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Comment by erikpukinskis | Hacker News Reader

I think I agree with him at this point. Which is a bit sad. 12 years ago I went into academia because I wanted to do self-driven research, but then I realized academia isn't a good place to do research unless you are at the top of the hierarchy.

Then ~6 years ago I tried starting a startup, working for startups, but as Kay points out that's not a great place to do research either. Really, you need to be ruthlessly market- and production-focused.

So I guess my first two guesses for where I could do my own research were wrong. My new theory: The best place to do research is in your garage.

Let's see if I still feel the same way 6 years from now.

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Taleb has the right idea for how to do research, in my opinion.

First you get "fuck you money" (which is not necessarily millions and millions of dollars, just enough money so you don't have to be a wage slave anymore).

Second, you move to some place cheap with low upkeep costs and a nice garage/mad-science-laboratory on premises. That's where you do your research.

This is a really compelling vision but I've always wondered how one stays relevant in this scenario. Science is a conversation and it is really hard to avoid becoming an equivalent of a babbling madman standing on a soapbox when doing research on your own terms in your own garage.

well, I recommend you ask https://twitter.com/nntaleb about it directly then. he is not a hermit withdrawn from the world, but he doesn't work in academia, or for a private corporation, or for a government agency. he does research (in mathematics mostly, as well as finance, risk modeling, and interestingly enough ancient Levantine languages) and participates in those communities even though he is not employed by an institution.

Mr. Taleb is an outlier - a black swan if you will ;)

And he is a bit of a babbling madman - with his share of controversial ideas and vocal rejection of establishment.

You just need some form of reckoning. You can use markets. You can use advisors. You can use some metric you set for yourself. You don't need society to be sane, but you do need to replace it with something.

Pulling straight from my quotes file:

  "What one wants is to be able to talk with a diverse club of smart
  people, arrange to do short one-off research projects and
  simulations, publish papers or capture intellectual property
  quickly and easily, and move on to another
  conversation. Quickly. Easily. For a living. Can’t do that in
  industry. Can’t do that in the Academy. Yet in my experience,
  scientists and engineers all want it. Maybe even a few
  mathematicians and social scientists do, too."

  -- Bill Tozier, [[http://williamtozier.com/slurry/2006/07/17/diverse-themes-observed-at-gecco-2006][Diverse themes observed at GECCO 2006]]

Aren't some BigCos a good place to do research? Have you tried that approach?

Hard to afford a garage in Silicon Valley unless you rent it.

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