> As said in an earlier response, dangerous aggression comes in the form of the mentor-mentee power imbalance that uproots and fucks (again, in one case I personally knew of, literally) over students. Here are some sources - evidence in papers - to fit this definition [1,2,3,4,5], assuming mental distress counts as dangerous.
You seem to be arguing again that the stakes are quite high. From one of your links: "increasing quantitative evidence that there is a mental health crisis in doctoral education". A mental health crisis in the upper ranks of the education system sounds high stakes with societal implications to me.
> Yet very little of this trickles into broader societal impact - the stakes implied by the original quip. The institutional gatekeeping discussed in TFA is complicit in this lowering of stakes.
That's a pretty tough position to argue, given that more than any other nation, people from around the world come to America for higher learning. We have the best universities in the world. Student loans are national issue in front of the Supreme Court right now, due to an executive action from POTUS. Discussions related to setting tuition are definitely part of vigorous political discourse in academic departments. I realize you've never been a part of those discussions, so you wouldn't know, but again, that doesn't mean they aren't happening.
>Thanks for the ad hominem.
I mean, this discussion started with a non-argument ad hominem against all of academia, suggesting academics are by and large petty and vicious, which seems to be largely based on your unstated personal experience in your PhD program. I think it's a bit late to preclude ad hominem arguments.
> I had the most first- and only-author publications in my group, which was enough for me to bow out.
It's great that you had publications, but that's pretty much the entry point for academia and earning a Ph.D., which is an entry-level rank in terms of academia generally. Making it in academia means finding success especially when the process is out of your locus of control. That's the whole thing. If that makes you uncomfortable or bitter, then you're not cut out to be an academic, and that's fine. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But I'm saying that maybe actually you're the bitter one in all of this, not academics writ large.