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Comment by shrubble | Hacker News Reader

Reminder that:

1) Ken Iverson who invented the APL programming language and went on to win the Turing Award in 1979, had already published 'that one little book' that was considered insufficient for tenure, but which formed the basis for the award.

2) tubes remained the main focus of MIT faculty for quite some years after the transistor was invented. It was Robert Noyce and the people he worked with at Grinnell College who knew more about transistors than MIT : https://web.stanford.edu/class/e145/2007_fall/materials/noyc...

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I also find it's worth reflecting that there was a time when things were not so insane. Being unable to work at Cambridge due to a lack of advanced degress, Wittgenstein was famously pushed, at 40, to just submit his Tractatus as a PhD thesis so that he could get his PhD from Cambridge.

One of his examiners, G.E. Moore, stated the following on his examiners report:

"I myself consider that this is a work of genius; but, even if I am completely mistaken and it is nothing of the sort, it is well above the standard required for the Ph.D. degree."

Having spent a good bit of time in academia I cannot imagine an institution that would make a statement so both humble and honest. Wittgenstein today would remain an interesting weirdo that, since never being formerly accredited, would be wildly considered as not worth taking seriously.

What terrifies me about today's academic environment is not only the it's own decline in quality, but it's staunch refusal to admit any knowledge created outside its walls as admissible.

You describe a time when things weren't insane, but describe Wittgenstein being seriously considered for a PhD for a work that brought us language games and asserts "All propositions are of equal value" as an example. I tried to scribble truth tables and manipulate symbols on a chalkboard to work out how this makes sense, but I remembered that there is no such thing as truth or falsehood, so I guess I can't really judge.

That's a bit reductive. However, you're in good company: Wittgenstein himself disagreed with much of his Tractatus later in life.

3) Stephen Cook was denied tenure position at UCB: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Cook

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