Note: I’m not sure what “galaxy-brained” means, so I’m not sure what aspect of software eating the world (can’t find a good free link; the phrase is from a 2011 WSJ oped by Marc Andreeson) surprises you.
I think it’s mostly because we live in a mechanistic universe, and being able to calculate/predict things with a fair amount of precision is incredibly valuable for almost all endeavors. I doubt it’s path-dependent (doesn’t matter who invented it or which came first), more that software is simply a superset of other things.
BTW, this ship has sailed, but it still bugs me when people mix up “computer science” with “software development and usage”. They’re not the same at all. I suspect you’re conflating the science behind nuclear power with the actual industry of power generation in the same way, which also makes no sense.
Academic science and math research remains a tiny part of the knowledge-based workforce. Industrial use and application of that science is where almost all of the action is. THAT distinction has good reason—there are many many more people who can understand and use a new formulation of knowledge than who can discover and formalize one.
Counterpoint: knowing nuclear physics helps at least somewhat with nuclear power generation. Same with academic CS and real-life SWEN problem-solving.
“Galaxy-brained” in this context is a little hard to define, but I’d extrinsically define it as “Cold War paranoia giant datacenters complicated plots Death Note Greyball anything HPMOR!Harry comes up with sweaty palms any evil plot that makes you go ‘DAMN that was clever and elegant’”. (I may eventually create a post or website fleshing out this idea cluster in more detail).
Note: I’m not sure what “galaxy-brained” means, so I’m not sure what aspect of software eating the world (can’t find a good free link; the phrase is from a 2011 WSJ oped by Marc Andreeson) surprises you.
I think it’s mostly because we live in a mechanistic universe, and being able to calculate/predict things with a fair amount of precision is incredibly valuable for almost all endeavors. I doubt it’s path-dependent (doesn’t matter who invented it or which came first), more that software is simply a superset of other things.
BTW, this ship has sailed, but it still bugs me when people mix up “computer science” with “software development and usage”. They’re not the same at all. I suspect you’re conflating the science behind nuclear power with the actual industry of power generation in the same way, which also makes no sense.
Academic science and math research remains a tiny part of the knowledge-based workforce. Industrial use and application of that science is where almost all of the action is. THAT distinction has good reason—there are many many more people who can understand and use a new formulation of knowledge than who can discover and formalize one.
Counterpoint: knowing nuclear physics helps at least somewhat with nuclear power generation. Same with academic CS and real-life SWEN problem-solving.
“Galaxy-brained” in this context is a little hard to define, but I’d extrinsically define it as “Cold War paranoia giant datacenters complicated plots Death Note Greyball anything HPMOR!Harry comes up with sweaty palms any evil plot that makes you go ‘DAMN that was clever and elegant’”. (I may eventually create a post or website fleshing out this idea cluster in more detail).