Over on Twitter, Noah Smith quote-tweeted someone lamenting a decline in the physics of unification:
I made a flippant reply with another mild shot at string theory, though that’s not really a debate I want to get into. I think there’s also something to the idea that physics becomes less attractive during tech booms, as most of the people who have the skills to contribute to Big Problems in physics also have the skills to slap together a pile of linear algebra, call it a “Deep Learning” system, and get themselves a dump truck full of cash. That winnows the field a bit.
As I said in a follow-up, though, I think a part of the problem is a sort of pervasive doomerism that runs through a lot of modern culture, particularly in the highly-educated spaces from which future physicists would emerge. Attempting to stitch together quantum field theory and general relativity is at its core an optimistic project, pursued with the hope of bringing something better into the world. As such, it’s very much swimming against a strong and steady current of negativity, a persistent narrative about how everything has always sucked and is only getting worse.
I don’t think that narrative is true as a general matter (though in the specific case of particle physics, there’s a decent argument that the outlook is kind of bleak), but it’s everywhere, and hard to fight against. It comes from a lot of different directions, too. There’s a constant questioning of priorities— how can you worry about quantum theory when climate change is setting the world on fire? There’s a tendency to dismiss positive developments— that new battery or solar tech is cool, sure, but it’s not enough by itself, so you shouldn’t be excited. And there’s a tendency to get bogged down in side arguments about history and terminology and demographics that just go round and round in a thermodynamic manner, generating lots of heat but minimal useful work.
To the very limited extent that people who rail against left-ish politics as “ a new religion” have a point—and it’s very limited—it’s this narrative aspect that resonates for me. There’s a kind of constant emphasis on the fallen state of the world— the history of -isms, the state of the climate, the corruption of politics— and a focus on the expiation of sin. It’s not sufficient to work on problems, we have to wallow in them, and suffer for them. It’s all depressingly Catholic.
This creates an atmosphere in which it’s difficult to celebrate incremental improvements, and that, in turn, makes it really difficult to take on the kind of ambitious long-term projects that require the concatenation of many increments to get anywhere. I think there are pockets where there’s a sense of rapid enough progress to overcome this negativity— the “slap together a pile of linear algebra and call it AI” subfield is one— but on any kind of broader scale it’s just overwhelming. Particularly if you’re trying to stay plugged into a larger community via social media— I think to a large extent what saves us is that, to lowest order, none of the people doing the front-line work of science are on Twitter.
It’s something of a tiresome cliche to declare things that you don’t like to be exhausting, but I really do feel beaten down by all this. My strong personal preference as a person who writes about science and culture is to emphasize positive things, and keep moving forward, but more often than not that just feels like cheering into the void.
Or, I don’t know, maybe I’ve just had kind of a shitty week, and need to get away for a while. Tough call.
So, yeah, that’s a downer. I may try to figure out a way to go “write-only” on social media— avoiding reading stuff that pisses me off in favor of writing things that put me in a better mood, and only posting links to that. Or maybe just pushing them out into the inboxes of people who click this link:
I’m not sure there’s a good way to do that, though; if you have suggestions, or even want to come at me with the negative waves, Moriarty, the comments will be open:
"avoiding reading stuff that pisses me off in favor of writing things that put me in a better mood"
Yeah, that's the ticket.
But where are you going?
Just avoid Twitter like the plague. TBH, I'm not on there very much and the people I follow don't seem to get into flame wars too often. Besides, I cannot be bothered to read hundreds of comments and sub comments.
But, apparently, everyone else agrees Twitter is Hell on Earth. So why go there unless your job depends on it?