Cummings' Jobs Advert

[Sway]

carl_w said:

Sway said:

Turing was absolutely shunned by society - yet the government were more than happy to utilise him for the war effort, before discarding like a wk rag.

Weirdo and misfit yes, but he very much did go to university.

Never said he didn't.

The advert isn't asking for people that are all four of the criteria put (the fourth was something along the lines of people who'd dragged themselves out of hell).

He was a weirdo and misfit in early 20C British society. Massively so. Hence the public government apology fairly recently for how he was treated.

[Sway]

Countdown said:

Sway said:

Oh, and pretty much every properly successful project I've been involved in. Won a reasonably prestigious national award for my employer, using a team lead by me (no uni - dropped out after a year of Photography) and fifteen others who ranged from a couple of old Poles who were simply incredible at physical problem solving, a physio turned veg chopper, and a few middle aged farm hands...

Could you share a link? I'm curious to know how big a project it was, in terms of budget, staff, timescales, and client.

Haven't any links - it was a fair while ago. Plus I do like to maintain a veneer of anonymity thanks to a particularly unpleasant event some years ago here.

In terms of budget, approx. £10-12M. Fifteen project staff, subcontracted construction staff of about 40. Somewhere in those ballpark.

Three years to design/implement/realise. Client was the agricultural producer I worked for at the time.

We taught the original designers of the system we were adapting for our use of an opportunity they'd missed, which on it's own paid for the entire project in a single year.

The guvnor got his CBE recently for his endeavours in sustainable agricultural production/processing/distribution.

[Sway]

El stovey said:

Tuna said:

Countdown said:

Could you share a link? I'm curious to know how big a project it was, in terms of budget, staff, timescales, and client.

Really?

Seems like it’s custard at dawn.

Have absolutely zero interest in custard. There are a fair number of PHers who know me personally, and I'd rather my arguments were based on my content not my 'name'.

Especially when a long time ago a PHer came very close to jeapardising a criminal case that fortunately was overcome and lead to the guy that broke every bone in my little bro's skull and left him in a coma for three months getting convicted.

All out of some completely random spite because said thought I'd slighted him...

[Sway]

Countdown said:

amusingduck said:

Cheeky! You've moved the goalposts and strawman'd his argument in one fell swoop

The original question was What kind of projects have been successfully implemented which have been staffed by "wierdos, misfits, people who never went to University"?

I'm not sure it is "moving the goalposts"

Ive worked on loads of projects, some of which contained wierdos or misfits. They weren't anywhere near being in charge of the project (they wouldn't have the people skills for s start). Yes, they did have some unique skills (always in some IT system, usually related to programming). That's a world away from what Sway appears to be suggesting.

To clarify - I have no doubt that there were some wierdos/misfits on the Apollo project (or indeed any other project you care to mention). But having lots of people who are wierd or misfits isn't a pre-requsite or necessary to implementing succesful projects. It's quite possible to implement them without any wierdos at all.

George Low.

Completely turned Apollo (and indeed spaceflight and engineering risk) on it's head - and did things completely differently to what had come before.

Now, would be seen as entirely conventional.

Then? The opposite.

[Sway]

Countdown said:

Sway said:

George Low.

Completely turned Apollo (and indeed spaceflight and engineering risk) on it's head - and did things completely differently to what had come before.

Now, would be seen as entirely conventional.

Then? The opposite.

This guy?

https://www.airspacemag.com/space/apollo-8-george-...

What was it about him that made him either a wierdo or a misfit?

Read that link!

Plenty of examples of him doing things very differently to the 'plan' or historic processes/approaches.

He was hugely bold, thought completely out of the box - and managed to persuade everyone around him up to the President.

Hence why he's credited as the sole reason the US won the moonrace.

[Sway]

Countdown said:

Sway said:

Read that link!

I've read the link thanks, although I'm not sure you have.

Being exceptionally good at your job, or coming up with new ideas and innovations doesn't mean that you're either a wierdo or a misfit. There is aboslutely zero, zilch, nada, nothing in his biography to suggest a career path any different to the other scientists / engineers that were involved in the Apollo project.

Apart from being the one that pretty much developed the idea, the execution, the organisation and processes - oh and having the people skills to achieve it.

Anyone with a photographic memory is a weirdo. Anyone willing to buck decades of accepted wisdom on how to do things, is a weirdo. Etc.

But hey, I'll concede the point. Really cannot be arsed about whether you think it's a good idea or not. Nor whether you believe there have ever been examples of it working.

