Low scholarship (not mainly the academic kind) due to lack of slack from prioritizing the wrong winning metrics (money and status over time). In general, an optimization frame often falls into the trap of fine tuning existing considerations instead of seeking new considerations.
There are two problems: 1) not spending enough time on scholarship and 2) not having enough slack. These two problems are separate in the sense that 2 would be a problem even if 1 was solved and vice versa, but related in the sense that 2 is a big reason why 1 is a problem in the first place. And maybe 3) is another problem: that we spend too much time on existing considerations instead of seeking new considerations (exploiting instead of exploring).
Does that sound accurate?
If so, not that this adds much to the conversation, but 2 is the only one I have a decently strong sense of agreement towards.
1 I could see being true but also could see being false. Maybe people are currently spending roughly the right amount of time on scholarship. People in research and academia spending reading a good amount of papers, people in industry not doing so because it wouldn’t help them achieve their goals all that much.
3 is interesting. I’m really not sure.
I do think it’s worth pointing out that compared to other cultures, rationalist culture does a lot more to push 1) scholarship, 2) slack and 3) exploring. That’s not to say that we can’t do more along any of those dimensions though, just that “room for improvement” might be a better way to frame it than “problem”.
What sorts of queries on which knowledge retrievers would you suggest for learning more about this from the perspective you’re seeing as lacking? if it’s useful for answering this, my favorite search engines are arxivxplorer, semanticscholar’s recommender, metaphor, and I also sometimes ask claude or chatgpt to describe a concept to help me identify search terms. using that set of tools, what would you suggest looking up to find links I can provide to others as an intro to scholarship? I have plenty of my own ideas for what to look up, to be clear.
I also use connected papers and search citation lineages. Linked resources seem good too. For scholarship I think Richard Hamming’s final two chapters in art of doing science and engineering are hard to beat.
What are you comparing to? It is only compared to what you would want rationalist culture to be like, or do you have examples of other cultures (besides academia) that do better in this regard?
Low scholarship (not mainly the academic kind) due to lack of slack from prioritizing the wrong winning metrics (money and status over time). In general, an optimization frame often falls into the trap of fine tuning existing considerations instead of seeking new considerations.
What other kind of scholarship do you have in mind?
Let me attempt to paraphrase.
There are two problems: 1) not spending enough time on scholarship and 2) not having enough slack. These two problems are separate in the sense that 2 would be a problem even if 1 was solved and vice versa, but related in the sense that 2 is a big reason why 1 is a problem in the first place. And maybe 3) is another problem: that we spend too much time on existing considerations instead of seeking new considerations (exploiting instead of exploring).
Does that sound accurate?
If so, not that this adds much to the conversation, but 2 is the only one I have a decently strong sense of agreement towards.
1 I could see being true but also could see being false. Maybe people are currently spending roughly the right amount of time on scholarship. People in research and academia spending reading a good amount of papers, people in industry not doing so because it wouldn’t help them achieve their goals all that much.
3 is interesting. I’m really not sure.
I do think it’s worth pointing out that compared to other cultures, rationalist culture does a lot more to push 1) scholarship, 2) slack and 3) exploring. That’s not to say that we can’t do more along any of those dimensions though, just that “room for improvement” might be a better way to frame it than “problem”.
Sounds like a reasonable take. I recognize there are issues with looking at a three sigma outlier and wishing for a four sigma outlier.
Important + underappreciated.
What sorts of queries on which knowledge retrievers would you suggest for learning more about this from the perspective you’re seeing as lacking? if it’s useful for answering this, my favorite search engines are arxivxplorer, semanticscholar’s recommender, metaphor, and I also sometimes ask claude or chatgpt to describe a concept to help me identify search terms. using that set of tools, what would you suggest looking up to find links I can provide to others as an intro to scholarship? I have plenty of my own ideas for what to look up, to be clear.
I also use connected papers and search citation lineages. Linked resources seem good too. For scholarship I think Richard Hamming’s final two chapters in art of doing science and engineering are hard to beat.
What are you comparing to? It is only compared to what you would want rationalist culture to be like, or do you have examples of other cultures (besides academia) that do better in this regard?
I see small subcultures at good research schools that do well, but admit that what I’m looking for has very free examples, implying fragility.