A good writer who can put together stuff, interview different experts, etc. can put together something very good. I can think of plenty of books like that. They cite research and quote experts.
It has some advantages over a book written by a single expert: most importantly, it can cover multiple points of view and cover controversies more impartially.
One of the problems with expert views is that they often fail to distinguish between what is well proven, what is a current consensus because its a best guess, and what is a personal opinion/pet theory.
> One of the problems with expert views is that they often fail to distinguish between what is well proven, what is a current consensus because its a best guess, and what is a personal opinion/pet theory.
I was in the academia for some years and didn't find in my field any expert that was incapable of distinguishing well proven Vs opinion. That might be the defining characteristic of an "expert".
Maybe we just have different definitions of expert? To you and expert is someone who just defends his pet theory, and to me an expert is the same as the rest of the scientific world understands it.
Confusing someone whose job is to push their pet theory with an expert makes you sound like you've had very little exposure to science.
To play devil's advocate, I think there is some merit to their point. A common criticism against modern academia is that so much of the low hanging fruit has been addressed, that to be an expert working on the actual frontier means your "leaf node" of focus/progress is so so specific, that it's not at all uncommon to be somewhat blinded to the broader consensus/lower resolution version of the greater tree of knowledge.
The experts of the kind to which you're presumably referring, who are much more tapped in to the whole state of a broad branch of knowledge, often end up being more "science communicators" than people on the frontier of research. The thing is, though, that these "science communicators" often end up being (or start off being) more akin to a papers/Wikipedia jockey than a credentialed academic actively working in the field. So in that sense, someone who "knows a lot about dinosaurs and can effectively write about them as the broader field currently perceives them" need not necessarily be a credentialed expert.
Science communicators are typically the people who aren't good enough to do research.
I can tell that the ideas you're conveying don't come from your own experience, I'm guessing you heard them from a "science communicator"?
By contrast, I do have direct experience, and the best people were doing research, not talking to the media, and they were perfectly aware what kind of evidence exists for which ideas - in fact more than anything else, this is what being an expert is.
Talking to the media is a different job than being a researcher, I'm sure you'll agree. What I would like to understand is where this belief of yours come from, that the less knowledgeable people will have a better high level picture? Wouldn't the best high level people come from experts who make an effort to learn about those aspects?
As for exposure to science. I think Max Planck had rather a lot, and he said:
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it ...
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth."
> I was in the academia for some years and didn't find in my field any expert that was incapable of distinguishing well proven Vs opinion.
They are capable of it, but they do not always bother to do it when talking to a non-academic audience.
One example that comes to mind is how advice on diet has changed over the years because advice was given (e.g. avoid dietary cholesterol) that was not well proven. Another was the introduction to a fascinating book I read a few years ago on the complexities of evolution (e.g. genetic changes with multiple effects, gene transfer, etc.). In the introduction the authors explained that colleagues had pressured them not to publish because it differed from the simple model of evolution taught in schools so would encourage creationists.
Economists are often biased towards their own political opinions.
I don't know about the specific case you're talking about. However, the scientific method is that when new evidence comes in, experts update their beliefs. What do you think they should do instead?
The problem in one case was that they gave advice with insufficient evidence. That proves my point about failure to distinguish between well proven facts and best guess consensus opinions.
In the other case they were arguing for deliberately impeding the sharing knowledge because the hoi polloi could not understand it. They wanted the public told what was good for them, not the truth.
So a scientist was dishonest and/or made a mistake. What's your point, that journalists aren't dishonest and dont make mistakes? I have no idea what you're arguing for.
I can tell you what my point is: an expert will know more than a journalist. I have no idea how this can be controversial. If it wasn't the case, the journalist would be the expert and it would become true by definition.
I went from being a waiter, to a bootstrapped startup CEO with 20 employees after 4 years, who couldn't grok why employees didn't want to get involved more.
Then went to Google: I was absolutely stunned, stunned, at just how reactive people are.
When you're offering unsolicited advice, you have 0 idea how it's going to be taken. Even the gentlest, most caveated things can set someone off.
In 7 years, I saw exactly one post-mortem, and it was well-understood doing one was seen as aggressive.
One time someone was being a bully in code review, something like 7 rounds of review for 200 lines. 600 review comments from the reviewer total. I'm not kidding. Can't remember exact line count but it was 3:1.
The person being reviewed, at that point, wrote a comment on the meta-situation, something relatively innocuous, can't remember it for the life of me. Within 2 quarters he was PIP'd, and it took 3 years to get a release so he could transfer to another org.
This factor is probably at a high at Google, as reality can't really intrude as much as a normal company. But I did greatly change my perspective on how to communicate in the workplace when you're working for someone else.
There is perceived (likely valid in most cases) risk with criticizing employers. It is entirely possible that if you go directly at leadership, you may be shown the door, regardless of whether you are ready to go or not.
The counterpoint to this guy's story is many of us who have told an employer the issues that we were concerned with in an exit interview, or even in a feedback period during employment, and seen it come right back around to bite us.
IMHO, once you have decided to leave a company, it's almost always a bad decision to be convinced to stay. As such, it doesn't really matter how serious your complaints are, it's not in your best interest to try to change the problems.
Even if they offer to promote you or give a massive pay rise to stay, the fundamental problems that lead you to look elsewhere originally will likely still remain. Any inducements to stay look shallow when you question why they were only offered in response to a resignation.
