Traditional R&D (ie PhDs) is ass-backwards. You should race to your first original idea as fast as poss, *then* invest in discipline mastery
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Spending years "paying your dues" and "learning the foundations" is bs propagated by R&D rent-seekers. Get to the frontier anyhow.
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The probability of novel ideas increases far more rapidly with knowledge than people assume. What n00bs lack is not knowledge but confidence
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You probably need only 3-6 mo from a discipline's traditional starting line to have an original idea, not 2-3 years as institutions pretend
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In fact if you wait too long to strike out on your own thought trails, the disciplines institutions might pwn your imagination, and kill it
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There is a pick-2-of-3 tradeoff among received knowledge, productivity, and imagination. Institutions want you to give up imagination
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I am eternally grateful to PhD advisor for valuing imagination and letting me sacrifice treadmill "productivity." Saved my sanity 18y ago 😄
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Only about 1/3 of academics have that altruism. About 2/3 basically knowingly kill student imaginations for greater immediate "production"
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