nautilius

> part-time, dissertation-only PhD programs

It's just getting worse and worse. I believe you're trying to argue in good faith but maybe you should just stick to stuff you know about.

There is nothing about 'dissertation only' that makes these programs 'part time'. I'd argue that a good German or French university (I would guess the UK too, but I know less about that system) has more comprehensive and more stringent coursework to the MSc level than most US universities have for their PhD level. They don't do additional coursework because they're 'done'. Talk to those PhD students (and their advisors) about whether they consider that work 'part time'.

That's not accurate. 'ABD' (all but dissertation) [1] is an an important milestone because you are not typically done with coursework when starting out (in the US).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_but_dissertation

Because every single statement is wrong.

> In the US, the thought is that if you're doing a PhD, say, it's a full-time professionalized pursuit

You're still a student, still taking classes.

> under the assumption you will be a professor;

Simply not true, you could pursue all sorts of jobs.

> in the rest of the world

Do I really need to comment that? Hint: outside the US border, there is more than one country. Germany alone has 16 different educational systems.

> a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in writing

No, it's about research.

> under a mentor for however long it takes you,

Limited to 3 years e.g. in France or Italy.

> often with no aim (i.e. career) other than that writing itself.

Man, that's just bullshit, I don't even know where to start.

> In the US, the thought is that if you're doing a PhD, say, it's a full-time professionalized pursuit under the assumption you will be a professor; in the rest of the world, a PhD is essentially an apprenticeship in writing under a mentor for however long it takes you, often with no aim (i.e. career) other than that writing itself.

Couldn't disagree more with all of these statements.

Thank you for sharing! I had a similar path around that age.

I think that was a bit later, but fair point ;-)

Would you mind sharing how old you are? I've had several similar transitions, and I'd be curious how that compares.

What did the East Germans do that their fellows in the U.S./British/French occupied zones did not do?

You complain that the CDC should have had better communication when it's not their job to re-educate a whole population in 2 weeks about what science is, which is clearly a failure of the education system. Whatever mea culpa that CDC person is going through in that particular interview does not change the facts.

You complain about the CDC to fuck up plans (flatten the curve! -> eradicate covid! -> lol nvm its endemic now)", when that was outside of their power, being sabotaged by that mass murderer clown in the white house.

You are not complaining about what their plan was, just about how it failed, which is clearly outside of what they can affect.

Try to stick to one opinion.

If you want some information about things to criticize about what their plan was, Michael Lewis' 'The Premonition' is a whole book about that shit show. Their biggest problem was that they were not an agency built to actually fight a pandemic, but tried to study it first. However, none of these bad plans even matter when the executive has other ideas.

The point stands: It's a failure of an education system that leaves its citizens with no conception of what science is, or how 'progress' is made.

Also, it's hard to make the case that communication, plans, and COVID going endemic are the CDC's fault, when simultaneously the president's communicated "plan" is 'it'll just disappear' or 'just drink bleach'.

> There is a lot of value to be earned by closing the gap between cutting edge, but proven, science and easily understood training documents for contract workers.

Oh absolutely! But those are two completely different things.

> I would say most people would not care if we stopped using tax dollars to fund string theory research or finding 'habitable' planets, and a host of other luxury topics.

I agree. And then all of those people will be shocked to see $SOMECOUNTRY do crazy stuff in a decade when the US will be reduced to rubble or decline to irrelevance. Something like that almost happened with Goddard vs von Braun during and prior to WWII. Then, the US suddenly faced rocket interceptors, ballistic missiles, and jet fighters. The whole of US research, and in particular the Air Force, was reorganized after that experience.

> This standpoint is very specific to the world we live in today.

No, it's just very specific to your personal opinion. I take it you wouldn't have funded a patent clerk in Switzerland in 190x when he studied what happens when you sit in a train going close to the speed of light. I'm glad someone in the US listened to him, because otherwise it would have been Nazi Germany to build the atomic bomb that came from his insight.

The whole crux of the matter is that we don't know in advance what pays off.

I don't see why scientists would be less self-aware of their culture than other groups. In particular, that culture has got nothing to do with the things you decry (why is no one looking at old ideas, where, again, the simple problem is money).

As soon as Wheeler would have tenure today, he could switch all day long. I am not talking about Wheeler's potential either, but whether he ticks the boxes to make him likely to succeed today. And he does.

You are looking for a career that wouldn't work today? Freeman Dyson. Getting tenure at Princeton aged 29 without a doctorate, not so likely today.

The simple answer is: funding. There is no (public) money to revisit "known" ideas and results to help clarify them, apply them, or place them in better context. And I would not be the one to explain to the public to spend their money on known ideas rather than discover something new and shiny.

Concerning a PhD, I think it's pretty easy to see that that's not the stage in your career where you would want to embark on long-term, high risk research.

