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In the “project management triangle”, we have two options. It's either “small scope” (garden of Eden), where we have “fast” and “cheap” together. Or it's “large scope” (outside of Eden), where we have “fast” or we have “cheap”, but never together. We might be tempted to lean into “small scope” in our engineering practice, but nobody would then hire us, since everybody's products are very large and complicated. For some reason! Right?! Then, our next best option is to work “slow” on a project, but to make sure every detail is solved, before sending the code into production. Unfortunately, this makes us not competitive with younger programmers, who still trust “vibe coding”. They are not good for the company, true, but they are “fast”, and management feels they are making great progress. Which is a recipe for an “expensive” disaster, of course. Which is the reason people should study “philosophy of engineering” before graduating with a “management degree”.
It's very interesting how everyone “outside of Eden” is trying to compete as if they are at a sporting event. And even better than that, they are trying to convert everyone else into their best performing “athlete”. So, we have students who don't perfect their understanding of their talent, but are pushed to their limits to outperform their peers. And we have companies, who don't produce one “killer app” product for the next 100 years ahead, but each year they are forced to publish a new model to stay relevant. And we even have “warriors” and “seers” (see the work of Carlos Castaneda), who don't ask what is the most important thing for them, but try to “stay competitive” with the new tendencies on the market. This is really sad! When even philosophy is a market commodity, and philosophers (read “PhD students”) are treated as “athletes” that will make our team proud with their achievements. When, in fact, what everyone seeks is “good” (money and power and pleasure) and “no evil” (health and peace and harmony). Nobody cares about that! Not even in Harvard and Stanford, believe it or not.
Let's see what you think about a revolutionary idea of how we should award a PhD. What is a “doctor” of philosophy? A teacher. So, we prioritise the teaching abilities of a PhD student. But teaching what? So, we posit as second priority the researching abilities of a PhD student. But researching what? Currently, they treat the PhD student as a “professional athlete”, asking him to read everything published recently and upgrade it with new knowledge. This is not sustainable, we believe. We are rather impressed by the “zero growth economy” concept, or “one killer app” concept, where we reach excellence and then we only maintain it by using dedicated technicians like the “lonely Maytag repairman”. Which means what? It means, we don't push PhD students to discover new knowledge, unless they are hell bent on it. We ask them to rediscover with their own language and reasoning seminal achievements in the field, like “Chomsky Hierarchy” and “Incompleteness Theorem” and “Impossible Halting Problem” and “P vs NP” in computer science. Why do we need to reinvent the hot water?! Because this is what the future PhD teachers would teach their students. Not a new nifty innovation that they published as an upgrade to a previous nifty innovation, but the main “killer apps” of their beloved field of science. What do you think?
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