[HN Gopher] Profession (1957) ___________________________________________________________________ Profession (1957) Author : Tomte Score : 54 points Date : 2022-09-10 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.abelard.org) (TXT) w3m dump (www.abelard.org) | sam_lowry_ wrote: | This, and Ask A Foolish Question by Robert Sheckley [1] are my | all-time favourite Sci-Fi works | | [1] https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33854 | 082349872349872 wrote: | Re: Ask A Foolish Question, an application of antimatroids as a | model of "knowledge spaces" (eg. the tech tree in a strategy | game) suggests that concepts/skills which have multiple | prerequisites are likely to be easier to acquire/teach than | concepts/skills which have a unique prereq. In the former case, | one "just" has to combine things one already knows how to do, | "all at the same time". In the latter case, one has to figure | out some kind of jump that allows doing the old thing in a new | way. | georgecmu wrote: | Link to a PDF with good typesetting: | http://employees.oneonta.edu/blechmjb/JBpages/m360/Professio... | Archelaos wrote: | Let's say: better readability. -- The first paragraph has | already two typesetting flaws: A space between " and Tomorrow | and two " at the end. | 082349872349872 wrote: | cf (1959 submission to ARPA) | https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/10/20/169899/isaac-asi... | | note also Feynman's advice that if one continually practises re- | deriving known results, at some point one is bound to mess up and | "re"-derive something which was hitherto unknown. | bruce511 wrote: | Nightfall is widely considered to be his best work (and with | justification) but Profession stuck with me the first time I read | it. | | When I first read it in my teens I saw it as a comment on | education - a system that churned out little robots to feed the | economic machine with robot workers. | | Later in life, with more life experience I've come to understand | it as both the rarity of creators, and of the need to create. You | do not tell a person "go create something", the creator creates | because it's impossible not to. | | It takes training and experience to make creations useful, and | valuable, but creators create - it's what they do. | | I used to think everyone was s creator, but observation shows me | that while many dream of creating, for most it's only dreams. A | tiny fraction write music, or books; poetry or programs. They | paint and sculpt, architect and design. | | Dreamers dream, creators create. They can't help it, and you | can't make them stop. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-10 23:00 UTC)