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So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu

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Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#71

Post by oneplane »

KittenInABox wrote: post #64
vivekd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can't imagine other places being much different. I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. This is not the case in other fields li…

> I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. Is this actually true? You can bullshit coding...

Take the old guestbook example: if you can't add entries to the guestbook the code apparently doesn't work. No way around that.

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#72

Post by leto_ii »

hammock wrote: post #63
leto_ii wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a slight incentive to favour theories that increase government control of industry I think you have this the wrong way around. Mainstream economic theory (the neo-liberal kind) actually leads to the control of government by private capital. What you will see coming out of the top schools (especially Chicago) but many others too is theory that pushes for de-regulation, privatization, free flow of capital, laissez-fa…

>Great concentrations of wealth are built and maintained by keeping capital ownership in as few hands as possible That's a tautological and zero-sum way to look at it

The implication was that concentrations of wealth are not a law of nature, but rather an emergent property of how capitalism is set up to be. This idea is not tautological, just a casual relationship.

Regarding the 0-sum aspect, I don't know how else you can look at it. Ownership of capital has to follow a certain distribution, which can in turn be more or less egalitarian, depending on how we decide to set the system up. it's however not possible to have both concentrated ownership and co-op style ownership at the same time (for the same company).

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#73

Post by m463 »

kbos87 wrote: post #40

So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do. The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, resp…

I think these relationships are the spice of life.

It's just any sort of scorekeeping added on top screws things up.

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#74

Post by veritas3241 »

kbos87 wrote: post #40

So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do. The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, resp…

I've been thinking about this a lot lately and have come to a similar conclusion. I've been very focused on technical skills lately, but in doing so I've started to lose some connections in my org and network. Career growth depends more on relationships than I'd like to admit.

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#75

Post by everyone »

kbos87 wrote: post #40

So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do. The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, resp…

I clicked on comments so I could type exactly that .. "So much of everything is about connections and reputation."

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#76

Post by [deleted] »

KittenInABox wrote: post #64
vivekd wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can't imagine other places being much different. I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. This is not the case in other fields li…

> I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. Is this actually true? You can bullshit coding...

[deleted]

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#77

Post by FpUser »

vivekd wrote: post #49
kbos87 wrote: post #40

So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do. The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, resp…

Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can't imagine other places being much different. I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. This is not the case in other fields li…

> I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud.

This is very naive point of view. Think of how car repair shops bullshit customers (especially what was before some mitigating laws) and then multiply it by Pi or more

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#78

Post by giantDinosaur »

vivekd wrote: post #49
kbos87 wrote: post #40

So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do. The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, resp…

Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can't imagine other places being much different. I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. This is not the case in other fields li…

I don't think it's true that computers are great at exposing this. Software ranges from the concrete (does this button do anything) to the abstract (does this statistical program have an off by one error that's invisible to customers other than returning somewhat wrong results?). I think there's two competing definitions of 'work' in software - 'it works' as in 'allows for use' which can compete with the 'implements properly'. Computers and code will brutally expose the former, since it simply will not allow you to do something if it's broken. They don't necessarily expose the latter.

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#79

Post by karatestomp »

rayiner wrote: post #56
roenxi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentives are also out of alignment - politicians have an enormous incentive to promote economic theories that let them pork barrel to constituents. And a slight incentive to favour theories that increase government control of industry. Major financial players have incentives to push theories that favour wealth accumulation to big players. I note with some cynicism that there has been no apparent push by economi…

> I suspect pervasive co-op style businesses combined with a reasonably permissive lending environment would be absolute economic powerhouses. Based on what? The data seems to point in the opposite direction: successful, innovative businesses are driven by singular leadership. Apple since Steve Jobs died has not only lost much of its innovative spark, but quality has plummeted. See also Tesla, Amazon, etc. I don't li…

Singular leadership, sure, but we accept shareholders wielding power as normal and fine and not contrary to putting one person in charge. Why not workers?

Re: So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering

#80

Post by dba7dba »

vivekd wrote: post #49
kbos87 wrote: post #40

So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do. The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, resp…

Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can't imagine other places being much different. I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn't work or you don't know what you're doing, you're quickly exposed as a fraud. This is not the case in other fields li…

I know friend of friend who went to Harvard Law like 15 years ago and she told me there is SO MUCH butt kissing going on there.

You'd think people who got that far would be confident enough to rely on their own skills/study to get ahead BUT even at that level, there is a lot of butt kissing to get ahead.

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