Your cat-picture-project is saving the world, thank you
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This statement is so wrong it's hard to find a place to begin a counter argument. Academics are still, and always have been, huge innovators and contribute an enormous amount to the world. I don't understand where this sort of vehement anti-intellectualism comes from.
Example: My university imported a professor somewhere and had him teach Java. This professor had never seen the outside of a compiler before and had no clue want OOP was. He also down marked any solutions that weren't done the way he had envisioned. (Which he didn't often share with us before the assignment was due) Have this guy try to teach Swing to people that have never programmed before. Sadly, I formed a very bad opinion of him which did not improve as I continued my schooling. He was probably a decent guy. Unfortunately after four semsters of his classes, I gave up seeing him as anything other than an obstacle to my academic development.
I agree with your point and allow me to ensure you, there is no vehement anti-intellectualism in my thoughts. On the contrary, I very much believe in Scientific advancements.
The correct statement should have been:
Fewer life changing technologies can be attributed to Scientists than to for-profit companies. This is due to the higher budgets and bigger number of people working in companies, compared to staff employed by Universities. Furthermore companies are bound to create something people are willing to pay for. Universities don't have this kind of "restrictions" and can do work on a more abstract level, which may not translate into anything tangible for years to come.
If you have more resources and more people and you're not producing more, you're doing something wrong. Very wrong.
Second, the talk of "abstract level" and "tangibility" is basically the same sort of interdisciplinary rivalry we've come to expect between the science and engineering groups. It's old. It's tired. Let it die in peace.
Regarding restrictions, there are a great many researchers who would love to see their contributions widely applied and have big impact. While there is sometimes cross-over between industry, a lot of the time researchers have no resources to advertise or widely implement their discoveries.
The basic point of your blog post is absolutely correct of course: people can have a big impact on the world without going into academics. It's not always clear where it will come from either. But equally, there is no harm in exploring the other side.
It never occurred to me that there is a rivalry between Scientists and Engineers therefor I put this sentence down quite carelessly, my apology. The question: who is more important, is very futile in my opinion.
It would be like asking: who is more important, construction workers, or truck drivers? Our life would be impossible without either of them.
My main argument actually was intended to be: If you like what you are doing and you are innovating on any level, you are likely to do good to the world. (As a provider of tools you don't know how your tools will be used, you can only hope) For this you don't need to work in Academia, you don't need to be in Silicon Valley. BUT if you are in Silicon Valley by the sheer scale you are doing much more good than the average person ever could.
People choose to spend a lot of time watching nyan cat. I don't believe that their quality of life is actually improved by this.
Zynga is very good at delivering games that cause compulsive over-playing. I don't think that Farmville has improved the world.
Going back farther, a lot of people choose to smoke, yet are very clear that they would be happier if they could make the opposite choice.
Just because people choose to do X does not mean that X is good for those people.
"Just because people choose to do X does not mean that X is good for those people."
Nyan cat, Farmville, smoking are all examples where the benefit to society is very well hidden. I would say smoking is a perfect example. Smoking kills, makes people sick & those around them, it is a great burden on the health system, etc. Yet millions of people smoke how can this be good for our society. In my humble opinion: It isn't. Smoking, just like gambling hacks the reward system in the brain and makes the hazardous habit rewarding (in the short term).
I was tempted to argue that smoking has it's positive sites like higher productivity and so fort. This would have the equivalent to arguing that the WWII was good for the world, crazy. Yes a few innovations came from this catastrophe, but imagine what the 50 million people who died due to it, would have invented. The world would be much better off without this war. Look at the pace of innovation in the past 60 years with few international conflicts for the 1st world countries, war is almost always destructive.
Just because people choose to do it, does not mean it is good for them. Agreed! Lets say you take all decisions of people in their life and at the very end of it added it up. Smoking, drinking, the second mortgage on the house to go on holiday, brushing your teeth every morning, buying a newer car, everything. One can only guess what we would find, but my guess is: on average the people tend to do what is good for them.
In hindsight it is always easy to say, that was a bad decision, this one was good. But it is impossible to say that Zynga is predominantly bad. It might have saved a few people from social authenticity & suicide, it might have been a complete waste of resources 20 million working people wasted on it. I don't dare to judge.
I argue, by looking at the big picture, on average, over decades, people tend to make the decisions that are good for them
He is concerned with what kind of legacy he will leave.
My post was intended to address just this, your chances for a Nobel price are bigger if you are actively working on curing cancer. Yet, winning a Nobel price is not a guarantee to do good to the world (Arafat). You never know how your tools will be used, therefor being the "king of advice animals" (love that one) might be service equally important to the world.
If you like your job and you are good at it your legacy might be invisible (the soap guy) but possible essential for our future. We have no way of knowing.