[Sway]

Countdown said:

The fact that you say he had "the people skills to achieve it" proves that he was the very opposite of the wierdo/misfit you seem desperate to portray him as.

I'm really not desperate at all - hence my comments about conceding the point as I really cannot be arsed.

However, I'm absolutely a misfit in a number of ways, yet can be very persuasive and seem to have a knack for building enthusiasm almost solely through my own optimism.

It's worked for me. It seems you view things wildly differently. It takes all sorts.

Which I think is Cummings' point. At the moment, there isn't the diversity of thought/approach in the policy development areas which means we're stuck with tiny incremental changes - each one earnt through a ever reducing RoI.

[Sway]

Halb said:

Countdown said:

What kind of projects have been successfully implemented which have been staffed by "wierdos, misfits, people who never went to University"?

Projects failure isn't restricted to just the Public Sector. It's possibly more noticed in the Public Sector because the size of the projects carried out tends to be so big). I'm not saying there isn't a place for wierdos and misfits somewhere in the CS, (our IT team is full of them) but it's not likely to improve the CS in any significant way.

Bletchley Park?
SOE?

Seems none of them count... Still not sure why, but there we go.

[Sway]

fblm said:

Randy Winkman said:

Is recruitment all about mathematics? (See my reply above.)

Obviously not but a little basic maths applied sensibly can give you an insight into what really is statistically relevant rather more than what you 'feel'. I'm going to hazard a guess you can neither do the maths nor think it's useful?

And indeed some of the emerging capabilities of non linear analysis using disparate datasets...

Some of the stuff our data scientists are doing to further safety in a critical industry is genuinely incredible. A complete and utter game changer, and one the relevant regulators are being surprisingly proactive about, compared to their usual immense inertia for any form of change at all.

Unfortunately, I'm enough of a luddite my eyes glaze over as soon as they start talking about data lakes and suchlike. And I like maths!

[Sway]

Randy Winkman said:

Perhaps one of them can give us a view on the significance of the difference between zero and 3?

If I asked a few of them, then I doubt there's sufficient time left this decade for covering the response!

Absolutely mind blowing skills, but my word they live in a world connected but entirely separate from ours.

[Sway]

Countdown said:

Sway said:

Halb said:

Countdown said:

What kind of projects have been successfully implemented which have been staffed by "wierdos, misfits, people who never went to University"?

Projects failure isn't restricted to just the Public Sector. It's possibly more noticed in the Public Sector because the size of the projects carried out tends to be so big). I'm not saying there isn't a place for wierdos and misfits somewhere in the CS, (our IT team is full of them) but it's not likely to improve the CS in any significant way.

Bletchley Park?
SOE?

Seems none of them count... Still not sure why, but there we go.

OIh absolutely, they’re concrete examples of misfits and weirdos. I dont think any evidence is actually needed.

You're right. Absolutely no evidence Turing was treated as a pariah and outcast, nor that the SOE did anything unusual or were made up of people far from the norm...

[Sway]

Strawman, strawman, where for art thou strawman?

[Sway]

It is amusing how some feel that qualifications can outweigh achievements.

Especially when the vast majority of the blog post was looking for very niche and specific highly qualified individuals.. M

[Sway]

s2art said:

TTwiggy said:

Why do I get the feeling that enforced eugenics wouldn't trouble many people on here too much?

Depends on what you mean by 'enforced eugenics'. If it involved using CRISPR (or a better version of it) to improve a childs life chances if they have genetically disadvantaged parent(s) then why not?

Absolutely.

If we could determine genetic factors that would preclude cancers, or remove genetic abnormalities (such as the ones running through my other half's family, causing immense pain and in some cases very early deaths) - bring it on.

I read plenty of scifi. In a hell of a lot of them "geneering" is a theme for the humanity contained within the story. I'm not sure I've ever seen it being presented as a bad thing.

[Sway]

Surely dogs are a great example of some of this?

From what I can understand, relatively 'recent' development of the wide range of different breeds, and staggering variations in 'normal' (statistically) size/temperament/intelligence/etc.

Humanity can be a little odd - happy to manipulate other species via selective breeding. Have laws to protect those animals that effectively require you to euthanise them if their quality of life is diminished severely through health issues, etc. Yet those concepts seem to be considered abhorrent in a different context, even if the 'subject' is actively requesting it!

[Sway]

DeepEnd said:

Sway said:

Surely dogs are a great example of some of this?

From what I can understand, relatively 'recent' development of the wide range of different breeds, and staggering variations in 'normal' (statistically) size/temperament/intelligence/etc.

