komponisto comments on Division of cognitive labour in accordance with researchers' ability - Less Wrong

10 Post author: Stefan_Schubert 16 January 2014 09:28AM

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Comment author: komponisto 17 January 2014 12:20:15AM 2 points [-]

If you could make a good estimate of young Einsteins, it would be enough to pay the basic income to the selected talented people.

This is exactly what academia is supposed to be, and it doesn't work. (Notably, it didn't work for Einstein, who didn't get let in until 1908.)

People are very, very bad at recognizing genius.

Comment author: asr 18 January 2014 07:25:33PM -2 points [-]

This is exactly what academia is supposed to be, and it doesn't work. (Notably, it didn't work for Einstein, who didn't get let in until 1908.)

This isn't true. Until 1905, Einstein was a graduate student (a very junior "insider"). He was still under 30 in 1908 when he was given a lectureship, which is a pretty plausible age to be given a teaching appointment. So that's three years spent outside the academy; not so very long.