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Meaningness's profile
David Chapman
David Chapman
David Chapman
@Meaningness

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David Chapman

@Meaningness

Better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.

meaningness.com/about-my-sites
Joined September 2010

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    1. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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      Meta-🧵 on the slowed pace of innovation, pulling together several 🧵s from the past 24 hours, plus other related thoughts/references…

      4 replies 22 retweets 91 likes
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    2. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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      David Chapman Retweeted Ben Southwood

      I recommend this new paper about slowing innovation from @bswud & @tylercowen, from which I’ll extract what might (or might not) be a relatively minor point overall:https://twitter.com/bswud/status/1196338882821984257 …

      David Chapman added,

      Ben SouthwoodVerified account @bswud
      A draft of my paper with @tylercowen on the rate of scientific progress is OUT. Comments much appreciated! https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/11/is-the-rate-of-scientific-progress-slowing-down.html …
      1 reply 3 retweets 16 likes
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    3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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      The paper points to a major concern of my corner of the internet: that it’s gotten much harder to do good work in STEM because the pragmatic circumstances of researchers are much less conducive. There’s a long list of factors, each pretty dire, and in sum maybe catastrophic.pic.twitter.com/4rbvisV89l

      1 reply 10 retweets 53 likes
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    4. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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      The function of research universities used to be to provide a support structure within which individuals could spend substantially their your time doing some mixture of teaching and research. They’re no long really even pretending to do that.

      1 reply 2 retweets 14 likes
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      David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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      David Chapman Retweeted David Chapman

      Ah, hmm, while looking for an old tweet of mine on this topic, I discovered a 2017 thread that made most of the same points I’m about to tweet today! Both draw on an unfinished blog post that apparently I ought to polish up and publish for reference…https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/843950702187560960 …

      David Chapman added,

      David Chapman @Meaningness
      Replying to @Meaningness
      Research universities used to provide conducive circumstances for thinking—but perverse incentives and administrative idiocies negated that.
      9:49 AM - 18 Nov 2019
      • 1 Retweet
      • 21 Likes
      • Lucy Keer Henk Sjaak Drew Eli Sennesh Billiard Lentil John Nerst Emma P Full MeTAL linguiste Ian Hines
      1 reply 1 retweet 21 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          Some types of cognitive work, which may be critical for innovative breakthroughs, are apparently *impossible* except under highly specialized circumstances that are mostly no longer available. This *might* explain why we’re continuing to make progress in “normal science” only.

          1 reply 11 retweets 43 likes
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        3. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          David Chapman Retweeted David Chapman

          .@michael_nielsen and I discussed this yesterday in a tweet thread that unfortunately forked so it's a bit hard to point to, but here's one pointer into it:https://twitter.com/Meaningness/status/1196125642342858753 …

          David Chapman added,

          David Chapman @Meaningness
          Replying to @Meaningness @michael_nielsen
          Many of my projects require specific non-ordinary cognitive modes to proceed, and it usually takes me about three full-time days to get myself into the relevant state. Any significant interruption aborts the process.
          1 reply 1 retweet 23 likes
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        4. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          David Chapman Retweeted Venkatesh brrrRao

          Some outstanding researchers recognize the problem and go independent, hoping that it’s easier to do serious thinking outside an institutional context than within one. In this 🧵 @vgr explains some of the reasons that mostly doesn’t work:https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195789557465153536 …

          David Chapman added,

          Venkatesh brrrRao @vgr
          I was briefly calling myself an independent researcher: somebody who self-funds spec R&D on their own ideas. In theory it’s something like indie-research : academic research :: blogging/self-publishing : traditional publishing. But the idea doesn’t really work.
          Show this thread
          2 replies 2 retweets 20 likes
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        5. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          David Chapman Retweeted Venkatesh brrrRao

          We urgently need alternative mechanisms/institutions for research support. This 🧵 from @vgr crunches some numbers: what would that cost? Answer: surprisingly little, in the scale of things.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195937380210921472 …

          David Chapman added,

          Venkatesh brrrRao @vgr
          Thinking about my thread this morning on why independent research is hard, and what it would take to make it possible, and whether it’s within the reach of private investors who ALL complain endlessly about how they have far too much capital and don’t know where to put it. https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1195789557465153536 …
          Show this thread
          2 replies 4 retweets 18 likes
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        6. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          .@vgr’s 🧵 also covers many of the issues that come up in discussions of alt-research funding and institutions. This is a common, live discussion among people I talk with often. There’s growing momentum and consensus in the conversation, but will it lead to action?

          3 replies 0 retweets 8 likes
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        7. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          I suspect the central challenge here is to find alternative mechanisms for selecting what research/researchers to fund. How do grantors know their money is being well-spent? Who makes those decisions? Is there a way to do this that doesn’t just replicate the existing pathologies?

          5 replies 1 retweet 12 likes
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        8. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          David Chapman Retweeted Venkatesh brrrRao

          Making alt-research institutions happen will probably require alt-researchers to collectively come up with a coherent story about how they can be managed, convincing enough to persuade grantors that it’s feasible and worthwhile.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1196491007891652608 …

          David Chapman added,

          Venkatesh brrrRao @vgr
          Replying to @Meaningness
          Probably not anytime soon, and the fault is probably more on our side as wannabe beneficiaries of such a system as much as those with capital to deploy. There is a significant lack of imagination and energy on both sides of the capital supply/demand equation.
          5 replies 0 retweets 14 likes
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        9. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          Plausibly, the key missing input is administrative capacity with: openness to fund peculiar, high-risk projects; enough sense to not fund exclusively crackpots; enough bureaucratic expertise to make things run smoothly; enough hatred of bureaucracy to mostly get out of the way

          3 replies 1 retweet 28 likes
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        10. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          This is an extremely unusual collection of abilities; and perhaps anyone who could do the job would not want it. But such people are found more often in Silicon Valley than anywhere else, and maybe some successful founder would be willing to take it on for the leverage?

          2 replies 1 retweet 18 likes
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        11. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          The mindset and skillset needed to manage alt-researchers is quite different from those most alt-researchers have themselves. Alt-researchers left academia because they want to be left alone to do research and hate bureaucracy. Creating institutions is the last thing they want

          5 replies 2 retweets 34 likes
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        12. David Chapman‏ @Meaningness 18 Nov 2019
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          Maybe the way forward is for alt-researchers to explain what is needed clearly enough that the sorts of people who do have the mindset and skillset will understand the importance of the job and step forward to fill the gap.

          3 replies 1 retweet 14 likes
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        13. End of conversation

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