Making the decision to quit is usually tough and involves weighing up a lot of different things. Once you've crossed the threshold and realised that quitting is the right course of action, it's hard to undo that process and convince yourself to stay after all. The things that you tolerated before will now be more apparent than ever.
I've stayed in places accepting a pay rise after quitting twice, and both times I appreciated the extra money but regretted my choice within weeks. Both times, I'd left within the year.
Similarly, once you've decided you want to leave your current job, just get on with it and find something new as soon as you can. I find this harder advice to take myself, but several times I've stuck around for 6-12 months after I've mentally checked out of a job. There's a very real risk of others noticing your apathy creeping in, and it can have a massive impact on how people remember you once you've gone.
Yeah, but who knows why they aren't listening to you? If they could fix the problem, but they don't think it's a serious issue, they're not motivated to fix the problem. But if it's serious enough that someone quit their job over the issue, then they may get motivated to fix the problem before more people leave. Not a guarantee, obviously, but it does make a certain amount of sense.
probably doesn't help that's not what I wrote. I made no such comparison. I did give reasoning why comments made by someone leaving could be seen as a serious complaint, instead of whining, however.
Once I suggested that we need to have a meeting, a sort of post-mortem, about why two teams were working on nearly-identical projects.
My manager told me that our PM got yelled at because of that, and told me that negative comments should be restricted to private channels, without other managers present.
So, uh, why would I give any feedback that could be even remotely construed as negative again? Especially when the fallout could land on my coworkers as well?
If it's here it's because enough people find it interesting. This shouldn't be surprising, and there's a lot of content about how money works that finds it way into HN.
Damn. I despise crypto, but even I have to admit that there's some power behind this comment. Not because crypto isn't shit, which it is, but because letting someone else hold your gold is stupid. As stupid as letting someone else have your crypto keys. Bravo.
I think government officials holding gold is also “letting someone else have your crypto keys”. What matter does it make if it’s “your” government officials or “someone else’s”
The US has a history of pulling this kind of stuff on its allies. To mind comes pulling out of Breton Woods. To those not aware, at some point in the past the US told the world: the dollar is as good as gold, you can convert it at any time you want, pinky promise. Later: lol joking, I'm keeping the gold, enjoy your dollars.
I wonder what it says about Europe that its leaders are still falling for these rugpulls. That they are uneducated is the most generous reading I can think of.
This is a little skewed based on my understanding. What actually happened to precipitate this was some European countries intentionally attempting to destabilize the dollar, gold having been pegged to a specific dollar amount. Obviously (to me, at least) such an action, threatening a country’s solvency, can’t just be allowed to go on, especially from the position of strength the US had in 1944 (literally a physical presence in 100% of the developed world’s ports at the time).
And let’s not forget that part of the deal was that the US would guarantee maritime security, which they have fulfilled for nearly 100 years. I would say that’s worth quite a bit more than whatever gold is in dispute, given that it allowed for the rise of globalization in the first place.
What really caused the end of the BW financial system was the inability of a world economy to be backed by gold in the first place. This coincided with the US leaving the gold standard in 1971, and this was only ~5-10 years after the instability began. So the system still enjoyed 15-20 years of operating as intended.
Probably because, with full knowledge and awareness of the history you describe - they still feel their gold is safer in NY than in their own country. Europe and it's governments have history too.
> I wonder what it says about Europe that its leaders are still falling for these rugpulls. That they are uneducated is the most generous reading I can think of.
Balance of trade is commonly calculated by only considering goods [1]. America’s trade deficit is a deficit in the trade of goods; we usually have a services trade surplus [2].
When this administration has messaged [3] and made trade policy [4], it has used that goods-only view of trade, i.e. it ignores services.
Microsoft exporting Azure as a service has zero impact on how many goods America buys or sells. (If anything, it might increase the goods deficit if the servers Azure runs on, or the buildings its staff occupy, use any foreign components.) So by this administration’s accounting, the EU reducing its purchases of Azure is great if they e.g. buy two more Hershey’s bars. That’s economically nonsense, and that is the problem.
I think he is talking about the fact that Trump is screaming left and right that "EU iS ScREwINg US CiTIzeNs" because he merely takes into account trading of physical products, without showing the full picture. Basically if you consider services as well, the trade surplus is a few million euros only, because EU imports a lot of services from USA.
When Israel started the war, links got taken down presumably because we don't do political stuff on HN. But when Iran strikes back, these links are allowed, presumably because hitting Microsoft offices makes it "interesting".
That wasn't my intention. Most people can see the humanitarian position on these recent military aggressions. I wanted to highlight how a major consumer oriented private tech company has become so involved in war that it is getting targeted in what seems like a turning point for the tech industry.
I'm with you completely. I just think it is a turning point for previously more outwardly "ethical" companies like google and microsoft that they are getting targeted by militaries
the main reasons for my preference are that: gmail/fastmail are simple, I can use from multiple computers easily, have good defaults and most importantly, they almost always work. Outlook users seem to constantly have something broken.
I do realise that i am reaping the benefits of a centralised system, and in the case of gmail, monetised by advertising, surveillance and user lock-in. Probably the ideal for me would would be a self-hosted web client, e.g. Mailcow
