why would being born in the current century preclude one from making fundamental contributions?
You are making a common mistake of assuming that just because someone is good at something like programing computers the same skill would translate identically to a completely different domain.
If anything he is lucky to have been born in an era where his skill of programming computers could be put to use - otherwise his talents may have gone to waste, he may have ended up toiling fields his talent untapped and undiscovered, like that of millions before him.
He's "good at programming" like Galileo was "good with telescopes." Computers, telescopes, hammers, they're all just tools, and Carmack has proven himself as far more than just a handyman.
He's the kind of person where, if you show him what you're working on and he doesn't understand it, you probably need to go back to the drawing board.
Cult of personality much? Don't get me wrong, Carmack is one of a kind. But seriously, "if Carmack doesn't understand your idea => your idea is hopeless" -- this can not be healthy.
EDIT: I'll elaborate a bit. In my experience in both industry and academia I've witnessed numerous occasions when brilliant people would get things wrong, ignore a brilliant idea, follow a hopeless research direction, etc. etc. Authority matters, but _nobody_ is flawless.
Your argument is a bit like: here is this amazing long-distance runner who trains for years at a time, had he put all that effort into painting he would be a new Picasso.
For what is worth computers are unique tools unlike any other tool that mankind has invented before - thus it is much harder to tell what other jobs would a good programmer excel at.
John in particular has shown a propensity to translate his skills into disjoint domains pretty well. I don't think he's good at what he does because he's good at computers. I think it's more that he's really really good at understanding problems and designing reasonable paths to solutions.
And then he has the ability to power through learning what he needs to in order to build toward those solutions lightning fast.
High intelligence in one technical domain translates well enough to competence in other technical domains. Carmack isn't just a programmer, he is a highly creative technical problem solver. However, AGI does seem orders of magnitude more complex than developing 3D game engines.
> John Carmack seems like a guy that would've made fundamental contributions to science, had he been born a century before.
I see Carmack as a very(as in uniquely) talented Engineer. Usually, engineers are not the type who do very well in pure research topics. And AGI is certainly a pure research topic, since we don't have a clear leading us there. So while it's great to see he is interested in it, now sure if we should have any kind of expectation there.
Even a decade ago, I'd be all onboard seeing computer science as "advancing humanity." Lately not so much so. Maybe the comparison to phsyics is appropriate. We have reached the "nuclear weapons" age of computer science where we need programmers to make ethical stands, lest we severely damage the human condition.
That argument is like saying if we had better theorists you wouldn't need to build particle accelerators.
Nature has brute facts that can only be discovered through observation. I would be surprised to see evidence that an intelligence, no matter how smart, could reason to the fundamental properties of neutrinos without massive physical real world experiments and piles of observational data.
If it could, that would mean rationalism as a philosophy would come back into play, whereas empiricism has been dominant during the scientific revolution.
It's more: offer substantiative evidence of your counter-culture claims that vilify most of your reading audience, or take your baseless negativity elsewhere
The forum of a VC firm doesn't seem antithetical to that at all.
No one here is claiming that software development doesn't make fat stacks and viable businesses. It just happens to do it by perverting humanity. Moving us further away from our ideal environment.
One-off snide attacks in a comment section without any evidence or argument to back it up offers nothing of value.
If you have a strong stance about the evils of software development then write something of substance and post it. I am sure it will get plenty of discussion if there's any merit to it.
> One-off snide attacks in a comment section without any evidence or argument to back it up offers nothing of value.
Can you back that up? Here's the comment:
> You guys really get high on your own supply don't you? It's a toss-up these days whether something from computer science or a programmer will either enhance or erode the human experience and quality of life.
"getting high on your own supply" isn't such a giant insult that you can simply "make the dozen full" and claim whatever you want about the comment.
> I am sure it will get plenty of discussion if there's any merit to it.
Then you're sure of something that is demonstrably false, and one-off low effort sophistry like this offers nothing of value. There is no hard connection between the merit of something and HN's ability to discuss it. Take this story sticking to the top for probably over 24 hours, basically an announement to spend more time with his son, and that's it, while this got sunk off the front page yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21527622
Computer science now occupies the place physics once did, in its impact on moving the world forward.
Best of luck to him, I look forward to seeing what he produces!