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Comment by naturalgradient | Hacker News Reader

FWIW,

I think Aaronson's dismissive attitude is unbecoming and disrespectful amongst colleagues.

'Unrelated Update: To everyone who keeps asking me about the “new” P≠NP proof: I’d again bet $200,000 that the paper won’t stand, except that the last time I tried that, it didn’t achieve its purpose, which was to get people to stop asking me about it. So: please stop asking, and if the thing hasn’t been refuted by the end of the week, you can come back and tell me I was a closed-minded fool.'

Quick-copy pasting a Facebook comment as reason not to want to deal with it, betting a large sum of money almost tauntingly is not good scholarship.

A serious researcher made a serious effort to solve a problem. Say you have not verified it and don't want to comment.

It almost seems like he does not want P/NP to be proven because he has made a reputation by becoming an authority on dismissing attempts.

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No, it's because one could spend a hundred lifetimes showing incorrect P vs NP proofs. Either he is right, or if the author is convinced of the disrespect they can $200,000.

Most people who publish proofs don't seem to make any attempt to get their work reviewed before putting it out onto the open internet. That's of course their choice, but then you have to expect people to tell you where you have wrong, bluntly. It's a huge waste of everyone's time who then reads the proof.

I don't think his dismissiveness is aimed at his colleagues, but rather to the commenters on his blog. Aaronson's public persona has resulted in him getting mobbed by requests-for-comment from the general public every time there's some news about theoretical CS (or D-Wave), which I'm sure is what happened here. I imagine it gets tiring after a while, like actors constantly being asked to repeat some catchphrase.

I think he could respond to it better (once you're a public-enough figure online, a good skill to learn is knowing when to step away from the keyboard instead of saying something grumpy you'll probably later regret), but I see where he's coming from.

As a researcher, I think he is dismissive of Blum's work.

Let's take a moment to change perspective:

Imagine you worked for years on something and finally uploaded it on ArXiv, waiting for the community to weigh in. The following characters appear:

1. Someone known in the field does not bother reading it but says you are probably wrong, bets money on you being wrong and says he does not want to be bothered with it. How would you feel?

2. Someone else known in the community starts collating information/comments to help verify the proof or find instructive mistakes.

3. Another mathematician also believes Blum is wrong just because it is statistically likely, and does not want to spend time on something that will most likely lead nowhere. She keeps this opinion to herself and simply does not engage with the material. If approached, she declines to comment because she says he did not have time to check the proof.

Aaronson went for option 1 and in my highly personal opinion, it's the worst of the ones listed. It's standing at the sidelines being snarky. Just because he may as well be right does not make this behaviour any better.

It is the equivalent of laughing in an undergrad lecture when someone asks a naive question.

I think we're talking past each other and don't actually disagree. To clarify my last post: I don't approve of what Aaronson did. I think it was a dumb thing to say and (assuming my hypothesis is correct that he did it out of frustration at constantly being pestered to comment on CS news) he instead should've cooled off and, as you say, taken option 3. I think he was aiming his statements at his fans, not academia, and in his frustration forgot that there's no such thing anymore as a message only directed at one group.

I just want the problem with his behavior to be accurately diagnosed, because I think (again, I could be wrong) the solution is "better manage your temper with your non-academia fans" and not "rethink your relationship with other academics".

Thank you for clarifying this

> Someone known in the field does not bother reading it but says you are probably wrong

Sounds like most academic paper reviews!

But he didn't just come out and say it; he was responding to numerous people who were asking him about it.

Aaronson would far rather take option 3. The only reason he doesn't is that his fans won't let him.

He could take option 3 regardless of what his fans "won't let him" do.

I have no personal familiarity with this specific instance, but your assessment is likely correct. "Putting out the fire with gasoline" is pretty common on the internet. I have seen celebrities on Twitter reply to something they did not like, only to be surprised and grumpy that their attempts to shut it down backfired and just resulted in more of the thing they did not want, plus additional collateral damage of various sorts.

Did you click through to the post? 'weinzeirl's use of ellipsis makes the statement seem harsher than it actually was. Here's what you missed:

>...except that the last time I tried that, it didn’t achieve its purpose, which was to get people to stop asking me about it. So: please stop asking... [emphasis mine]

If Aaronson had directed his comments at the actual researcher or at anyone affiliated with them, I'd agree with you, but it's clear that he's directing them at generally unsophisticated social media users who are too email-happy.

> I think Aaronson's dismissive attitude is unbecoming and disrespectful amongst colleagues.

I would invite you to read his earlier blog post on the same proof and then think about why he said what he did.

http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=456

Note - that post is from 2010, and was in fact about a different proof with a different author (Deolalikar). I don't disagree with you, btw.

Amongst colleagues, it certainly is. We should treat all genuine attempts to research and present any idea with equal respect, and not be irrationally attached, or hopeful, or dismissive towards anything.

However, among mainstream media and the public, considering the previous false claims to a proof, and given the extreme attention surrounding the question being studied, Scott's response demonstrates what a healthy level of skepticism looks like.

> I think Aaronson's dismissive attitude is unbecoming and disrespectful amongst colleagues.

That is exactly how science works. You have to prove something before it's made a fact. Science operates completely on the notion that incorrect statements should be gotten rid of.

And the problem here is that a lot of people want to quickly equate, "someone published what they claim is a proof" with "someone proved it". Just like pop-sci media likes to equate, "someone observed a correlation between X and Y that is surprising and contradicts with previous results" with "scientists prove X causes Y".

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