Down with the Nerds

Do you consider yourself a ‘nerd’? Why or why not? was an actual graduate admissions essay prompt for an Ivy League university. I was so confused why this might be an essay question that I’d spend time writing about for multiple anti-intellectual pages that I didn’t submit. I drafted something to the effect of, “I do not consider myself a nerd because I follow aestheticism and beauty and participate in art and fashion… How the hell am I going to write multiple pages on this?”

To me, “nerd” means someone hyper-fixated on some hyper-specialized topic or hobby. It’s someone who can’t do sports and runway modeling and oil painting and rap music and fly an aerobatic aircraft, for example. It’s someone who can only do some hyper-specialized thing. Usually, it’s someone who can’t do any of the above at all – but they have to do something, right? So they could sit at a computer and tinker with some hyper-specialized code or science. And now all of technology, and hence all of our world, is now based on the work of those nerd-types who did some hyper-specialized tech-tinkering. And well, maybe, just maybe, those nerd types shouldn’t be determining how the entire world runs? And yet, they are. And maybe, just maybe, the fact that those people are building the world is the reason we are in such non-ideal circumstances as a civilization – nerds have built most of it, without thinking about the whole – by only thinking about their hyper-specialized bullshit. And this – this is why we are drowning in danger and bullshit.

Throughout my career, I’ve always had questions in which the answer by a so-called expert was always, “that’s outside my field.” And that’s because they were nerds, hyper-fixated on their own little world, on their own little uber-specialized field – never thinking about the ramifications of anything that they were doing. And that’s exactly why we have a world full of utter bullshit with social media idiots running the world. But worse, this is why technology is now dangerous. As Carl Sagan said, technology becomes dangerous when no one understands it. Well, I don’t think he anticipated that even the scientists wouldn’t understand it because everything keeps branching off into more and more specialized sub-fields. Technology is dangerous because it was built by nerds. A polymath is someone who thinks across fields, across disciplines, who doesn’t just solve problems, but prevents problems from happening in the first place. We don’t need nerds. The world is growing more and more complex by the minute and the problems and consequences that await us are, I fear, far worse than we’ve anticipated. We need polymaths. We need multi-disciplinarians. Since “multi-disciplinarian” isn’t very catchy- how about this – galaxy-brains. We need galaxy-brains. We need world-thinkers, not teeny-tiny specialized sub-field thinkers.

The problem is, the nerds hate it when a galaxy-brain enters the room. Trust me, I know. I’m a galaxy-brain, always thinking about the tangent field or the unintended consequence. Always thinking about the planetary-scale repercussions. The one who can do runway modeling and fly aerobatic aircraft and do oil painting and do astrophysics. And the nerds hate that, they feel threatened. It’s like a constant war once you enter a nerd-dominated field – galaxy-brains versus the nerds. So galaxy-brains are constantly harassed, debunked, treated with adversity, and pushed out for no reason. And because galaxy-brains are the rarities in a tech or science group that can do anything, they usually leave. Why be treated like shit when you can go do anything? Well, in my case, I know that science doesn’t need nerds. Science needs galaxy-brains. So I’ve stuck around despite being hated and treated like shit. If you’re a galaxy-brain, I urge you, we need you in tech and science, we don’t need you elsewhere. The catwalk will go on, the planet might not.

Because of all of this, I am worried about science. Science should not tend towards hyper-specialization but because of anomaly-hunting, this is what has happened. Usually when a breakthrough in science occurs, it is some small anomaly that was missed, that needs re-thinking and re-mapping to the rest. And because of that, science has become too laser-focused on delving into hyper-details. And most of those details are just becoming vast oceans of noise. Every detail is a new publication. Every tweak of every parameter is a whole career. Were you wrong about x, y, z parameters? That’s ok, that means you can publish three more papers on that. Were you able to compare x, y, z parameters to past research from 40 years ago? Great! Three more papers for you. Were you unable to get any results whatsoever for x, y, z parameters? No problem! That means three more papers with your name on it! Great! Now you have so many papers that you qualify to be a professor or a professional scientist somewhere. And abracadabra! – someone who did absolute shit is suddenly running science. And ta-dah, science has become so many layers of bullshit that it’s really unbelievable. This isn’t just risk-averse science, it is dangerous science. How can we possibly understand and improve the world if each scientist is compartmentalized in his own little research box? But the nerds love it because it becomes so easy for them to excel – just keep diving deeper and deeper into your hyper-niche. Just keep tweaking every tiny knob and parameter until suddenly you’re the “expert.” We desperately need people who can see through this bullshit that is happening and say no – who will say no to publishing all this shit. We need galaxy-brains to start publishing on the connections between fields and planetary-scale multi-disciplinarianism. I really doubt this is something that LLMs (large language models) will do, but if it is, great, I guess. Anyway, all of the above is likely why we now live in a forever-pandemic (if it was a lab leak) – some asshole scientist wanted another coronavirus paper to their name. (Boy, I can’t wait for that movie).

Because of all of the above, multiple intelligent people I’ve known have left science. They’re like me – they don’t want to tinker with some hyper-specialized shit that may not matter at all. They want to change the world. And because science is set up to reward the nerds and the hyper-specialized parameter-tinkering, the actually intelligent scientists get pushed out. But does anyone really want the world to be run by nerds who answer any slightly multidisciplinary question with, “that’s outside my speciality”? No. No one really wants that. We all know that the real need is to connect fields and disciplines to solve problems ahead of time. If I had the power and influence to set up a truly multidisciplinary science institute, I would because I think that’s where all the scientific breakthroughs are waiting to happen.

I hope the Ivy League essay question was a way to filter out the nerds. I say, down with the nerds. We don’t need nerds. Stop your hyper-specialized bullshit and start thinking about your field in the context of the world as a whole before science becomes so dangerous that not a single scientist is doing anything useful or truthful whatsoever. Because that’s where we’re headed – if every scientist is working themselves into a super-specialized hole, we’re all going to be underground.

P.S. If you are a nerd in tech or science, I urge you to start working on your galaxy brain. Start thinking about how what you are working on could impact the whole of the planet or the whole of society or the far future. Take a class on (or read about) the history of science and the philosophy of science. Consider the fields tangent to yours. Consider any long term consequences of your work. Maybe I should start galaxy-brain consulting.