Humanity can be a little odd - happy to manipulate other species via selective breeding. Have laws to protect those animals that effectively require you to euthanise them if their quality of life is diminished severely through health issues, etc. Yet those concepts seem to be considered abhorrent in a different context, even if the 'subject' is actively requesting it!

Didn’t have you down as a eugenics fan Sway.

It might be more useful to focus on Emotional Intelligence and empathy than IQ if we want a better society.

I'm a fan of improvement in all forms. I've made a career of seeking that for businesses, and am nowhere near intelligent enough to do it in ways that would really matter.

I have very emotive reasons for wishing that we could eliminate generational transference of truly undesirable genes - I'd rather my daughter wouldn't have to go through the same pain and challenges my better half has over the past three decades, but that's not to be.

I'd also prefer to have full colour vision, instead of the bullst variant I have genetically, only having recently discovered quite how much of the vibrancy of life I'm missing out on. But that's not to be.

I'd love to have enabled the woman that sacrificed so much to raise me, going through what appears to be a genetically predisposed loss of memory - one that I am likely to experience if I live long enough. But that's not to be.

What, exactly, is lacking in my emotional intelligence or empathy by wishing these things could be avoided - as it appears is within the bounds of scientific possibility?

[Sway]

Should we seek to eliminate autism as they're insufficiently capable of gaining "emotional intelligence" or "empathy"?

[Sway]

El stovey said:

JagLover said:

What I am suggesting is that scientific advance has tended to come from brilliant minds who are of limited numbers and the modern world we live in is predominantly due to their work.

Emotional intelligence has a vital place in a well functioning society but the advancement of the human condition is driven by the best of us (intellectually speaking) who may well be detached from the normal human condition or even on the "spectrum".

Edited by JagLover on Wednesday 19th February 10:15

Right but wouldn’t eugenics actually be about getting rid of those traits? That’s the irony of some of these people really into eugenics, if you’re proposing eugenics you’ve likely got traits that would be seen as undesirable in society, depending on who gets to decide obviously.

The people proposing eugenics usually think they’re in the group with desirable characteristics but maybe that alone shows something that might be considered undesirable by others.

What about genetic predispositions for cancers, alzheimers, mobility issues such as those faced by my better half and daughter?

Why can't we seek to revise the human genome so they cannot be passed on to future generations?

We're now in a position where we're doing pre-emptive mastectomies on women...

[Sway]

Can we separate "eugenics" into three separate categories, or is that verboten?

Category 1 - editing genes to prevent passing on of specific genes that cause (for example) breast cancer, alzheimers, Ehlers-Danloss Syndrome or the many others that science is recognising are caused in virtually all cases by a specific gene that could be replaced by a myriad of alternative ones currently existing in the spectrum of the human genome.

Category 2 - the Swedish model. Sterilisation of people with specific genetic abnormalities which lead to reduced quality of life and increased burdens on society.

Category 3 - killing people who display certain genetic traits which are considered undesirable.


Or is that too nuanced for the board?

For me - option 1 is to be supported. Option 2 could find my support, but is far more emotionally challenging and risky and so I don't think I could support it in any likely scenario. Option 3 is beyond the pale.

Does that make me a nazi worshipper?

[Sway]

DeepEnd said:

Sway said:

Can we separate "eugenics" into three separate categories, or is that verboten?

Category 1 - editing genes to prevent passing on of specific genes that cause (for example) breast cancer, alzheimers, Ehlers-Danloss Syndrome or the many others that science is recognising are caused in virtually all cases by a specific gene that could be replaced by a myriad of alternative ones currently existing in the spectrum of the human genome.

Category 2 - the Swedish model. Sterilisation of people with specific genetic abnormalities which lead to reduced quality of life and increased burdens on society.

Category 3 - killing people who display certain genetic traits which are considered undesirable.


Or is that too nuanced for the board?

For me - option 1 is to be supported. Option 2 could find my support, but is far more emotionally challenging and risky and so I don't think I could support it in any likely scenario. Option 3 is beyond the pale.

Does that make me a nazi worshipper?

No but do you think Cummings mate is cat 2 or 3, noting his interest in peddling known lies about IQ, race and immigration policy?

The evidence suggests he is cat 3, but is trying to sound a but cat 1/2.

I don't recall seeing anything about "euthanising" people. Most of his comments seem rooted in category 2.

Let's not forget Sweden were doing cat 2 until very recently.

Cat 1 is where the potential gold is.