Meta-š§µ on the slowed pace of innovation, pulling together several š§µs from the past 24 hours, plus other related thoughts/referencesā¦
I recommend this new paper about slowing innovation from @bswud & @tylercowen, from which Iāll extract what might (or might not) be a relatively minor point overall:
The paper points to a major concern of my corner of the internet: that itās gotten much harder to do good work in STEM because the pragmatic circumstances of researchers are much less conducive. Thereās a long list of factors, each pretty dire, and in sum maybe catastrophic. 
The function of research universities used to be to provide a support structure within which individuals could spend substantially their your time doing some mixture of teaching and research. Theyāre no long really even pretending to do that.
Ah, hmm, while looking for an old tweet of mine on this topic, I discovered a 2017 thread that made most of the same points Iām about to tweet today! Both draw on an unfinished blog post that apparently I ought to polish up and publish for referenceā¦
Some types of cognitive work, which may be critical for innovative breakthroughs, are apparently *impossible* except under highly specialized circumstances that are mostly no longer available.
This *might* explain why weāre continuing to make progress in ānormal scienceā only.
This *might* explain why weāre continuing to make progress in ānormal scienceā only.
.@michael_nielsen and I discussed this yesterday in a tweet thread that unfortunately forked so it's a bit hard to point to, but here's one pointer into it:
Some outstanding researchers recognize the problem and go independent, hoping that itās easier to do serious thinking outside an institutional context than within one.
In this š§µ @vgr explains some of the reasons that mostly doesnāt work:
In this š§µ @vgr explains some of the reasons that mostly doesnāt work:
We urgently need alternative mechanisms/institutions for research support. This š§µ from @vgr crunches some numbers: what would that cost? Answer: surprisingly little, in the scale of things.
I suspect the central challenge here is to find alternative mechanisms for selecting what research/researchers to fund. How do grantors know their money is being well-spent? Who makes those decisions? Is there a way to do this that doesnāt just replicate the existing pathologies?
Making alt-research institutions happen will probably require alt-researchers to collectively come up with a coherent story about how they can be managed, convincing enough to persuade grantors that itās feasible and worthwhile.
Plausibly, the key missing input is administrative capacity with: openness to fund peculiar, high-risk projects; enough sense to not fund exclusively crackpots; enough bureaucratic expertise to make things run smoothly; enough hatred of bureaucracy to mostly get out of the way
This is an extremely unusual collection of abilities; and perhaps anyone who could do the job would not want it.
But such people are found more often in Silicon Valley than anywhere else, and maybe some successful founder would be willing to take it on for the leverage?
But such people are found more often in Silicon Valley than anywhere else, and maybe some successful founder would be willing to take it on for the leverage?
The mindset and skillset needed to manage alt-researchers is quite different from those most alt-researchers have themselves. Alt-researchers left academia because they want to be left alone to do research and hate bureaucracy. Creating institutions is the last thing they want
Maybe the way forward is for alt-researchers to explain what is needed clearly enough that the sorts of people who do have the mindset and skillset will understand the importance of the job and step forward to fill the gap.
