So I’m far less able to do any sort of raw impressive genius shit (which I wasn’t capable of even at my peak anyway) but I suspect I could find and ask much better leveraged questions with technically “easier” but more interesting results.
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You can’t “preserve” what doesn’t actually exist. The indie science gentry last had meaningful impact circa 1900. The institutional science has been dominant since at least then. Since WW2 it’s been the only game in town. A hegemony. Mostly benevolent but still a hegemony.
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Replying to @vgr
Isn't this basically about preserving the power and relevance of the gentry versus the institutions that are displacing them?
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Re: age, there’s a parallel to entrepreneurship. The pop image is brash 22-year-olds. The reality is median successful founder starts at 39-40. The biggest successes tend younger but the median is pushing 40. The experience and confidence to buck institutional norms matters.
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The average starry-eyed 17-year old is thrilled to be in a university lab and co-author a published paper. The average 40-year-old interested in indie science typically has already been there/done that, and developed an aversion to it.
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Ymmv, but I’d be thrilled to never publish in journals/conferences again, or see a grant application. Crackpot posts on my blog will do for me.
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Linking in a few related threads
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17. On independent research twitter.com/vgr/status/119
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Another
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18. More on independent research twitter.com/vgr/status/119
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Adjacent… need a blue collar science world too…
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10. Blue-collar mutual influence innovation network (BCMIIN) twitter.com/vgr/status/109
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Drive to Mt. Wilson kinda nice. Tours just reopened today. Now in long line…
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Line is for cafe which also sells parking and tour tickets. Guided tour likely sold out though. Guy apparently on Mars sample return mission team holding forth at a picnic table to buddies (Mt. Wilson is near JPL/ Pasadena)
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Replying to
While I wait for our sandwiches… one of the structural frictions of research is that like half the work gets done in the idle screwing around REPL-like phase of plating with ideas, math, data, and instruments. The part that starts with proposals is like the scaling investment.
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Proposal to papers is like series A to IPO. The seed stage is not institutionally organized because you’re expected to be inside the institution and not need support. Desk, computers, office, library, lab, colleagues.
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Expecting indie science to start at the proposals+public-data stage is… somewhere between clueless and disingenuous. You don’t need the whole luxury university environment (though I certainly enjoyed my time in it), but you need a basic version at least.
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