Comment by gwervc
1 year ago
> the only avenues I see for curiosity-driven researchers are becoming independently wealthy, living like a monk
I came to the same conclusion. This is the path I'm following (trying to set up a company and lean FIRE). It's sad in a way because those efforts and years could have been directed to research but we have to adapt.
That was mostly how the big scientific breakthroughs came in the 1800-1900s .. independent wealth.
That’s what a “scholar” is and Universities provided the perfect environment for that to thrive, which is no longer the case.
In the 1800’s and early 1900’s, maybe…
In post WW2 America though there was increased funding from the state, large research universities, institutes and national labs could be created. In the era where all that was really working at full speed, the “big scientific breakthrough” came at such a pace that it became hard to see what was big or not.
Edison's research lab was funded by companies wanting specific inventions developed.
I think that this was Paul Graham's original ambition for YC, really: a hope that some at least of the successful founders would choose to take their winnings and implement the next Lisp Machine and similar projects. Unfortunately, as with other things, winning the SV VC game just seems to incline people to either keep climbing that same greasy pole, or to do unstrenuous rich-guy things, or some combination of those two.
I've seen that many times over by now, sort of done it myself. It doesn't really work. You end up replacing one problem for another. There is also a heavy dose of procrastination and escapism related to it. Think about how many could, and does, do it and but how few results there are.
All it took was one bored patent clerk spending idle time thinking about something that he couldn't just let go and now we have General Relativity and black holes.