(2024-01-20) One Question To Rule Them All

One Question to Rule Them All. What Would You Say You Do Here?

INT. BELL LABS - NEW JERSEY - DAY - 1986

These hallways aren’t quiet. They never are.

Inside the famously multidisciplinary Bell Labs, the world’s SUPER NERDS intentionally work in close proximity, no matter their specialty.

That, in fact, is the point.

This setup was so useful that Steve Jobs later copied it when he bought Pixar

INT. BELL LABS - NEW JERSEY - LUNCH TIME

Mathematician RICHARD HAMMING, father of a bunch of math concepts I couldn’t even begin to understand, much less explain to you, stares off to the other side of the cafeteria where his COLLEAGUES chow down at the physics table.

Hamming spots an empty seat at the CHEMISTRY table and wanders over

HAMMING What are the important problems of your field?

INT. BELL LABS - NEW JERSEY - LUNCH TIME

A week later.

asks his new friends another question, super cool-like:

HAMMING
What important problems are you working on?

ONE WEEK LATER

HAMMING
If what you are doing is not important, and if you don’t think it’s going to lead to something important…why are you at Bell Labs working on it?

Silence.

They are crushed.

I love love love sci-fi level cool new shit. But it’s really, really, really important to understand that from medicine to clean energy, and from public health to food and water, we have already invented most of what we need to level up.

Most of the more advanced shit we have to do or need to figure out is because we’re not doing the basic shit anymore, and haven’t in a long time. Examples include promoting, teaching, and celebrating blue collar work; keeping track of and repairing — much less upgrading — our infrastructure; or reinventing our policies with old-school carrots and sticks so we can build the fundamental infrastructure of tomorrow.

There’s never been a better time to work on the world’s hardest problems, whether you’re a CEO, nurse, policymaker, poet, epidemiologist, grant worker, third-grade teacher, or wind turbine technician. (grand challenges)

Everybody comes to us asking, “What can I do?” And the most direct answer is always, “What CAN you do?”

The climate change era and AI era converging all at once mean we’re barreling into a time none of us can predict and none of us are prepared for, so, to me, the very, very least we can do is work that rebuilds, reinforces, and drastically expands the underlying safety net so many of us have been so lucky to rely upon.

the work required to make sure the most basic needs are fulfilled, for everyone, isn't all that different. The questions — “Is the work I’m doing ethical? Is the work I’m doing helpful?” — aren’t new.