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Comment by UncleMeat | Hacker News Reader

I dunno. Tao is a very smart person but it seems like a bad idea for a mathematician to be making claims like these without sources. His vibes are no more meaningful than anybody else's vibes.

I'm not familiar with all of these subfields, but I know that the scholarship on the history of communication networks is extremely deep. Why would there be so much work if things were actually explained so easily? If you are interested in these topics, go read the scholarship!

EDIT: With a little more clarity, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is #1 on HN right now and I'd encourage people who are interested in this topic to read the mountains of scholarship on these topics written by experts and I wish that Tao had used his visibility to point readers at these experts. You may find that it complicates things.

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I don't think he was making claims in the context of a professional mathematician. I think he's a popular guy (because of his status) and he's discussing his own thoughts on modern nihilistic thinking while calling for 3rd spaces on his own social media. Seems...fine? For an individual to that, we don't have to ascribe some degree of reverence to his thoughts anymore than I would yours. That extra reverence is all user-added

I'm not saying he shouldn't share it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is #1 on HN right now and I'd encourage people who are interested in this topic to read the mountains of scholarship on these topics written by experts.

I came here to say the same thing... he's eloquently stating something, and kinda makes sense, but I bet we have actual real data around this. It's a fun mental exercise but if you REALLY want to know, there should be good sources.

Heck, ChatGPT should be able to answer that.

Why is it a "bad idea" for him to post his take? I guess your concern must be that people will give it too much weight due to him being a mathematician.

This is currently #1 on HN. I suspect that a lot of people will read this and decide not to look into relevant scholarship because the text here is packaged nicely and it is presented by somebody that this community (rightly) respects very deeply.

In other contexts I've seen Tao cite scholarship outside of his field when engaging with it. I wish he'd done that here.

Citing scholarship would be good. Personally this has only piqued my curiosity and has probably only increased the chance I look into the relevant scholarship.

Do you have any links?

I don't think being an expert in one field means you need to constantly engage in an academic level of discourse. It's extremely normal for blog posts featuring vibes-based hot takes to hit #1 on HN. I think that's fine, if the take is good.

yeah but as non-experts in the field, how does HN know the take is actually good, and not just well put together and sounds really good?

By exercising their judgment, I suppose. How does anyone know if any take is good? Even experts sometimes post bad takes. There's no substitute for critical reading.

To add to this, I think a lot of people are reading this post to be some sort of reflection of economic organization when I (and others I suspect) think it's a post on social organization. There's always overlap but, as you say, it's a very dense field.

I do think there's a dearth of scholarship in the decline of social organizing in the US. There's studies that show the decline but other than Bowling Alone every subsequent book I've read or skimmed on the topic uses this decline to rail off against their boogeyman of choice, more set dressing than problem to consider.

like a bad idea for a mathematician to be making claims like these without sources.

So this is 99% of the internet and a lot of what passes for journalism too. If you want official sources, you're limited to published papers. People typically don't have sources at hand when making opinions.

>His vibes are no more meaningful than anybody else's vibes.

oh man, your mind will be blown when you find out about essayists. or completely horrified, can go either way. A whole field, a respected field, completely devoted to vibes.

Empiricism is not the only right way to interrogate the universe y'know

but now it's on HN and people are discussing this idea that's been thrown out and some people agree and some don't and some bring up how it's similar to Bertrand de Jouvenal and others start thinking of de Tocqueville or Robert Putnam (I'm sure you could draw a connection to James C. Scott too) and before you know it you've got the beginnings of a bibliography right here in these threads

Sure but why start this discussion from first principles when you can read a text that covers the same ground in 10 pages?

Do you have any recommendations?

This is ad hominem. He presents meaningful ideas and we would all benefit from you responding to the ideas.

I do not think that it is unreasonable to say that a layperson providing a extremely high level analysis of a topic that spans entire academic fields is likely not terribly insightful.

The history of communications networks (just one of the many enormous topics he covers here) is a whole field with piles of academics publishing constantly.

Do you have any interesting info to share from these enormous piles of academic publishing?

It’s not “extremely high level analysis.” It’s a brief philosophical excursion, and he appropriately disclaims that his opinions aren’t rigorous or even all that informed.

The idea that Tao can’t be insightful while microblogging outside of his field of expertise is silly. We here at HN allow plenty of nonexperts a wide latitude to pretend like they know something of which they have no real knowledge. The result is, I’m sure you’ll agree, occasionally insightful.

The so called Halo effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect

If it didn't already have a name I'd call it the Noam Chomsky effect. No offense to Tao, it's just the first person that comes to mind

He sort of counters his own argument by having so much influence as an individual :)

Yeah but this doesn’t invalidate his take. You’re just saying his take is as good as anyone’s which can still be 1000% correct.

Sure, but the take is huge (it covers all dimensions of society) and is two takes in one: the claim that the role of small organizations is diminishing and the reason for this. I'd be stunned if such an effect could be meaningfully explained in so few paragraphs.

When the topics are entire subfields (the development of multinational corporations, the development of states, the development of communication networks) it makes sense to build takes off of actual research.

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