71–80 of 114 posts
1)Drug gangs don't have an excess of lazy administrative support staff.
2)Drug gangs actually have to deliver some drugs at some point.
3)The politics of drug gangs are less vicious and there is better teamwork.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> That describes every job... ever Wait, what? Most jobs give you a salary, sure, but you nearly always end up producing far more value than you are paid back. The thieves are the shareholders of the company you serve. (As for the land… not every piece of land is someone's property —and that's good.)
If you are producing more value than you are being paid for, why are you working there?
If someone comes up with a better system, it will be adopted. It is very hard to determine who has the capacity to be a Professor. The current system works fine most of the time. It is true that crackpots get through on occasion, but the vast majority of professorial appointments are reasonable.
"If someone comes up with a better system, it will be adopted." Academia moves very, very slowly. Stuff remains unchanged for centuries , just because that's the way it's always been done. For instance, the lecture model was adopted when books were hand-written and very expensive -- basically the lecturer (in some institutions, actually called "reader") would read the text very slowly and distinctly, while the studen…
So now every organisational structure that has more people at the bottom than at the top resembles a drug gang? I blame Levitt.
As some one who managed to succeed in the academic rat race (tenured professor) and who quit to do more productive things, my feeling is academia is more like cult. When inside it you believe you are doing important things, and on occasion you actual do (i.e. teaching and research), but the important activities are basically a hobby you fit around your full-time job of administration and politics. Once outside you re…
What do you get when you combine the economic mechanism of a drug gang with the mind control technology of a cult, used to keep people in the system? A multi-level marketing scheme.
Interesting - some important points overlooked: - They assume that for everyone doing a PhD there is an equivalently attractive job waiting for them. However, many young people going doing PhDs (especially in the countries highlighted, Portugal, Greece, Slovakia) aren't choosing between a steady job and the uncertainty of PhD - there are often either no jobs available or very unattractive ones (e.g. working well belo…
Citation?
The film industry is similar, you work for low wages, hoping you will make it to the big time.
So is athletics, work for free at college, hope you make it to the NFL or wherever.
This pattern may be more common than most realize.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having tenure affords opportunity. Can't get the golden parachute unless you play the game long enough (i.e., waste prime years).
I certainly missed the golden parachute. Even if I hung around until I was deadwood I would not have made anything financially. No academic in Australia gets rich just out of being an academic. I don’t regret my time as an academic other than my last two years. I should have left earlier, but the security the job afforded my family kept me there longer than I really should have stayed. This is a mistake many people m…
Nobody ever expected to, in any country. Did they?