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Sorry, but your argument loses serious credibility beginning with the first sentence. The last thing, really? How about, say, making cardboard boxes for a livin

Sorry, but your argument loses serious credibility beginning with the first sentence. The last thing, really? How about, say, making cardboard boxes for a living? Flipping burgers? Don't get me wrong, I understand the point you are making, in part because it's been made more articulately by others many times already. But you are simply wrong when you say that "there is no such thing as a senior researcher". I personally know at least four -- late career academics who still engage deeply with research, have their own ideas, write single -author papers, and all the rest. It's true that many others do go the route you have described: possibly more than is optimal, though there is some value in a field having a few caretakers (or managers as you call them) which I rarely see mentioned. But the situation is not the cartoon that you make it out to be. Not by a long shot.

barrkel 10y ago
I've personally found jobs with high levels of physical tedium good for contemplation, and they don't impinge on time outside work with stress. I can see making cardboard boxes pretty rewarding for a budding philosopher with access to a good library and some peers to converse with.
- adrianratnapala 10y ago
  I love contemplation, and create physical busywork for myself so that I can do it. But that's slacking. To do real intellectual work I need to stop and use pen and paper, or maybe a computer. Even if contemplation is enough, most "manual" jobs require you to use your brain. Not necessarily in an interseting way, but enough to distract you from contemplation. It can't all be moving heavy objects from one pile to another.
mpweiher 10y ago
> The last thing, really? How about, say, making > cardboard boxes for a living? Flipping burgers? Or working as a patent clerk, maybe? Yes, pretty much anything outside the academic process was what I meant, so that your livelihood does not depend on the outcome of your research, because then you have to tailor your research directions towards the safe and accepted. And so your straw men actually would work, though suboptimally because the income is probably too low to allow you free time. Also, misquoting me by leaving out the "really" makes your argument disingenuous, because the "really" made clear that the statement is not a 100% but a trend (if a somewhat overwhelming one), and 4 exceptions (names?) don't exactly disprove a generalization. It would also be interesting if you see your four examples as holdouts from a different era, or general exceptions. I'd wager they're more of the former rather than the latter, and that their number is dwindling.
- lx9911 10y ago
  > Or working as a patent clerk, maybe? Does it still work though? In the days of Einstein, I imagine you could slack off easier in such a position than nowadays. The problem these days is that we're inundated with busywork not only in academia, but in most occupations.
  - VLM 10y ago
    And wouldn't the smartest fraction of the population, or at least the researchers think they're the smartest, have the best skills at shamming and avoiding individual busywork and finding careers where they can ruminate in relative peace compared to working in a busy call center, for example? Even in general at very large scale, a world of limited and shrinking economic opportunity but unlimited and expanding education (well, until the future student loan crash arrives), means you can try to pile on busywork but the people shamming and pencil whipping it are better at shamming and pencil whipping and everything else, than any other cohort in the history of humanity... As a cultural touchstone look at the movie "Office Space" still relevant today. He stares at the walls for an hour or two every day trying to look busy. Sure you might have to pass three interviews with ten people while proving P=NP and writing a javascript compiler to GET the job, but to DO the job you have to update TPS report headers every couple weeks and that's about it, other than loading letter size paper into the laser printer and staring at walls looking busy. Not to spoil the plot of the movie but the lead actor is not a theoretical physicist although if he were, it would be a dream job for him, work about an hour a week then look really busy the other 39+ hours while working on physics.
  - hilop 10y ago
    Reddit (and to some extent HN) are proof that there are plenty of white collar jobs with oodles of free time.
    - ScottBurson 10y ago
      It's not the right kind of time, though. Reading and occasionally posting usually don't require sustained concentration -- they can mostly be done as a break from that. (Of course there are times when an interesting and difficult topic shows up, or a debate arises that one wants to participate in.) So for the most part, it's a break from work. Switching from one nontrivial technical task to squeeze bits of a much more difficult task into one's day is much harder.
veddox 10y ago
One of my professors recently reached the legal retirement age, but applied for a senior professorship so he could keep doing research - or, as he put it, so that he "would be allowed to keep working". I found it very encouraging to hear that positive attitude in someone who has been at the institute for the past 30-40 years.
corysama 10y ago
Arguing against unreasonably literal interpretations of broad statements only serves to water down all conversation to an unending series of disclaimers.

barrkel 10y ago

I've personally found jobs with high levels of physical tedium good for contemplation, and they don't impinge on time outside work with stress. I can see making cardboard boxes pretty rewarding for a budding philosopher with access to a good library and some peers to converse with.

adrianratnapala 10y ago
I love contemplation, and create physical busywork for myself so that I can do it. But that's slacking. To do real intellectual work I need to stop and use pen and paper, or maybe a computer. Even if contemplation is enough, most "manual" jobs require you to use your brain. Not necessarily in an interseting way, but enough to distract you from contemplation. It can't all be moving heavy objects from one pile to another.

mpweiher 10y ago

> The last thing, really? How about, say, making > cardboard boxes for a living? Flipping burgers? Or working as a patent clerk, maybe? Yes, pretty much anything outside the academic process was what I meant, so that your livelihood does not depend on the outcome of your research, because then you have to tailor your research directions towards the safe and accepted. And so your straw men actually would work, though suboptimally because the income is probably too low to allow you free time. Also, misquoting me by leaving out the "really" makes your argument disingenuous, because the "really" made clear that the statement is not a 100% but a trend (if a somewhat overwhelming one), and 4 exceptions (names?) don't exactly disprove a generalization. It would also be interesting if you see your four examples as holdouts from a different era, or general exceptions. I'd wager they're more of the former rather than the latter, and that their number is dwindling.

lx9911 10y ago
> Or working as a patent clerk, maybe? Does it still work though? In the days of Einstein, I imagine you could slack off easier in such a position than nowadays. The problem these days is that we're inundated with busywork not only in academia, but in most occupations.
- VLM 10y ago
  And wouldn't the smartest fraction of the population, or at least the researchers think they're the smartest, have the best skills at shamming and avoiding individual busywork and finding careers where they can ruminate in relative peace compared to working in a busy call center, for example? Even in general at very large scale, a world of limited and shrinking economic opportunity but unlimited and expanding education (well, until the future student loan crash arrives), means you can try to pile on busywork but the people shamming and pencil whipping it are better at shamming and pencil whipping and everything else, than any other cohort in the history of humanity... As a cultural touchstone look at the movie "Office Space" still relevant today. He stares at the walls for an hour or two every day trying to look busy. Sure you might have to pass three interviews with ten people while proving P=NP and writing a javascript compiler to GET the job, but to DO the job you have to update TPS report headers every couple weeks and that's about it, other than loading letter size paper into the laser printer and staring at walls looking busy. Not to spoil the plot of the movie but the lead actor is not a theoretical physicist although if he were, it would be a dream job for him, work about an hour a week then look really busy the other 39+ hours while working on physics.
- hilop 10y ago
  Reddit (and to some extent HN) are proof that there are plenty of white collar jobs with oodles of free time.
  - ScottBurson 10y ago
    It's not the right kind of time, though. Reading and occasionally posting usually don't require sustained concentration -- they can mostly be done as a break from that. (Of course there are times when an interesting and difficult topic shows up, or a debate arises that one wants to participate in.) So for the most part, it's a break from work. Switching from one nontrivial technical task to squeeze bits of a much more difficult task into one's day is much harder.

veddox 10y ago

One of my professors recently reached the legal retirement age, but applied for a senior professorship so he could keep doing research - or, as he put it, so that he "would be allowed to keep working". I found it very encouraging to hear that positive attitude in someone who has been at the institute for the past 30-40 years.

corysama 10y ago

Arguing against unreasonably literal interpretations of broad statements only serves to water down all conversation to an unending series of disclaimers.