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How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

blogs.lse.ac.uk

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Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#91

Post by giaour »

mangecoeur wrote: post #83
marze wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim only a minority of people getting PhDs want to become a professor? Citation?

The key phrase being "in my experience" ;) That's not a the result of an in depth study, merely personal experience. I just don't think I've met many (or any, come to think of it) people who could state unequivocally at the start of their PhD that their goal was to attain professorship - most people assess and adjust their goals as they go along, and maybe a purely academic career works out for them. Plus, people doi…

In my personal experience (at a top humanities PhD program in the US), everyone started out with the explicit goal of becoming a professor. One or two did, and everybody else recalibrated their goals along the way.

We all knew the statistics, but every single one of us assumed those numbers were about other people.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#92

Post by nmrm2 »

cscheid wrote: post #82
nmrm2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Outside of post-doctorate positions, there's neither funding nor desire for the kind of research that you need to further an academic career. At least in Computer Science, the alternative is to simply go into industry at a company that will let you continue publishing, and get a paper out every year or two. Lots of people have successfully made the transition back into academia after a post-PhD stint in industry.

That turns out to be exactly what I did, but that type of opportunity is now much rarer than it was even 10 years ago. MSR is the stalwart "you-can-publish-here" industrial research lab, and look at what happened to MSR SV -- to say nothing of other smaller places, also shrinking.

I meant really "going into industry", not "going into the industrial portions of academia". As in, becoming a software engineer at Google et al.

You won't be able to net a position at a top R1, but plenty of universities (and esp. colleges) would be happy for someone a few years out from a solid Ph.D. but with a strong industrial background and track record of (perhaps ad junct) teaching and/or moonlight researching. Especially if you stay in industry long enough that you don't need a six figure salary.

Congratulations on successfully navigating that transition, BTW.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#93

Post by lmm »

saalweachter wrote: post #43
loup-vaillant wrote: post #37

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?

It's like buying insurance. My employer pays me a bit less than my average value in return for taking on all the risk.

(Sadly this does induce a counterparty risk that I perhaps failed to fully account for)

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#94

Post by andrepd »

saalweachter wrote: post #43
loup-vaillant wrote: post #37

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?

Of course you are producing more value than you are being paid for. Why else would an employer hire you?

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#95

Post by orkoden »

joesmo wrote: post #68

"There is an expanding mass of rank-and-file “outsiders” ready to forgo income for future wealth, and a small core of “insiders” securing incomes largely at the expense of the mass. We can call it a winner-take-all market." Interesting. If I didn't know any better, I thought he was describing the situation with many tech startups. The investors have all the money, the founders are the only ones with any hope of makin…

Capitalism is always exploitation.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#96

Post by andrepd »

chucksmash wrote: post #56
1stop wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or people get paid their value, and we stop thinking it's okay for a select few to reap the surplus value of others... you know, kind of like how we got rid of slavery (except we didn't, we just paid a little more for it).

An employer making a profit beyond the cost of paying their employees a (decent in many cases, especially in software) salary is not slavery...

You may not like the analogy, and the difference in scale is surely a big one, but the principle is the same. In slavery, you were prevented to quit by physical coercion. In capitalism, you are prevented to quit because if you do you and your family will starve (or at least live in poverty, on modern welfare states). The employer can pay you minimum wage for your labour, even if it generates 10x more value, because you have no choice: he has you on the palm of your hand. Submit to the conditions the capital holders dictate, or starve.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#97

Post by andrepd »

fsloth wrote: post #88
Ivanov wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once outside you realise you were wasting your life on trivia of the most meaningless kind. I think it depends. From the outside, industry looks to be churning out nothing, but trivial stuff for sale.

"From the outside, industry looks to be churning out nothing, but trivial stuff for sale." I suppose what one chooses to focus on. The stuff I do in industry helps people design houses and infrastructure.

Concrete mixing companies help people build houses and infrastructure, if you want to put it that way. Still, it's the epitome of churning out trivial stuff.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#98

Post by stretchwithme »

Isn't medicine like this to a degree? The interns and resident make very little per hour, work long hours and have little control over anything.

Sounds like apprenticeship as well.

Why do people put up with it? Because its very difficult to leave and start a competing enterprise. There's either a contract that locks you in or licensing that locks you out.

Or you need government funding to compete with those who have government funding, so you must suck up to the powers that be, who are all in bed together.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#99

Post by chucksmash »

andrepd wrote: post #96
chucksmash wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An employer making a profit beyond the cost of paying their employees a (decent in many cases, especially in software) salary is not slavery...

You may not like the analogy, and the difference in scale is surely a big one, but the principle is the same. In slavery, you were prevented to quit by physical coercion. In capitalism, you are prevented to quit because if you do you and your family will starve (or at least live in poverty, on modern welfare states). The employer can pay you minimum wage for your labour, even if it generates 10x more value, because y…

1) You are totally discounting the social safety net.

2) If the services you provide are commoditized, there are millions of other people who can do the work you do so you are more easily replaceable. Investing in your skills can remedy that. About the worst thing you could do would be to lament how you are beholden to the capital holders while stagnating with an undifferentiated skillset.

3) "The principle is the same" is an incredibly narrow view to take. It minimizes the horrors of slavery. Working for a living in an at will arrangement is nothing like being the property of another human. You can quit, and go find a new job. You can move to another state - there are no laws that say your previous employer can send bounty hunters after you to reclaim you as a runaway.

Perspective, please.

Re: How Academia Resembles a Drug Gang (2013)

#100

Post by avn2109 »

throwaway009382 wrote: post #81

I am both an aspiring graduate student (though, maybe not after reading this) and grew up with many friends who were/are still in organized crews, plus did some delivery for a few years myself when I was a foolish 17 yr old. Most delivery driver jobs here pay $150-200/day depending on how busy the line is, and the people that work them usually aren't looking to move up instead they want cash wages for easy work, sinc…

Very underrated comment, by far the best in the thread. Sounds like drug gangs are borrowing the business model of governments.
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