There are still places for clever weirdos. Particularly online. I know of at least two hacking communities, for instance, which only let in people who can hack the invite process. At that point, you can assume with some degree of safety that you're with like-minded individuals. Even if people cheat the system, that at least means they cared enough to cheat and it also means they probably won't get very far with the additional tests once they get in (or they do, which requires they learn something, so everyone benefits).
Okay, but all that's online. What about actual physical places? Hackerspaces/makerspaces are probably the place to start. Places where what you're passionate about making is more important than who you are.
There's also http://3564020356.org/ (Actually I misremembered this one - you gain access by reading an intro to crypto and then answering a question about it. As I recall you get additional access by solving other, more challenging tests)
More and more, college is selecting for a certain kind of personality while weeding out those outside of the norm.
There is a list of some notable Senior House alumni on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Massachusetts_Instit...
Woz and Jobs started out in business selling blue boxes to illegal bookmakers. Imagine a world in which they had been subject to the modern surveillance panopticon and the sort of prosecutorial malice that was levelled against Aaron Swartz. RMS slept under his desk in the AI lab for many years and is notoriously bad at politicking, political correctness and basic etiquette. Would a young RMS survive the administrative culture of modern academia?
Steve Jobs graduated high school with 2.65 GPA. How many opportunities are there today for someone with a 2.65 GPA?
Just as many as there used to be, it's just never been easy. Actually I thought about it some more, and there are actually probably more opportunities today than before with the internet and the democratization of knowledge.
> Woz and Jobs started out in business selling blue boxes to illegal bookmakers.
> Imagine a world in which they had been subject to the modern surveillance panopticon and the sort of prosecutorial malice that was levelled against Aaron Swartz.
I think you're looking at it wrong, Woz and Jobs started selling niche items directly to a small group of customers, that still exists today, they just wouldn't be selling blue boxes, maybe it'd be an interesting SaSS today.
You're completely missing GPs point, which is specifically about politics. Talking about an "interesting SaSS" is a red herring.
In fact, I would be disappointed if it was meant to be about politics because it'd come across as an attempt to shoehorn politics into a discussion about much broader social trends
This sort of thing is a prime example of politics, the failure to recognise that is harmful to your understanding.
Politics isnt just voting for congress-critters and presidents.
I also don't particularly appreciate the tone of your replies and especially statements like "the failure to recognise that is harmful to your understanding", which come across as somewhat condescending and less about seeking a proper conversation than about attempting to lecture.
So I won't be replying further to this thread.
I've met him at a couple of raves back in the 1990s back when he was basically wandering around the rave scene. My impression: brilliant guy, but incredibly eccentric.
I don't know much more about him beyond Wiki articles etc., but apparently he has had a bit of a tough time employment wise, due to a combination of his phone fraud convictions and his eccentric personality. This despite his heavy tie-in to early Apple history, and a fairly strong coding resume. Then again, from what I saw, his personality is not the type that would embrace Standard Corporate to begin with, I'm sure. But said personality means he never got rewarded much for what he did. If I remember right, he actually had to crowdfund for some medical issues recently. I think its fair to say at any rate that his talent potential ended up being underutilized.
You are right that it's possible that there are more opportunities for these sort of weirdos, but in order for that to exist, there has to be a space for the small corporation that is more willing to give eccentricity space. One of the dangers of corporate consolidation is exactly this: large corporations are probably more likely to exclude people with mild criminal records because checklists, and they are less likely to give space to people that don't fit into corporate cultures. Consolidation tends to kill innovation; perhaps this is one of the ways.
Likewise, from a university perspective, it won't matter as much if Big University kills off culture that "doesn't fit in" if there are small universities that welcome the eccentric weirdo. However, if only the Big University Degree matters in life, then it's also entirely possible for the eccentric but brilliant weirdos will end up being outside the system. Maybe they will form their own collective and create something new. The alternative is the Draper like scenario where one more just drifts.
I don't know what Elon Musk's GPA was, I don't think anybody cares.
I don't see a trend towards conformity...in the real world.
Bexley closed four years ago for repairs, and was demolished with no plans to open a new dorm as a continuation. This seems unpleasantly relevant.
Artist/bohemian collectives across the US harbor these same kinds of people as well.
Survivorship bias is real. Things sneak up on you when you aren't looking. Linux had only just made it into the 1.2 kernel series.
I've seen this sentiment expressed before and it always struck me as the intellectual equivalent of "kids these days!" without much merit.
Some people will waste their talent. Some people won't.
The dude wrote EMACS, GNU, GCC and the GPL license. He more or less single-handedly invented the concept of Free software. If RMS isn't a genius, then I don't know who is.
Yes, Jobs and Gates can't even compare to him.
The core code of Unix will live on long past the current incarnation of Windows.
Gates is a ruthless business man and thats the only reason his name is larger in your mind. His most striking quote was about how you give Windows licenses for free to Africa so they get addicted and have to keep buying it even though they can't afford it and Unix is free due to familiarity. Meanwhile RMS labored quietly to build a better world.
I actually have much higher hopes for technology allowing those greatest minds to be pushed forward than before.
Otherwise why have so many Administrators, or need to hire more Administrators if there is not enough to do?
To get in now you need to be a robot who can ace standardized tests, who spends their whole childhood doing math problems and has no real contact with the real world aside from two pieces of flair suggested by a guidance counseller in order to get into an ivy.
The result is that even the non-academic stuff those students have done has an academic target.