Also, I am not surprised that people doing a similar job have a common vocabulary and vernacular. You could say culture. I'd be surprised if carpenters, mechanics, et al. don't have the same thing, with other words and topics, of course.

No conspiracies needed.

Wheeler had significant contributions, had the right pedigree, the right schools. I don't see how he would be at a disadvantage today.

All of science is model building, or will advance to it (from counting leaves to biochemical models of photosynthesis). When we say we have an understanding of some phenomenon, it means that we have a model that correlates with observations (simplified).

It's a failure of an education system that leaves its citizens with no conception of what science is, or how 'progress' is made.

That's become very clear with regards to Dr. Fauci and the CDC. They can explain all they want about the current state of understanding (modeling) when they are called out by the public as charlatans when the insight and thus guidelines change.

> Outside implies an inside implies dualism

Well, unless with dualism you just mean that there are two, you are simply mistaken. Just because my car has an inside and an outside, and I cannot determine the state of its gearbox from the outside w/o the car telling me, does not mean that this implies a ghost in the machine. Far from it.

Not true for me either.

Easy there with the words. Just because there's two of something is hardly an argument for a (mind-body) dualism [1]. Is the dichotomy cats vs dogs then proof for said dualism as well? How about vanilla vs chocolate? What do you make of the existence of a (six sided) die then?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_dualism

Cool, there are at least five different 'that is the whole point' takes on what the Chinese room means in this discussion. Also, I disagree with your take on it, that's not at all the point.

The catch in your argument is that from the outside, you manipulating code and your computer manipulating code are indistinguishable. You say the only difference is that you understand, whereas the computer doesn't. However, from the outside, there is no difference between a statement print("I understand this") running on you or a computer.

All that is true, but burrows conveniently switches back and forth between definitions just to keep a 'controversy' alive. Hence bad faith.

[edit] Also, I cannot really see how anyone, not even burrows, would confuse 'free' treatment with 'free as in speech'.

Yeah, that still doesn't change that impression, though.

Caffeine doesn't say that anywhere, though. Quite the opposite.

Yes. And when buying hot dogs.

> As I said, my usage is closer to calling a thing “free” if I consume it without paying for it, and importantly it doesn’t matter who receives the bill.

Well then that's exactly, word for word, what OP did. How are you confused if you use it the exact same way?

I only see two options, bad faith or childishly naive, so I suggested the more flattering option. In either case it's tiring to argue this 'gotcha' strawman - no one here on HN believes that things just materialize.

But I do think it's bad faith, because I doubt burrows picks the same kind of pointless argument about semantics when someone offers him a free sample at Costco, or a free beer, or is confused when reading the Washington Post online, even though it says 'Post' right there in the name, and that the printed New York Times doesn't really tell you the time, and that Fox News is not about foxes at all (even though it absolutely should be).

I think psychlops suggests seeing the pandemic as a catalyst rather than the cause.

Wait until you hear about insurances, where it is perfectly normal (in fact the whole point) that the vast majority of people pay in more than they get back.

> but simply that it is an accepted system in our society for resolving disparate viewpoints on governance.

But it is not, as my example shows. There's a lot more to it. That's the entire point.

> that there isn't some shadowy system for how landlords can control zoning

I don't think anyone is arguing it is in any way shadowy, it's done very openly. There is sufficient discussion in the media about the practice of voting in the US, so I will not repeat that.

Also, take the Bay Area as an example - how large would you guess is the fraction of immigrants working in Tech? And mind you, even a green card does not allow you to vote. All of these people are excluded from the process.

Ironic, if you think about how this whole country started on 'no taxation without representation'.

> in this case it has something to do with who is billed by the service provider.

What else could it even be? You started your gotcha with the truism that it's not free, so, yeah, nothing is free, and the whole discussion is meaningless. You're arguing in bad faith, but that just makes your argument meaningless.

> no current Earth society comes close to that criteria. For example, if someone has a currently untreatable disease

Your counterargument is that there exist diseases that cannot be treated anywhere?

Let me give you an example of something treatable: Endemic (flea-borne_) typhus. In Europe, the given example is "British POWs in Germany at the end of World War I when they described conditions in Germany." [1] In the US, instead Typhus shows up in the reports of the LA Medical Association as a regular occurence (among homeless, mostly). [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemic_typhus [2] https://www.ladocs.org/news-events/news/lac-dph-health-alert...

It's pretty clear what 'free' means here, the person getting the treatment is not billed for the treatment. In that way, a society organizes that no one has the existential threat (financially or medically) of prohibitively high cost.

It's so obvious that I don't understand how people still see it as this elevating 'gotcha' moment. It's the same when you drink free beer, breath free air, enjoy free time, etc: obviously it doesn't just appear from nothingness but has (opportunity) cost.