.@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?
-
Show this thread
-
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 likesShow this thread -
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 @vgrReplying to @MeaningnessProbably 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 likesShow this thread -
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 likesShow this thread -
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 likesShow this thread -
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 likesShow this thread -
-
Replying to @michael_nielsen
“Maybe a few of us can sacrifice 20% of our time to administration” is tempting, but you can’t really run an organization that way, and besides “sacrificing time to administration” is exactly what we didn’t want…pic.twitter.com/bQnoyPMrTF
2 replies 0 retweets 5 likes -
Replying to @Meaningness
Yup. Everyone I know who has done this kind of thing well did it 80 hours a week - it's incredibly hard. Doing it on 20% time doesn't sound promising.
1 reply 0 retweets 6 likes -
Replying to @michael_nielsen @Meaningness
Related: I'm struck over and over by the extent to which there's a gap between people who want to _read_ the research, and those who want to _do_ the research. People who are good at one are often surprisingly bad at the other.
1 reply 0 retweets 15 likes
Maybe this is the unique value of the PhD process? You should have a complete knowledge of the current state of the literature (in some minute sub-sub-sub field) *and* do something completely new *and* continuously update each of those two as the other evolves
-
-
Replying to @Meaningness @michael_nielsen
Totally agree! I think there are a few in the middle, who sort of enjoy creating the synthesis. I would consider this to be creative too, though.
0 replies 0 retweets 1 likeThanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
-
-
-
-
Replying to @michael_nielsen @Meaningness
Not that it can't be done in other ways. But this is the (near)-unique version that we've systematized, institutionalized, and scaled.
0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.