Welcome to late stage capitalism. Our blue collar brethren have been put through the grinder for decades. Now it's our turn. In the end the majority of the population will be simply burnt out - and to what end? To support the lavish lifestyle of a select few.
A mental health crisis in science
31–40 of 212 posts
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#32Others are hinting at the same thing, but toxic culture (by itself) is probably only part of the problem. If a single research job is toxic, that's stressful in the short term, but will just motivate someone to leave eventually; stress relieved. If the entire 'industry' is toxic, there's no job change that can relieve the stress. Also, research jobs are attained after people make some hard-to-reverse decisions about…
Whole research fields share this toxic culture; what people seem to do is leave their field entirely. Not to mention that, because of the way academic lab research works, people frequently take up jobs in locations where there is only one credible "employer" (there will of course be dozens of PIs, but it's institutional failures that allow abusive culture to take root).
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#33A part of this is that in academia there are often few positive career rewards. You're under pressure to publish frequently, in high impact factor journals, and that is to keep your job. You don't get pay rises or bonuses, or any other career improvements, and job security can be until your next contract, at best. If you don't make it to tenured professor, and have good grant funding, then you are staring down the barrel of starting a new career at an older age and with few contacts.
The place to start is by having far fewer PhD students, but more masters students and technicians. A 60% reduction in PhD student numbers would reflect job opportunities, and student aptitude, more accurately.
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’ve worked with groups of juniors and college students every year for a while now. I agree that something is going on, but I don’t think there is a single explanation. Social media is a big part of it, but from what I’ve seen it’s not in the way people usually describe it. The most unhappy people I see aren’t the ones talking to their friends on Instagram and Facebook during their lunch break. To be honest, those pe…
I think being angry is a natural and healthy response to the current economic reality. The juniors you’re working with have it right. If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do. Hopefully we’ve reached a timeline where we no longer acquiesce to rampant inequality.
If the CEOs have it so great, why not become a CEO yourself and reap all those benefits?
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#35The world is as good as it's ever has been in human history. Minorities, females, lgbtq members, etc, have more rights, are more protected and represented than ever. Extreme poverty is down, life expectancy is up. Human rights for any group are enforced as never before. But mental health issues are still going up at alarming rates. So it must be something else. I have various hypothesis as to what other causes may be…
This has nothing to do with the article.
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social media does sound like a decent theory though. To your point, the issues plaguing the US ( and indeed the world ) have not changed that much over the past four decades. What did change is relative access to information, which exacerbated and maybe even hastened some trends. The small factors were always there, but were not as commonly seen for a variety of reasons ( social stigma, exposure to media, 'toughen up…
> To your point, the issues plaguing the US ( and indeed the world ) have not changed that much over the past four decades. Wealth inequality has an increased a lot in the last four decades. I’d start there when looking for a source for mental health issues. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-...
Money does buy certain level of comfort ( and help if needed ) so I am more than willing to consider it as a factor, but I am not sure it is THE answer to the source of mental health issues. Lack thereof may make things worse, but I am not sure it is the core issue. FWIW, I may well be wrong, but I don't think it is fair to assume it is X, when you see same health issues pop up in otherwise wealthy environments. Most interesting example of that being 'affluenza'.
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#37I've seen this toxic culture tear people apart first hand. 80+hr weeks, 52 weeks a year, barely enough pay to make rent, while being berated by emails at 3am by the PI for poor data. It's sickening.
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do. You realized CEO's make that much money after a long career where they were busting their asses as juniors. You basically made the same argument the grandparent is criticizing.
I realize that the CEO was born into a family where they were handed their position. You don’t get to the top by “working hard” that’s a sucker’s game. You need to be born to the right family, grease the right palms and be in the right place at the right time. Being a complete sociopath doesn’t hurt either.
- CEO of Microsoft is a child of middle class Indian immigrants
- so is CEO of Google
- CEO of Apple comes from working/lower-middle class family
- CEO of Johnson and Johnson (12th largest SP500 company) is an immigrant from Spain, coming from middle class family
etc etc etc
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think being angry is a natural and healthy response to the current economic reality. The juniors you’re working with have it right. If the CEO is going to make 100X as much as me, I’m going to do my best to work 100X less than they do. Hopefully we’ve reached a timeline where we no longer acquiesce to rampant inequality.
If the CEOs have it so great, why not become a CEO yourself and reap all those benefits?
Personally, my knife fighting skills aren't anywhere near up to par for that.
Re: A mental health crisis in science
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
I definitely think social media has a large share in driving down the mental health of the majority of users. No two lives are comparable, yet it induces people to compare their lives to someone else's often resulting in an unreasonable amount of envy, jealousy, and a general dissatisfaction of their lives. People pick their best moments while sharing, but it's never the true picture. It sets unrealistic expectations…
So what are you blaming exactly? The fact that social media has us all connected and capable of measuring relative to others? Or the fact it's weaponized by an entire industry of "influencers" subsidized by actors just trying to maximize the consumption factor of economic activity? Or the fact that the system is fundamentally governed by network effect induced power laws, leading to massive inequality, that can end u…
> Something that lets us all communicate isn't inherently bad.
I’m not so sure this is the case. Seems like we are testing the limits of our social programming when exposed to networks _vastly_ beyond our capabilities historically, and we’re seeing the various ways that our social behaviors break down naturally. That there is a profit motive in encouraging and accelerating this breakdown might be orthogonal to the idea that it isn’t meant to exist at this scale in the first place.