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Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

theguardian.com

441–449 of 449 posts

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#441
post #434
post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions still must restrict the supply of labor, or else they're not unions, which would destroy Open Source, or at least Open Source which isn't appendant to a company which pays programmers to work on projects. Otherwise, by using GNU Emacs, you're depriving a union worker of their wages, and, since GNU Emacs gets updated even when there's a General Strike on, contributors are scabs, and union supporters have, histo…

The massive and well-funded propaganda effort to destroy unions at all costs has been extremely successful, as we can see from your post. I have never heard of, read, talked to, or even imagined that any living person would consider contributing to open source to be "depriving a union worker of their wages" or "scabbing". Have you ever even heard of an actual existing union before? Have you ever known someone who has…

You can't imagine anyone could have a conclusion different from yours.

The union propaganda campaign must be working.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#442
post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree that's a market.

Doctors are not recruited and trained like McDonald's workers. The barriers to entry and barriers to retention put current and potential doctors in direct competition with each other. The field also deals with people moving on to something else. So, it looks like a duck and smells like a duck to me.

That doesn't sound like a market at all.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Industries where writing and reading comprehension arein demand, such as advertising, journalism, marketing, film, diplomacy, public relations, publishing, technical writing, law, and many more ...

For those fields, wouldn't one be significantly better of with a degree in advertising, journalism, marketing, film/media, policy (local/foreign), print/media, engineering, law?

That kind of education doesn't teach you to reason, to understand the world, and to think critically (except about a narrow subject). I'd much rather hire a liberal arts major - the vocational stuff can be learned later.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's a problem with how that stuff is bundled. I went to a school that lavished money on its sports programs (at least relative to the team's performance) and many of the sports programs were supported (in part) by mandatory student fees. If I had the option to go to the school without paying for the team, I would have certainly done so. Though the school was still 'worth it' but dang it, I could have had more…

> But there's a problem with how that stuff is bundled. Sure. I wasn't endorsing the system, just explaining it as I see it. > schools have to make sports programs accessible to women and men ... might be a better allocation of resources if they simply opened teams to both sexes rather than creating sexually differentiated teams. I think that only works in a world where women and men are both physically capable equal…

I'm going to call this thread an instance of Graham's Law: the probability that men on Hacker News will eventually find a way to drive the conversation to a discussion about the relative intelligence of women is 1.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there's a problem with how that stuff is bundled. Sure. I wasn't endorsing the system, just explaining it as I see it. > schools have to make sports programs accessible to women and men ... might be a better allocation of resources if they simply opened teams to both sexes rather than creating sexually differentiated teams. I think that only works in a world where women and men are both physically capable equal…

I'm going to call this thread an instance of Graham's Law: the probability that men on Hacker News will eventually find a way to drive the conversation to a discussion about the relative intelligence of women is 1.

It's a semi-taboo subject that has little chance of being discussed rationally in most places. There's a small chance you might be able to get away with it here without someone with an agenda showing up to derail it, either on purpose or with extreme and unfounded views, just like every other part of the internet.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#446
post #173
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> most universities have moved to act more and more like for-profit entities. At my alum mater, the state cut support to the state universities to practically nothing. Voters saw how much money the big universities were making on college football. They consistently voted to cut the money to the university system. Only problem? Most state supported universities did not have a football program. My university: * turned…

The cut in state support coincides with a successful propaganda campaign that turned the public against academics and science.

I didn't think of that ... but not surprising. The cuts in my state started in the Bush era under a Democratic governor.

Very sad that a Dem aided and abetted this.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University of California salaries are shared publicly. I haven't actually crunched the numbers but it seems like an average salary is around 150k for professors in research based fields. That's well over half of the median salary in almost any profession.

UC averages are also skewed by doctors at places like UCSF.

Not the numbers I mentioned. I was referring to the salaries in the physics department (my department). And I wasn't limiting my search to full professors. There are plenty of assistant and associate professors making well over 100k.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#448
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University of California salaries are shared publicly. I haven't actually crunched the numbers but it seems like an average salary is around 150k for professors in research based fields. That's well over half of the median salary in almost any profession.

Those are full professors, not adjuncts.

Those are not full professors, they're assistant and associates as well. Adjunct professors are a different story b/c that is not meant to be a full time job. Adjunct professors typically teach a single course and do not do any research or participate in any administrative tasks for the department/university.

Re: Facing poverty, academics turn to sex work and sleeping in cars

#449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University of California salaries are shared publicly. I haven't actually crunched the numbers but it seems like an average salary is around 150k for professors in research based fields. That's well over half of the median salary in almost any profession.

This varies hugely by school. A lot of state run Universities have very competitive salaries because their reputation depends on retaining rock star professors. Adjuncts are a different story. I taught as an adjunct part time at a state school where professor made $150k. I made $5000 per course. I did it more of less for fun because I like teaching. Which is not bad for extra pay on the side but terrible if it is you…

You can't compare an adjunct professor to a full-time (assistant/associate/full) professor. I would not consider adjunct professors to be 'academics' as they do not typically do any research. They're basically lecturers, not professors.
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