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Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

yangxiao.cs.ua.edu

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Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#51

Post by jryle70 »

harimau777 wrote: post #43
next_xibalba wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many other ways have been tried. They have been abject failures with a little mass murder, famine, and war for bonus points! Is there some way you're thinking of that has not been tried?

Democratic socialism, also called social democracy, has been dramatically more effective than America's late stage capitalism. The heavily unionized capitalism that we had in the decades after WW2 also worked much better than our present system.

> has been dramatically more effective than America's late stage capitalism.

Depends on how you look at it, and which categories you measure, obviously? Why hasn't it caught on other than Nordic countries?

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#52

Post by btrettel »

bluSCALE4 wrote: post #48
btrettel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think crowdfunding is a good funding source for science in general. Crowdfunding's going to overemphasize already popular and easy to explain science at the expense of everything else. Boring sounding and unfamiliar stuff like the research I'd like to do would not succeed.

I disagree. There's a guy that doesn't have much attention that's creating fuel from burning plastic. He got crowdfunded. I also recall finding a website way back when of a dude that explored the old railroad tunnels of downtown Chicago. I would have 100% funded that guy for content.

This guy?

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-solarpowered-plastic-to-f...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Brown_(influencer)

He gets $36K from about 800 donors for a project that seems pretty easy to explain ("creating fuel from burning plastic") and is something probably millions of people are interested in. Wikipedia says he has millions of followers!

The stuff I'd like to do would probably not have even 800 people interested in it after I carefully explained it. And $36K is not a lot when it comes to experimental research in the physical world.

In my view, working a day job and taking periodic sabbaticals would have better ROI for this guy and myself.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#53

Post by analog31 »

api wrote: post #19

This reminds me of numerous pieces I’ve read by authors on why not to try to become an author, like this: https://www.elysian.press/p/publishing-industry-truth What it boils down to is that these are fields with a supply glut of people and/or product. My take is: never try to enter such a field unless you really think you have a chance at performing in the top 20% of all entrants in that field. Anything else is a dic…

Unfortunately, I met a lot of people in graduate school who were in that top 20% in terms of their ability in their discipline. But they were on a collision course with expectations of employers for what kinds of work they were interested in. The conventional wisdom is you got a science PhD because you want to be an outgoing, driven, competitive leader. And they may have been treating the academe as a shelter from those expectations too.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#54

Post by knuckleheadsmif »

brolumir wrote: post #4
PlunderBunny wrote: post #3

(1999)

While this is clearly an old post, I'm not sure about the actual date. On the bottom it says 1999, but there's also a citation for an article from 2001. > For many more details consult the Young Scientists' Network or read the account in the May, 2001 issue of the Washington Monthly.

Being a physics researcher he built a time machine and in late 2001 went back in time to post it.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#55

Post by somenameforme »

cozzyd wrote: post #24

Scientist here. It's certainly not always an easy path, but if it's what you want, it's what you want. It's not something you fall into though...

Is it not? I'd assumed that the dramatic increase in people with doctorates was simply a mix of the new era of practically unlimited student loans, university being quite enjoyable, and a desire to avoid entering into the 'real world.' It's not like people are planning to become academics, but by the time somebody completes a doctorate in e.g. sociology, they're gonna be buried in a mountain of debt with relatively few career options.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#56

Post by somenameforme »

neftaly wrote: post #46
lisper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few people say that. Overwhelmingly the rhetoric one hears is that the purpose of higher education is to get a better job. Personally, I think it would be great if we educated people to cultivate an engaged citizenry. But if we're going to do that we have to be up-front about it an work on an economic model that supports it. So, for example, you can't have student loans that are predicated on being able to obtai…

Thomas Jefferson said that a bunch

You need to keep in mind context. He lived in a time when the overwhelming majority of society was self employed and there was no formalized, let alone compulsory, educational system whatsoever. Looking up the exact history there, the first compulsory education began in 1852 (Jefferson died in 1826 at the age of 83), where children 8 to 14 were required to spend at least 3 months a year in 'schooling', with at least 6 weeks of it being consecutive. [1]

And in the early 19th century near to 100% of Americans lived in rural areas where access to centralized information was minimal. There was no internet, radio, or other means of centralized communication. For that matter, there wasn't even electricity. The closest they'd have had would have been local newspapers. So people without any education would have had very little idea about the world around them.

And obviously I don't mean what's happening half-way around the world, but in their own country, their own rights, and so on. Among the political elite there was a raging battle over federalism vs confederalism, but that would have had very little meaning to the overwhelming majority of Americans. Jefferson won the presidency in 1800 with 45k votes against John Adams' 30k votes, when the country's population was 5,300,000!

[1] - https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/history-publ...

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#57

Post by cozzyd »

somenameforme wrote: post #55
cozzyd wrote: post #24

Scientist here. It's certainly not always an easy path, but if it's what you want, it's what you want. It's not something you fall into though...

Is it not? I'd assumed that the dramatic increase in people with doctorates was simply a mix of the new era of practically unlimited student loans, university being quite enjoyable, and a desire to avoid entering into the 'real world.' It's not like people are planning to become academics, but by the time somebody completes a doctorate in e.g. sociology, they're gonna be buried in a mountain of debt with relatively f…

Most doctorates are funded, at least in the sciences. There are certainly some people who go to grad school because it seems like the logical next step but they tend not to complete a PhD.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#58

Post by [deleted] »

somenameforme wrote: post #55
cozzyd wrote: post #24

Scientist here. It's certainly not always an easy path, but if it's what you want, it's what you want. It's not something you fall into though...

Is it not? I'd assumed that the dramatic increase in people with doctorates was simply a mix of the new era of practically unlimited student loans, university being quite enjoyable, and a desire to avoid entering into the 'real world.' It's not like people are planning to become academics, but by the time somebody completes a doctorate in e.g. sociology, they're gonna be buried in a mountain of debt with relatively f…

[deleted]

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#59

Post by coliveira »

blooalien wrote: post #47
harimau777 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democratic socialism, also called social democracy, has been dramatically more effective than America's late stage capitalism. The heavily unionized capitalism that we had in the decades after WW2 also worked much better than our present system.

> Democratic socialism, also called social democracy, has been dramatically more effective than America's late stage capitalism. > The heavily unionized capitalism that we had in the decades after WW2 also worked much better than our present system. ^^^ This. ^^^ What I'd really like to see is pick all the various bits and pieces from all the things that have been tried that do work well and try to build something ar…

If we depend on the stupid, they'll keep repeating "this is the best system ever" until we have all being destroyed.

Re: Don't Become a Scientist (1999)

#60

Post by coliveira »

next_xibalba wrote: post #40
harimau777 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism has created a hell world where anything that makes life worth living has long since been stripped for profit.

You should read about the history of communism. Until you do, you have no idea how utterly horrible life can get.

Capitalism will be completely eliminated, I don't think it has even 50 years left.
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