It is not impossible for small groups to map complex global issues and change things
Sophien Kamoun @KamounLab I just published: What’s a toxic environment for a PhD student?
Being aware of potential red flags when selecting a host lab is crucial. Here are some issues I’ve witnessed over the years. #phdchat #AcademicChatter
Sophien, you might want to create a global open sharing site that will last hundreds of years, with sustainable funding – to share, refine, discuss and correct these kinds of issues. Find ways to discover and correct where needed. Global inequities in education and opportunities are endemic, but need not be. Just as there are methods to trace and stop pandemics, there are ways to correct global social pathologies. Perhaps Archimedes’ lever needs a more modern form – complete, lossless, verifiable digital twins to model and study to change things. One does not start without a plan, sometimes is it just a vision or a passion that things can be changed and then keep at it.
Energy is force*distance (a lever) but it is also power* time. A steady power source for long enough can be enough. Divide the equation on both sides by area or volume and there are energy density and time of application forms for most every situation.
A difficult time in a student’s life is common. Noticing and avoiding pitfalls is a survival skill. A low cost solution is not to try changing entrenched and inefficient organizations, but just fairly and openly mark the tar-pits and money traps so they can be avoided. It is easy to issue press releases saying “we are the good guys”. Sometimes you simply work quietly and hope to survive for at least one lifetime. You can say, “not my job” and ignore it. The worst organizations are the ones who do not even know they have accumulated bad habits.
As I read over this, it is a starting point, not a finished “solution”. Certainly not a silver bullet, rather something to think about. The edu and ac.* domains on the Internet are some of the worst on the internet. Because no one holds them accountable using global open verifiable methods yet.
( site:edu OR site:”ac.*” ) has 2.46 Billion entry points today. That is “not impossible” to map, categorize, count, study, verify and understand at global level. The best LLMS if paired with peers and verification methods can get you started, But much of the global knowledge is NOT written down, nor shared now. An LLM built on free stuff scabbed from the Internet has a pretty slippery and unstable base.
“Education” now is mostly supplied by groups who benefit when education is inefficient and cost more. How many claims from universities generate endless request for more time and money? Usually using good methods from well meaning individuals whose last intention is to sustain more monopolies. Monopolies are also “single points of failure” and “single points of manipulation by a few”. Don’t just trust my few words. Go look, gather, record, organize, index, share, discuss, document what is discussed, reach out to global level. Perhaps, start by mapping some of the edu sites that show up when you search the 1.58 Billion entry points of ( site:edu ) or the 668 Million entry points of ( site:”ac.*” ).
( site:uwo.edu ) is listed first and has 1,980 entry points. I have no idea where they are or what they do. I wonder if they paid to be first in that list. But in a finite time, I could probably read every page and begin to form a mental map, a digital index, a database and tools for tackling larger ones.
( site:nih.gov ) shows 410 Million entry points. That is not possible for one human to read, map, index, verify, test for things out of date or broken – alone without computers. But small groups using AIs and arrays of small computers might well get a compete list of urls and then randomly sample and begin to try to understand it as a whole. Look for delays, huge costs to learn. Look where you have to search just because they are not defining terms, or posting words and terms without attribution or background — immediately where the term is used for user’s first time seeing it. Computers and servers can do that now, you know, see if a person is new, listen carefully to what they are asking and wanting, then carefully try to help.
I posted this in my notes as “It is not impossible for small groups to map complex global issues and change things”. I set up the Famine Early Warning System (fews.net) back in the 1980’s and know that a few people can map complex things and the resulting fair and open data can help others to do their jobs. Universities, corporations, governments (are organizations too) – all need feedback and data to see if their internet is fair, open, verifiable. As you find systemic issues, start new nodes and keep going. The Internet is big, but it is not infinite nor impossible.
The footprint of the human species is big, but it is not infinite nor impossible to list, index, map and improve.
Richard Collins, The Internet Foundation
