[FRIAM] Schwill Rock?

[Marcus Daniels]

I was thinking D.E. Shaw, Musk, Gates Foundation, that sort of thing.   I don’t see academics as particularly privileged.  In some ways it seems rather miserable.  I can see why the billionaires invest in age research.   The first life has to be spent getting the pile of money to spend in the second life.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jon Zingale
Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2021 9:39 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Schwill Rock?

"Canal hopping is distinct from turning up the heat?"

In the Brownian limit, no, but otherwise yes.

"To *really* keep foraging it seems to me vast privilege is needed."

I hear you as advocating for academia-like institutions, here? I understand the classic arguments, that it is difficult to research one's interests in quantum computers without IBM's sponsorship, but as you put it here:

"I slowly plod through a paper only to learn the idea is basically simple",

and so in theory, not that much harder.

Still, that is the case if one's needs stay fixed on some particular prize. Further still, my daily experience persists in that much of what I learn about linear algebra (or really just about anything) comes from holding such ideas in contexts away from academic papers. In the meantime, a vast many are sacrificed so that our institutions can bestow such privileges on a few. I personally don't believe it is worth it to me or to the goals of our culture. I understand the behavior of these institutions to be a short sighted kind of gradient ascent, leaving an every more brittle Pareto distribution in its wake.
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