4 ms·

Academia is particularly political. I've worked in industry and seen a lot of politics there too, but in academia the problem is much worse. I think that this a

Academia is particularly political. I've worked in industry and seen a lot of politics there too, but in academia the problem is much worse. I think that this article is just examining one consequence of the politics in academia, which is that people sometimes come across as assholes. The article doesn't get to the root cause of the problem. For a while now, I've been trying to understand why there is so much political behaviour in academia, as I really don't like it and I'm not interested in participating. Recently, I found the answer perfectly summarised in this essay by Ben Horowitz: http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_company http://www.bhorowitz.com/how_to_minimize_politics_in_your_co... Ben also explains how to solve this problem, and I couldn't agree more. This essay is included in his book, "The Hard Thing about Hard Things," which gets a lot of mentions on here and is definitely worth a read.

arethuza 11y ago
What put me off academic research was essentially the utter lack of "genuine" teamwork - when a lot of interactions with a colleague become negotiations about whether your name goes on their paper and if so in what place it all becomes a bit tedious. That might have been the lab I was in - while everyone was nice there was a distinct weird cutthroat element to it that I haven't encountered anywhere else. Edit: I should correct that - this was in the UK so everyone appeared nice, I know there was a bit of back stabbing from on high directed at anyone who looked likely to be too successful.
- randomsearch 11y ago
  > the utter lack of "genuine" teamwork I've also seen this, and it is explained by the essay I mentioned. You _do_ get genuine teamwork in academia in the UK, essentially I've had to identify like-minded people who are principally here to do great work rather than further their own career. I've found lots of people like that, and have collaborated with them and found it a very pleasant experience. I've also experience people as you describe, and I generally just stay away from them as much as possible. Life's too short to associate with people like that, leave them to their agenda and get on with doing research.
- wolfgke 11y ago
  > What put me off academic research was essentially the utter lack of "genuine" teamwork - when a lot of interactions with a colleague become negotiations about whether your name goes on their paper and if so in what place it all becomes a bit tedious. At least the "in what place" problem is solved quite elegantly in mathematics, where the names on a paper are simply in alphabetical order. Being a mathematician I'd wish that other sciences would also apply this practice.

arethuza 11y ago

What put me off academic research was essentially the utter lack of "genuine" teamwork - when a lot of interactions with a colleague become negotiations about whether your name goes on their paper and if so in what place it all becomes a bit tedious. That might have been the lab I was in - while everyone was nice there was a distinct weird cutthroat element to it that I haven't encountered anywhere else. Edit: I should correct that - this was in the UK so everyone appeared nice, I know there was a bit of back stabbing from on high directed at anyone who looked likely to be too successful.

randomsearch 11y ago
> the utter lack of "genuine" teamwork I've also seen this, and it is explained by the essay I mentioned. You _do_ get genuine teamwork in academia in the UK, essentially I've had to identify like-minded people who are principally here to do great work rather than further their own career. I've found lots of people like that, and have collaborated with them and found it a very pleasant experience. I've also experience people as you describe, and I generally just stay away from them as much as possible. Life's too short to associate with people like that, leave them to their agenda and get on with doing research.
wolfgke 11y ago
> What put me off academic research was essentially the utter lack of "genuine" teamwork - when a lot of interactions with a colleague become negotiations about whether your name goes on their paper and if so in what place it all becomes a bit tedious. At least the "in what place" problem is solved quite elegantly in mathematics, where the names on a paper are simply in alphabetical order. Being a mathematician I'd wish that other sciences would also apply this practice.