[HN Gopher] "Jurassic Park inspired more people to go into biote...
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       "Jurassic Park inspired more people to go into biotech than any
       academic paper"
        
       Author : herbertl
       Score  : 22 points
       Date   : 2024-09-24 18:50 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | will-burner wrote:
       | It would be cool if there was some data to back this up, but it's
       | impossible to get. It's really about young people being
       | impressionable and having the mindset to be inspired by something
       | such that they'll dedicate their mind to it.
        
         | nashashmi wrote:
         | Imagine that if you want people to be consumed into solving
         | some problem put there (like protein folding), you create scifi
         | movie about it. And tada! More people dedicated to doing that.
        
       | nashashmi wrote:
       | > Jurassic Park inspired more people to go into biotech than any
       | academic paper. The Matrix inspired more people to go into
       | computer science than any GitHub repo. The Martian inspired more
       | people to go into aerospace engineering than any industry trend
       | report.
       | 
       | > Science fiction doesn't predict the future, it does something
       | much more interesting: tell stories about technology so
       | compelling that people dedicate their lives to advancing the
       | frontier.
        
       | janice1999 wrote:
       | Children, generally, do not read academic papers.
        
         | neverartful wrote:
         | Not only children! Very few adults (as a percentage) read them.
        
           | InvaderFizz wrote:
           | Sadly, you can drop "them" from your statement and its
           | accuracy stays about the same.
        
       | thih9 wrote:
       | I am doubtful. Is there anyone here who got into computer science
       | because of The Matrix?
       | 
       | Wanting to recreate a sci-fi subplot irl can only get you so far,
       | especially in an engineering field.
       | 
       | These movies are of course loved by all the nerds, me included;
       | but I'd guess the causality is different than what the twitter
       | poster suggests.
       | 
       | > tell stories about technology so compelling that people
       | dedicate their lives to advancing the frontier
       | 
       | Not to mention that the point of a lot of these stories was to
       | not advance the frontier in that particular direction.
        
         | kibibu wrote:
         | > Is there anyone here who got into computer science because of
         | The Matrix?
         | 
         | Not personally. However, I can say that a _lot_ of people got
         | into trenchcoats, sunglasses, and lil slide out phones because
         | of The Matrix.
        
         | AndrewKemendo wrote:
         | I was already coding but it was a significant motivator (along
         | with Kurzweil) for me to pursue AGI as my focus
        
         | tetris11 wrote:
         | > got into computer science because of The Matrix?
         | 
         | Looking at at least one. It put me into the cringe habit of
         | customizing my desktop the way I wanted it, and realising that
         | Windows just would not do for customization, and thus began my
         | lifelong Linux affliction.
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-24 23:01 UTC)