Patrick Collison
Congratulations to the great folks at @longnow!
The only problem with having @patrickc as one of your favorite people is that *everyone* else who has met the man feels exactly the same way.
@patrickc Wow. Congratulations Patrick!!!!!!
@ScotchOikos I see. I have a pretty positive view of people like @patrickc for example. Sincere. Grounded. Brilliant. Generous. Generative. They work their asses off, and manage risk.
Can’t imagine wanting to complain about these kind of people. Can’t wait to see what he may do for the 🌎.
A herd of cats.
Here are a few names of higher variance high agency super independent people I think highly of and I would consult on any national problem: @LauraDeming @patrickc @paulg @NAChristakis @DrJoonYun @peterthiel @pwang @tylercowen @nntaleb Liz Blackburn @SamHarrisOrg
There are of course MANY more. It’s important to get more disagreeable and independent people into the mix. If it were only such people in the instutional world, I would push for more low variance individuals of course. But that is so far from being our problem, it’s irrelevant.
Tom Lehrer
Noam Elkies
@LauraDeming
@MarcusduSautoy
@patrickc
@lishali88
@peterthiel
@thegoodtomchi*
@SamHarrisOrg
@joerogan
@tylercowen
@MsMelChen
James Simons
Jared Diamond
@StephenAtHome
@tferriss
@FutureJurvetson
@naval
Jimmy Kaltreider
@mkonnikova
@pmarca
Etc...
[no family]
Freeman Dyson
@brookedallas
Sydney Coleman
@adamgazz
@balajis
@stephstem
Kevin Harrington
Jordan Greenhall
Daniel Schmachtenberger
@nntaleb
@annakhachiyan
@seanonolennon
@DavidYezzi
Raoul Bott
@DouglasKMurray
@jordanbpeterson
Isadore Singer
R Gomory
R Feynman
And on & on & on...
The Billionaire to watch. If I had to bet on one person to quietly lead and change the world it might well be @patrickc.
He is too decent, quiet, practical, adult, modest and successful to call attention to all he does. But hey, we all have our faults.
Congratulations Patrick.
The Internet has everyone afraid to vouch for others. I *despise* this.
I vouch for @patrickc. Sooner or later we all have to believe in something or someone *other* than ourselves. I have been trying to get this to happen. I failed for years. Patrick succeeded.
Don’t be petty.
@matloff @patrickc I’ve heard you called every name for your principled stands. I vouch for Norm Matloff. Thanks for being a singular solitary hero in the good fight. Also: often the best programming resources on the Internet.
Also, just an amazingly kind, classy & understated human being. Let’s face it, he’s just a singular person. Never tell me nice guys finish last.
Looking for decent business CEO role models/leaders who inspire the best from others? I’d put @zoink in the same class as @patrickc.
It is an interesting question as to who inspires us in physics. Here is a list of 20th century giants whose work inspired me that might work as protagonists with interesting stories that deserve to be considered along with the best known Einstein/Hawking/Oppenheimer/Etc.:
CN Yang (with Lee and Simons)
Paul Dirac
Ernst Stueckelberg
Madame Wu
David Bohm
Abdus Salam
Ken Wilson
Emmy Noether
Ettore Majorana
Carlo Rubio
Shin'ichirō Tomonaga
Lev Landau
Simon Van der Meer
Freeman Dyson
Julian Schwinger
Paul Ehrenfest
John VonNeumann
Feza Gursey
Wolfgang Pauli
Louis and Edward Witten
Hans Bethe
George Sudarshan
Vera Rubin
Gerard 't Hooft
Not all of those stories are…uh…simple.
Would be curious to hear names from others.
i was hoping that the oppenheimer movie would inspire a generation of kids to be physicists but it really missed the mark on that.
let's get that movie made!
(i think the social network managed to do this for startup founders.)
But let’s face facts: inspiration is not the issue. Fundamental Physics needs to be a good life. What is holding us back is:
A) Terrible Pay.
B) Worse Odds of Survival
C) Decoupling of Success at Physics from Success in Physics
D) The Matthew Effect.
E) Math and Physics Pricks
F) Tyranny of large programs over individuals.
G) Multi Decade Stagnation
H) Un Scientific And even Anti-scientific behavior.
I) The Matilde Effect
J) The Sudarshan Effect
K) Ethics Collapse
L) Needlessly long pedagogical sequence (e.g. intro physics -> Classical Mechanics -> Grad Classical Mechanics -> Symplectic Geometry) driven by history.
M) Socializing physics into a team sport in areas dominated by individuals and iconoclasts.
N) Tolerance for Program level failure (e.g. *obsessive* use of toy model physics to evade a reckoning).
O) Intolerance for individual error and failure by those in programs.
P) Failure to reward early contributions (e.g. *Abelian* Chern Simons QFT).
Q) Atrocious MSM journalism distorting the public understanding.
R) Relentless discussion of woo physics in public and 3-5 real topics (e.g. somebodies cat).
S) Learned Helplessness coming from over-learning Ken Wilson.
T) Inability to support motherhood of female physicists.
U) Inability to keep physics marriages easily together with jobs.
V) DEI loyalty oaths and loss of autonomy.
W) Flooding of markets with disposable labor and abuse apprenticeship as labor.
X) Kicking up on attribution.
Y) Overpaying for cherry topping.
Z) Fetishizing the quantum when innovation in classical field theory remains the heart of QFT.
But lastly, if outsiders want to fund and fix movies, you will find that going to the “Leading physicists” won’t work. Peer review can’t work when the leadership *is* the problem. You get more failure.
You need to hold meetings where you get disagreement. So choose the leaders and iconoclasts with great care. Patrick Collison isn’t terrible at this. B+. Best I have ever seen. Start there. Good luck. 🙏
@Perterra1 @patrickc Man is incredible. On so many levels.
@bluesneakerdog @Perterra1 @patrickc The clarity is double edged. But let’s just say I trust Patrick more than anyone else when I disagree with him.
So you have my list. It is incomplete and idiosyncratic. I’d love to have your corrections and additions.
So….Where is yours? Thanks again.
Who's doing interesting olfactory work?
IMO scent is the underrated sense. It's so potent and arresting (often the first thing we describe about distinctive places -- e.g. the smell of the ocean rather than its appearance), but most spaces treat the aromatic dimension as an afterthought. Why are soaring lobbies not infused with fresh sandalwood, cedar, jasmine, or pine?
@LucaTurin.