It's weird to call it an ability of babies to perform well in a very contrived task, but perform worse in any real life object recognition.
It is the other way round. We adults have a great capability to identify similar real life objects in various lighting conditions. Hints like the reflections on the snail tell our brain about the lighting conditions and we automatically correct for it.
There's a bizarre but very fashionable form of self-loathing in which any way in which we differ from someone else, it is automatically assumed that the other thing is objectively superior. Do we, as adults, see one way but babies see another? Babies see objectively better! Does another culture eat differently than yours? Other culture is objectively better! Does the other culture have different music, art, story structure preferences? The article about how their way is objectively better than mine is already templated and ready to go in the minds of people held in thrall by this fashion.
I have to warn you that once you start seeing this, you'll see it in a surprisingly large number of places.
soldiers do not belong in that group. they generally do significant good just as a sitting deterrent. much more than yet another mediocre web developer. how their political masters choose to use them however ...
>they generally do significant good just as a sitting deterrent.
... to other soldiers. And the same logic dictates that everyone involved in the whole dismal advertising industry does significant necessary good works by offering their clients a means to neutralise the benefits that their rivals get from THEIR advertisers. I'd contend that bullshit jobs that are necessary to counteract the effects of other bullshit jobs are still bullshit!
How it's possible to make both sets of bullshit jobs obsolete is left as an exercise for the social engineer, of course...
The author has a very interesting point. Still he oversimplifies and so I didn't find the article very insightful.
For example lawyers are there for good reason. Modern society needs a way to officially settle conflicts. But our law system creates arms races and draws more and more resources this way.
I think few jobs are as zero sum as SEO from their beginning. The problem is that when we start arms races and pour more and more resources into them, they become almost zero sum.
So the interesting question would be how to avoid arms races. But that is not even mentioned.
the arms races are essentially competition - and competition often creates positive externalities which are not immediately obvious to a naked eye, such as new technologies, etc. Perfect example is Jane Street Capital pouring resources into O'Caml libraries because they feel it gives them an edge in the high frequency trading arms race
It is the other way round. We adults have a great capability to identify similar real life objects in various lighting conditions. Hints like the reflections on the snail tell our brain about the lighting conditions and we automatically correct for it.