved) someone who has done that homework can wield more power than they otherwise would at that table, because people respect strong arguments and understand that status markers aren’t everything.
Still, at the end of day, an Annals paper is an Annals paper. It’s also true that to pass some of the early filters you either need (a) someone who speaks up strongly for you or (b) pass the status marker tests.
I am sometimes in a position these days of trying to bridge the academic status system and the Berkeley-centric AI safety status system, e.g. by arguing to a high status mathematician that someone with illegible (to them) status is actually approximately equivalent in “worthiness of being paid attention to” as someone they know with legible status. Small increases in legibility can have outsize effects in how easy my life is in those conversations.
Otherwise it’s entirely down to me putting social capital on the table (“you think I’m serious, I think this person is very serious”). I’m happy to do this and continue doing this, but it’s not easily scalable, because it depends on my personal relationships.