Normally I'd agree. Especially if we're assuming purely selfish pursuits ("I want to fuck around in academia forever and get paid, supply/demand be damned!").

Normally I'd agree. Especially if we're assuming purely selfish pursuits ("I want to fuck around in academia forever and get paid, supply/demand be damned!"). However, if I see it through the lense of someone who desperately wants to move the world forward -- and at any personal cost -- then I start to entertain the thought that, maybe, it's unfortunate that that some can't find jobs, and they're deserving of my sympathy. Simillarly, I work on a bunch of OSS. A lot of it is based in academia and unlikely to become mainstream. I'm also unlikely to benefit directly from it, and I don't really enjoy the process of creation within the field of software. However, I feel that the stuff I'm working on -- even with the slim odds of mass adoption -- are worth dumping my time into because it'll move the industry forward if it's successful. You can bet that I'd love to get paid to work on this stuff, but I also understand that's unlikely to ever happen. And sure, I could let other people work on these projects so I can instead go off and have fun, but I believe that my background fills a particular niche that would likely be left open if I didn't sacrifice my time and energy in these pursuits. Maybe it's the same with these PhD peeps. Each person believes that they're essential to progress, and their principles prohibit them from abandoning their self sacrifice in the pursuit thereof. I think I can understand the frustration; perhaps someone really ought to give these selfless people some money so, you know, they can make all of our lives better. (In other words, I think "passionate (if not masochistic) altruism" might be mistaken as "entitlement" here.)