> the key to getting stuff done in a hierarchical organization is tact. I think he was a poor politician
> Rocking the boat publicly (as this post clearly shows he is OK with) is not the mark of good political skills.
You're not wrong.
However shouldn't we be asking ourselves why we are requiring such skills?
The truth is that being a good politician has an inverse relationship with being a geek.
Peter Thiel has been pointing this out for many years. He asks, do we really have scientists anymore? Or are they really bureaucrats and politicians pretending to be scientists?
I am convinced it is the latter. I think we have whole universities filled with cargo cult science.
This relates neatly with some awkward facts about the modern education system.
For all the extraordinary efforts and feats of intellectual prowess it is also extraordinary how little they practically achieve. The number of breakthroughs has dramatically declined. Once you get past the PR bullshit and backslapping there is very little actually happening in many places in the 'innovation economy'.
Take nanotech. I am not aware of any advances that make their appearance in a consumer's home. I can think only of a handful of niche applications like expensive hydrophobic coatings. If the advances were occurring in the factories we should be seeing more refined low cost goods on a massive scale. Is that actually happening? I don't know that it is. We've been promised a lot and been waiting for long time.
Take biotech. Nothing. Just nothing. I think the last biotechnology I interacted with was a yogurt. Can anybody name a single biotech invention or innovation that actually exists in people's houses? In the 50s and 60s we had the Green Revolution, that counts. However the price of food has been rising considerably for several years now. There is certainly no food product that I consume that has become much cheaper.
The discovery of DNA is at least half a century ago. Despite much fanfare about CRISPR, why should we be sure that this time biologists are bringing home the bacon? Is anybody willing to bet that in ten years time there will be GM cool pets, much cheaper food, much cheaper quality wood for building from GM trees?
I would not take that bet.
What about energy? Willing to bet your energy bills get much lower in the future?
tldr; Maybe a whole lot of people are totally full of shit. The basic metric of progress is that things get cheaper, but they're not, so it isn't happening. If you're not willing to bet that prices decrease then maybe your confidence in the future of invention/innovation is misplaced.
Being a good manager means managing people. Dealing with people is easier when you have strong people skills. Conversely, if you put someone who has a toxic personality in charge of an organization, you might destroy the organization.
Again, I'm not saying anything about his talent, because it's impossible to know without hearing all sides, which I seriously doubt will happen. I'm saying that the article, his opinions, his actions, and from what his version of events are, is sending signals that he cannot get along with his superiors / peers in a way that is mutually constructive and beneficial.
Honestly, industry might be better for him, if he can find a benefactor willing to finance his research. But academia is petty and political, and from what I'm reading, his odds don't look good.
> But academia is petty and political, and from what I'm reading, his odds don't look good.
Yes, he should recalibrate his ideas of why he wanted to work in academia.
Today if you want to get ahead you need a patron and some people who know enough to bounce ideas off them.
I think it increasingly the case that universities are the worst place to send a real intellectual. Some of the most useless people in the world are respected here.
I've been to one, I'll say what I think. I think most university people are posers. Completely unfit. Institutionalized.
Then they are requested to perform. And they cannot. They like are those plants specialized to perform only in a certain Alpine microclimate.
Result: psychological sickness and poor pay. Employers don't know what to do with these people. And society insists on manufacturing more of them. It's a sick system, and it is best to get out while you're still honest.
> Rocking the boat publicly (as this post clearly shows he is OK with) is not the mark of good political skills.
You're not wrong.
However shouldn't we be asking ourselves why we are requiring such skills?
The truth is that being a good politician has an inverse relationship with being a geek.
Peter Thiel has been pointing this out for many years. He asks, do we really have scientists anymore? Or are they really bureaucrats and politicians pretending to be scientists?
I am convinced it is the latter. I think we have whole universities filled with cargo cult science.
This relates neatly with some awkward facts about the modern education system.
For all the extraordinary efforts and feats of intellectual prowess it is also extraordinary how little they practically achieve. The number of breakthroughs has dramatically declined. Once you get past the PR bullshit and backslapping there is very little actually happening in many places in the 'innovation economy'.
Take nanotech. I am not aware of any advances that make their appearance in a consumer's home. I can think only of a handful of niche applications like expensive hydrophobic coatings. If the advances were occurring in the factories we should be seeing more refined low cost goods on a massive scale. Is that actually happening? I don't know that it is. We've been promised a lot and been waiting for long time.
Take biotech. Nothing. Just nothing. I think the last biotechnology I interacted with was a yogurt. Can anybody name a single biotech invention or innovation that actually exists in people's houses? In the 50s and 60s we had the Green Revolution, that counts. However the price of food has been rising considerably for several years now. There is certainly no food product that I consume that has become much cheaper.
The discovery of DNA is at least half a century ago. Despite much fanfare about CRISPR, why should we be sure that this time biologists are bringing home the bacon? Is anybody willing to bet that in ten years time there will be GM cool pets, much cheaper food, much cheaper quality wood for building from GM trees? I would not take that bet.
What about energy? Willing to bet your energy bills get much lower in the future?
tldr; Maybe a whole lot of people are totally full of shit. The basic metric of progress is that things get cheaper, but they're not, so it isn't happening. If you're not willing to bet that prices decrease then maybe your confidence in the future of invention/innovation is misplaced.