Professionalizing science creates competent specialists but stifles genius. It enforces a narrow, risk-averse culture that raises average quality (the floor) but prevents the polymathic, weird explorations that lead to breakthroughs (the ceiling).
Fields are limited by "background bullshit"—unspoken, foundational assumptions that are never questioned by insiders because it would be too disruptive. These collective blind spots are distinct from overt lies and represent a major barrier to progress.
Large institutions, even those designed to foster innovation, are fundamentally conservative. Their investments in real estate, careers, and the status quo make them inherently resistant to the revolutionary change that defines major breakthroughs.
Formal systems of innovation, like corporations or universities, don't function because of their rules but in spite of them. Progress is parasitic on informal order, where individuals use slack and secretly disobey rules to make actual breakthroughs.
A proposed alternative to the PhD is the "science house," a small, apprentice-based collective. Scientists would live and work together, free from academic incentives like tenure and journal publishing, and release their findings directly to the internet.
While the internet enables niche content, it also acts as a cultural dampener. By beaming the same dominant culture (e.g., Taylor Swift) everywhere, it ensures everyone gets the same inputs, leading to more similar creative outputs and cultural convergence.
The internet enables anyone to conduct and publish research, yet few do. The primary obstacle is psychological: people wait for permission or credentials. The solution is to just start, even by replicating existing studies and posting the results online.
A new paradigm for psychology frames the mind as a stack of control systems managing variables like hunger and social connection. Personality becomes a function of system set points and sensitivities, while mental illness reflects system malfunctions.
We fail to learn from historical moral panics over innovations (like the novel or coffee) because of a psychological quirk. Past innovations become normalized "friends," but each new one is an unfamiliar "stranger," resetting our fear and skepticism.
A drop in "bad" deviance like underage smoking, while positive, may also reduce the "good" deviance we call creativity. The same rebellious spirit that leads to rule-breaking can later fuel innovation, so suppressing one may inadvertently suppress the other.
Drawing from biology, increased safety and prosperity cause humans to adopt a "slow life" strategy. Expecting to live longer, we invest in the future and avoid risks (like smoking or teen pregnancy), which also dampens the bold risk-taking that fuels creativity.
Unlike weak-link problems (e.g., food safety) where you fix the worst part, science is a strong-link problem where progress depends entirely on the best outcomes. The optimal strategy is therefore to increase variance by funding more weird, high-risk ideas.