p.s. I just read the article (and comments) in more detail. Its ‘spot on’, though primarily appears be focused on lab researchers in biology. (its also a fairly long and detailed article with many references). the field of biology I was in is much smaller, though i think just about every biology department in a research university has a theoretical/mathematical biologist, or a few—especially in ecology and genetics. however, alot of people have never even heard of this area; and some biologists thinks it mostly irrelevant.
While i cannot claim to be (and am almost am not a genius) Every single ‘bad habit’ or ‘trait’ described in the section ‘nobody cares if you are a genius’ applies to me . Sometimes it only takes me once sentence to get ‘downvoted’ (or banned) by people i’m around—sometimes this is because i grew up and often am around people who speak ‘dialect’ (or non-pc speech—though my values are basically pc) and i say something that others find offensive. Also among some academics (and musicians—since that is another of my interests) if you mention the name of a scientist who actually is a sort of arch-rival to the scientist you are talking to, that’s often the end of the conversation (the same is true in music—you better not say you like some musician that the musician you are talking to hates.)
last, to a certain extent its possible my own ‘research program’ is partly meaningless or useless. I know some projects i worked on but never published on (in biology and economics) were basically correct, and the problems were generating many confused papers at the time (and actually still do), but many people have published papers basically saying my points to a large degree (and sometimes with more technical detail—my math skills are not wht they should be for me to say what i want to say). my current project (which is on multiobjective optimization) may be a ‘tangent’ to the main work in that area (most of which involves algorithms). so it may just be a curiosity (i’ve seen papers in math and physics entitled things like ‘my failed proof of the reimman conjecture’, or fermat’s last theorem , or 4 color problem. ) There are whole books on such failed proofs.
Another example of ‘teams’ (eg Feynman and Dyson) is Einstein—who needed someone expert in differential geometry—who he found. Ramanujan needed someone who knew how to turn notes into accepted mathematics and could deal with beurocracy (and he found G H Hardy to help write it up).
(I need someone who knows how to do some basic computer work (eg show me how to use google docs, create PDFs...) and ideally someone who knows a bit more number theory and computer programming than me (i learned C++, but python/R/netlogo may be more relevant and i’m too lazy and incomeptnt to learn them). While theoretical biology projects were mathematical, eventually you had to put them on a computer. My current project is like that.
From an EA view, one is really talking about ‘transaction costs’ and ‘barriers and bounds to rationality’ (name of a book by D Foley and P Albin). If one was a good mathematician this could be phrased in those terms (and Foley has affiliations with SFI and a few people there are familiar with some of the math formalism required.)
While i applied to Tyler Cowan’s grant program (visions) and read some of his blog, papers and other things from Mercatus center (one person there collaborates with a person at SFI who i contacted but got no reply) i think my politics means they would never fund me. (Same with Templeton, and even some more ‘left leaning ’ organizations like IPS and ones in economics. They do fund redundant and incomplete, second rate work so long as the people have credentials, and can pack their books and papers with alot of data (numbers) which are basically meaningless to anyone who is not fluent in things like all the masses of the atomic elements and elementary particles, or exchange rate between dollars, pounds,s euros, yen and bitcoin).
If i was organized one project i have is to write a a reply to a paper from Mercatus .
p.s. I just read the article (and comments) in more detail. Its ‘spot on’, though primarily appears be focused on lab researchers in biology. (its also a fairly long and detailed article with many references). the field of biology I was in is much smaller, though i think just about every biology department in a research university has a theoretical/mathematical biologist, or a few—especially in ecology and genetics. however, alot of people have never even heard of this area; and some biologists thinks it mostly irrelevant.
While i cannot claim to be (and am almost am not a genius) Every single ‘bad habit’ or ‘trait’ described in the section ‘nobody cares if you are a genius’ applies to me . Sometimes it only takes me once sentence to get ‘downvoted’ (or banned) by people i’m around—sometimes this is because i grew up and often am around people who speak ‘dialect’ (or non-pc speech—though my values are basically pc) and i say something that others find offensive. Also among some academics (and musicians—since that is another of my interests) if you mention the name of a scientist who actually is a sort of arch-rival to the scientist you are talking to, that’s often the end of the conversation (the same is true in music—you better not say you like some musician that the musician you are talking to hates.)
last, to a certain extent its possible my own ‘research program’ is partly meaningless or useless. I know some projects i worked on but never published on (in biology and economics) were basically correct, and the problems were generating many confused papers at the time (and actually still do), but many people have published papers basically saying my points to a large degree (and sometimes with more technical detail—my math skills are not wht they should be for me to say what i want to say). my current project (which is on multiobjective optimization) may be a ‘tangent’ to the main work in that area (most of which involves algorithms). so it may just be a curiosity (i’ve seen papers in math and physics entitled things like ‘my failed proof of the reimman conjecture’, or fermat’s last theorem , or 4 color problem. ) There are whole books on such failed proofs.
Another example of ‘teams’ (eg Feynman and Dyson) is Einstein—who needed someone expert in differential geometry—who he found. Ramanujan needed someone who knew how to turn notes into accepted mathematics and could deal with beurocracy (and he found G H Hardy to help write it up).
(I need someone who knows how to do some basic computer work (eg show me how to use google docs, create PDFs...) and ideally someone who knows a bit more number theory and computer programming than me (i learned C++, but python/R/netlogo may be more relevant and i’m too lazy and incomeptnt to learn them). While theoretical biology projects were mathematical, eventually you had to put them on a computer. My current project is like that.
From an EA view, one is really talking about ‘transaction costs’ and ‘barriers and bounds to rationality’ (name of a book by D Foley and P Albin). If one was a good mathematician this could be phrased in those terms (and Foley has affiliations with SFI and a few people there are familiar with some of the math formalism required.)
While i applied to Tyler Cowan’s grant program (visions) and read some of his blog, papers and other things from Mercatus center (one person there collaborates with a person at SFI who i contacted but got no reply) i think my politics means they would never fund me. (Same with Templeton, and even some more ‘left leaning ’ organizations like IPS and ones in economics. They do fund redundant and incomplete, second rate work so long as the people have credentials, and can pack their books and papers with alot of data (numbers) which are basically meaningless to anyone who is not fluent in things like all the masses of the atomic elements and elementary particles, or exchange rate between dollars, pounds,s euros, yen and bitcoin).
If i was organized one project i have is to write a a reply to a paper from Mercatus .