life-and-quiet

I think this essay is about the exact opposite of operationalizing. It's about an internal feeling or life of the mind. One of the examples she points to is how the exact same action (e.g. having an affair) can originate from and result in very different mental attitudes.

This is such a great description of learning in general. You get pockets of information, and then BAM suddenly you can see how they relate.

I think this is so hard to learn because it's counter to human nature, and only necessary due to the artificial conditions of the modern world. We're programmed to want to be useful to our tribe. But we don't live in tribes any more. Our brains get confused and burnt out because we perform and perform and perform, but we don't get love and status and security in return, we just get this abstract thing called money, which it doesn't really understand.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but I have to wonder if, at certain frequencies, normal emotions become harmful. Like it's normal to experience sadness, and our brains are built to process it. But I'm not sure our brains are able to cope with reading about (and seeing video of) industrial warfare, genocide, and serial killings all in the same afternoon. It's similar to how our physiological stress response remains constantly elevated in the modern world. Once adaptive, now harmful. We know that social media companies target normal emotions like fear of isolation and outrage because they are addictive. In our ancestral environment, those fears probably triggered from time to time and our minds could handle them. But can we stand having that button pushed all day every day?

I think it really depends on what your goals are. If you're just aiming to get a job or make as much money as possible, then yeah I think college is often overrated. But as somebody who took the nontraditional route and is now interested in the "harder" aspects of computer science, there are absolutely gaps where my formally trained colleagues have a leg up. Formal academic bodies of knowledge, and getting exposure to them, absolutely have a use. But you for sure don't need them in many day-to-day jobs or to advance as a professional much of the time.

EDIT: this response assumes a good program / department. There are absolutely subpar college programs that are a giant waste of money and time.

This will come off as passive-aggressive in text, but it's a sincere question: How do you make sense in the rapid increase in mental health issues, including suicide, that seems to correlate so closely with the adoption of smartphones?

I'm absolutely not saying that it's conclusive proof of the article's position, but I do think it's a powerful data point.

I think "What Technology Wants" has the best response to this argument: it's correct, but most of us choose to live in a world of high technology anyway. He points out for example that Ted Kaczynski, who went to live in a hut in the woods, "had the freedom to harvest the potatoes whenever he wanted." Technology and automation ARE constraining, and their use does diminish freedom, but they also produce a world of options that is unimaginable to previous generations.

So I think WTW and Cal Newport and people like that have it right. The best we can all do as a society is to be aware of the influences of the technologies we select, to reject the ones that don't serve our aims, and to continuously make intentional choices.

Appreciate this post, and will add my voice to it. Current senior manager in technology whose only academic credentials are undergrad and grad degrees in history and (non-quantitative minor) economics.

I do think my career stalled a bit as a result of studying these things, but that's a consequence of the same market thinking you're challenging. The people who hired me are happy they gave me the chance, and presumably like OP said, we aren't that special and there are tons of other talented people who can do this work being ignored because of an excess concern for credentialism.

Would like to second this question. I'm very interested in getting into this world, but it feels like there isn't a clear path (especially for someone self-taught like me). Bioinformatics feels pretty inaccessible without a computer science or biology degree, even with substantial R and Python experience.

This is super important. It reminds me of the line from "Succession," when Brian Cox says, "The Ford Motor company is barely real. It's a shorthand for a set of financial interests."

We use the word "Boeing" as if it is a real thing. In fact it is a set (as well as many subsets) of individuals pursuing a variety of goals.

When we say "Boeing" quote "lost its way," maybe that is reasonable language for the entirety of the Boeing corporation. But you can just as easily say, "How Boeing willfully endangered the lives of its passengers by cutting corners" if you're referring to the subset of individuals who command Boeing and created this set of incentives.

Affected (former) user. This settlement only applies to financial damages, I believe. If you read the link, or the class action documentation they sent to me, it does not apply to future costs related to medical monitoring or care.

Exactly why I left academia with my Master's and didn't pursue a PhD. A few years into my professional life I met a PhD who had actually gotten tenure and gave it up to come work in industry. When I asked him whether he missed academia he said, "I miss the idea of it, but the idea isn't what it is."

I understand where you're coming from, and there might not be a lot of great answers, but off the top of my head let's say we have a high degree of confidence it is the phones. A couple immediate next steps we could take:

1. Encourage education. Explain to young people early and often through a number of avenues that phone use can cause anxiety, depression, etc. Knowledge is power and all that. Will it solve the problem? No. But it might move the needle and save some lives.

2. Fund further and more detailed studies. Are there critical periods of child development where phone use is more likely to lead to suicide? Are there particular patterns of usage? Narrowing down the hypothesis space makes it much easier to develop more nuanced studies and more targeted interventions.

Happy New Year! Thank you to everyone who contributes to the spirit of this place and keeps us a healthy community.