Academia functions to (A) create and confer prestige to associated researchers, students, firms, cities, and nations, (B) preserve and teach what we know on many general abstract topics, and (C) add to what we know over the long run. […] Most of us see (C) as academia’s most important social function, and many of us see lots of room for improvement there.
“Most of us” = 2 Twitter polls
Apparently, all kinds of social status for all entities from individuals to nations can be summarized on the single axis of “prestige”, and prestige is determined by “gossip” entirely separately from whether or not knowledge has been added to what we know. Bit pomo, that. Also, science has gotten worse at (C) since 1800. Really, we peaked the year that Volta invented the electric battery.
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Sure, I mean speculation has benefited so many other things so far, like housing!
Rationalists constant whining about credentialism reeks of insecurity
Market maximizer deology man says that to fix things you dont need more money just more markets.
You either die a zero or turn into a paperclip maximizer. You too can be turned into pure, efficient marketonium.
Guy who doesn’t bother doing much research about what already exists or what has been tried before doesn’t see any value in teaching or learning what already exists - what a shock!
Do you disagree that most people think the purpose of academia is to add to humanity’s collective knowledge? His evidence is weak but I don’t think it’s a controversial claim he’s making about c). His solution is controversial, not his identification of
a problemthe purpose of academia(misphrased myself originally).In the sense that science has gotten worse at rewarding direct success, that also seems fairly unambiguous.
I don’t see what would go wrong about adding markets to scientific progress. Maybe if there was some sort of graft added, like the government limiting who’s allowed to make new discoveries because a scientist’s union wants to keep all the market profits for themselves, but otherwise it seems straightforwardly good.