I wonder if another factor here is the rising personal cost of administrative work. In the past, the "great thinkers" had either servants or secretaries who took care of administrative work for them. Now that's all been pushed on the knowledge worker.
I suspect that every knowledge worker gets in at most 4 hours of knowledge work per day, and usually far less; the rest of their time is spent on email and Slack and meetings and creating slide decks for meetings. To be clear, some of that time is necessary as a function of arranging your thoughts to disseminate them to other people and to receive knowledge from others. Also, as you point out Rohit, great thinkers traditionally haven't done actual "big thinking" for more than a few hours per day. But processing 100 emails a day inevitably takes time away from deep thought.
Yes that's a contributing factor. I also feel that the very fact of a life with 100 emails a day puts us in an entirely different capabilities mindset vs a world where that's not the case.
There is a reason Ted Nelson isn't remembered by most in the the tech industry. If those Idealists [thinkers] actually implemented just 1 one of the projects they ideated, the world will be 10x better off. This is why.
There is one more thing to consider. The low-hanging fruits have been caught, and to do pioneering work in any field, you need a lot of resources and, at an individual level, access to labs, funds, etc, which can be accessed only via institutions. The filter to access creates credentialism, and now you are pressured to get "thumbs up" quickly and in any way possible. This has begotten a cycle and drives the institutionalism flywheel. How much leeway do you think independent thinkers have today to create fruitful work, even if we assume they have sufficient money? Thanks for the great post.
How would you fund such little thinkers (e.g. these 5 year appointments or otherwise)? Philanthropy , government and just being frugal are the main ways I see to date. Is the point more that philanthropists and gov should adopt a person/curiosity rather than idea/impact framework? And/or does more randomness need to be injected into grants/funding? And/or do we need more time-limited absolute authority for gov employees that give out grants?
Probably supporting small thinkers/tinkering requires some kind of fractal design - That is perhaps hard to design top down. Fair or unfair?
There are the beginnings of such fellowships, eg at the Arc institute, but they're few and far between. Bell Labs had the idea that you get the time and you're not even bothered for results until year 5 of 7 or whatever.
Do you have a link for the productivity/hours graph? One area where I think it might fall down is for political campaigners or communicators. People like Malcolm X. Perhaps a lot of time in that work is similar to the machine operation? Fascinating that it holds true for science as well as writing, though.
I wonder how the equilibrium works. There are times when thinkers must be do-ers --- writing books, giving speeches, publishing papers etc. Darwin worked hard when he was drafting Origins the first time, for example, I believe. And thus vice-versa. To become Malcolm X the do-er he had to go though a big period of being a thinker. Across many lives, individuals move between thinker and do-er roles. Dickens was a prodigious worker as an editor/business man, for example.
The fundamental issue is that:
- To have space to think requires the system to have slack i.e. surplus
- A system having surplus is by definition, inefficient.
- We've built a lot of systems around systematically squeezing out inefficiencies.
Great post!
I wonder if another factor here is the rising personal cost of administrative work. In the past, the "great thinkers" had either servants or secretaries who took care of administrative work for them. Now that's all been pushed on the knowledge worker.
I suspect that every knowledge worker gets in at most 4 hours of knowledge work per day, and usually far less; the rest of their time is spent on email and Slack and meetings and creating slide decks for meetings. To be clear, some of that time is necessary as a function of arranging your thoughts to disseminate them to other people and to receive knowledge from others. Also, as you point out Rohit, great thinkers traditionally haven't done actual "big thinking" for more than a few hours per day. But processing 100 emails a day inevitably takes time away from deep thought.
Yes that's a contributing factor. I also feel that the very fact of a life with 100 emails a day puts us in an entirely different capabilities mindset vs a world where that's not the case.
Great read!
There is a reason Ted Nelson isn't remembered by most in the the tech industry. If those Idealists [thinkers] actually implemented just 1 one of the projects they ideated, the world will be 10x better off. This is why.
Great piece Rohit.
On a related note of "labor hours" and pricing that transaction, I had these very unorthodox idea:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/moinrahman_weekend-post-formula-for-the-tech-bro-activity-7291462278657290241-00RW?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android
There is one more thing to consider. The low-hanging fruits have been caught, and to do pioneering work in any field, you need a lot of resources and, at an individual level, access to labs, funds, etc, which can be accessed only via institutions. The filter to access creates credentialism, and now you are pressured to get "thumbs up" quickly and in any way possible. This has begotten a cycle and drives the institutionalism flywheel. How much leeway do you think independent thinkers have today to create fruitful work, even if we assume they have sufficient money? Thanks for the great post.
You might enjoy Thing Knowledge by Davis Baird, which I just fimished
Will check it out.
A lot of research labs somewhat work like that - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory staff get a surprising amount of leeway.
I didn't know that
One of the luckiest clicks I've made in months. A really excellent piece. Thanks so much!
Thank you!
Do we need "tenure"? Or something like Adam Mastrioanni's Science Houses?
https://open.substack.com/pub/experimentalhistory/p/lets-build-a-fleet-and-change-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=76x4s
That's a good start but giving enough slack is hard
Enjoyed this piece.
How would you fund such little thinkers (e.g. these 5 year appointments or otherwise)? Philanthropy , government and just being frugal are the main ways I see to date. Is the point more that philanthropists and gov should adopt a person/curiosity rather than idea/impact framework? And/or does more randomness need to be injected into grants/funding? And/or do we need more time-limited absolute authority for gov employees that give out grants?
Probably supporting small thinkers/tinkering requires some kind of fractal design - That is perhaps hard to design top down. Fair or unfair?
There are the beginnings of such fellowships, eg at the Arc institute, but they're few and far between. Bell Labs had the idea that you get the time and you're not even bothered for results until year 5 of 7 or whatever.
People need slack.
Just wanted to share a related post of mine:
Good people divided and an explanation of why
Here is my effort to understand why people with good hearts have reacted quite differently
https://leemuller.substack.com/p/good-people-divided-and-an-explanation
Do you have a link for the productivity/hours graph? One area where I think it might fall down is for political campaigners or communicators. People like Malcolm X. Perhaps a lot of time in that work is similar to the machine operation? Fascinating that it holds true for science as well as writing, though.
Hmm have to look up. And yes, this is more particular to thinky roles where the output is dependent on inspiration.
I wonder how the equilibrium works. There are times when thinkers must be do-ers --- writing books, giving speeches, publishing papers etc. Darwin worked hard when he was drafting Origins the first time, for example, I believe. And thus vice-versa. To become Malcolm X the do-er he had to go though a big period of being a thinker. Across many lives, individuals move between thinker and do-er roles. Dickens was a prodigious worker as an editor/business man, for example.
Very good points there!
Fantastic post, thanks for writing!
> 90% of all scientists who have ever lived are alive today
I never thought about it like that, but sounds right. Perhaps we should be surprised if there were *no* growing pains.
Great point about tenure.
I can't agree more:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/moinrahman_friday-post-the-only-way-one-can-receive-activity-7290907827374637056-YqCg?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios