If you aren’t wrong, the policy perspective is you may not yet have arrived at the point in time where you’re right or others recognise it
Quite separately - had a great chat with a friend about epistemological quality and wonder if it’s time to change the bar for degree education so people finish degrees knowing how to detect good quality Knowledge from dross (and have the recognised good works and research of the past) at their fingertips.
Might shift the bar for journals….to show knowledge histories as well as mere citation ‘bulk’. (Dross can be popular too)
Hi Anthony this post is extremely important. Hope you are well'
I used to tell students that there is nothing new in CS, only those thing that technically infeasible at the time, or things that were not properly understood.
(2) interests me. First of all, "popular" history of science tends to emphasis amazing discoveries and breakthroughs and neglects failures, blind alleys and "difficulty" (professional history of science talks a lot about both success and failure, and also _why_ we tend to emphasise stories of success) And second, it is generally instructive to consider what makes something difficult. Sometimes it is very easy to state the problem but very hard to solve it (Fermat's Last Theorem can be stated to a bright 9 year old; P vs NP to a bright 12 year old I think). Kennedy could get a rocket to the moon, but Nixon couldn't cure cancer, "just" by throwing resources at the problem. And sometimes it is hard to state the problem but a good statement provides its own solution (mischievously, is "the problem of consciousness" like this?)
In today's The Economist: "To be a prophet it is sufficient to be a pessimist" – Elsa Triolet. Although she does not claim it a necessary condition, it might comfort an optimist like you (and me).
An interesting piece, in which you paint yourself mainly as an observer, rather than an actor. Given that you now occupy a position of some authority and influence, particularly in the education and technology fields, the question arises as to whether initiatives in ed-tech and decentralised data architectures might advance more quickly if you were more active in supporting them. While major changes do indeed require a community, a community is made up of individuals, each making personal choices.
If you aren’t wrong, the policy perspective is you may not yet have arrived at the point in time where you’re right or others recognise it
Quite separately - had a great chat with a friend about epistemological quality and wonder if it’s time to change the bar for degree education so people finish degrees knowing how to detect good quality Knowledge from dross (and have the recognised good works and research of the past) at their fingertips.
Might shift the bar for journals….to show knowledge histories as well as mere citation ‘bulk’. (Dross can be popular too)
Hi Anthony this post is extremely important. Hope you are well'
I used to tell students that there is nothing new in CS, only those thing that technically infeasible at the time, or things that were not properly understood.
Karl Reed
Karl. Many thanks. I hope you are well too. Perhaps students should be taught more about the history of computing.
(2) interests me. First of all, "popular" history of science tends to emphasis amazing discoveries and breakthroughs and neglects failures, blind alleys and "difficulty" (professional history of science talks a lot about both success and failure, and also _why_ we tend to emphasise stories of success) And second, it is generally instructive to consider what makes something difficult. Sometimes it is very easy to state the problem but very hard to solve it (Fermat's Last Theorem can be stated to a bright 9 year old; P vs NP to a bright 12 year old I think). Kennedy could get a rocket to the moon, but Nixon couldn't cure cancer, "just" by throwing resources at the problem. And sometimes it is hard to state the problem but a good statement provides its own solution (mischievously, is "the problem of consciousness" like this?)
In today's The Economist: "To be a prophet it is sufficient to be a pessimist" – Elsa Triolet. Although she does not claim it a necessary condition, it might comfort an optimist like you (and me).
An interesting piece, in which you paint yourself mainly as an observer, rather than an actor. Given that you now occupy a position of some authority and influence, particularly in the education and technology fields, the question arises as to whether initiatives in ed-tech and decentralised data architectures might advance more quickly if you were more active in supporting them. While major changes do indeed require a community, a community is made up of individuals, each making personal choices.
Thank you. I will accept this admonishment with good grace.