3 ms·

Law is in crisis, the other three are all so (relatively speaking) small, unimportant, and gated by the genetic lottery that they're not worth discussing.

jessriedel 10y ago
I could keep coming up with examples, both current and historical, because this is a general phenomenon. Anytime there is a large payoff for a small number of slots, along with an inability to instantly measure top performers, a filtering heirarchy is naturally constructed. Military officers (94% of commissioned officers do not retire with the military http://www.skyhinews.com/news/hamilton-military-retirement-83-percent-never-make-it/ http://www.skyhinews.com/news/hamilton-military-retirement-8...), tech start-ups (duh), organized crime, trade guilds, investment banking etc., etc. You can think such fields are a bad bet for newcomers, should be regulated, and so on, but it doesn't make sense to say that they are "in crisis". They can last for arbitrarily long times, and generally produce what they are expected to produce! There's also little reason to think that academics and law aren't just as much determined by genetics as musics, sports, and acting.
Paul-ish 10y ago
Perhaps what is best for someone isn't what is best for the field as a whole. The field itself may be fine even if the individuals in seem to be struggling from a high level. For example in sports, if people weren't struggling to get into the NFL, it would probably be much less fun to watch (for those who watch it now) because the skill level would be much lower. Could this be the same in academia? We have a very competitive funnel that only lets the best into the top spots? If that is the case the field isn't struggling, the people are. The solution wouldn't be to make things less competitive, it would be to have alternatives for people who don't make it into one of the coveted positions. This is something I think a lot of specialized fields are struggling with. Over time (looking at century timescales) people have become increasingly specialized due to the nature of the economy. Specialization makes switching expensive. I think this is something we will have to grapple with as specialization continues.

jessriedel 10y ago

I could keep coming up with examples, both current and historical, because this is a general phenomenon. Anytime there is a large payoff for a small number of slots, along with an inability to instantly measure top performers, a filtering heirarchy is naturally constructed. Military officers (94% of commissioned officers do not retire with the military http://www.skyhinews.com/news/hamilton-military-retirement-83-percent-never-make-it/ http://www.skyhinews.com/news/hamilton-military-retirement-8...), tech start-ups (duh), organized crime, trade guilds, investment banking etc., etc. You can think such fields are a bad bet for newcomers, should be regulated, and so on, but it doesn't make sense to say that they are "in crisis". They can last for arbitrarily long times, and generally produce what they are expected to produce! There's also little reason to think that academics and law aren't just as much determined by genetics as musics, sports, and acting.

Paul-ish 10y ago

Perhaps what is best for someone isn't what is best for the field as a whole. The field itself may be fine even if the individuals in seem to be struggling from a high level. For example in sports, if people weren't struggling to get into the NFL, it would probably be much less fun to watch (for those who watch it now) because the skill level would be much lower. Could this be the same in academia? We have a very competitive funnel that only lets the best into the top spots? If that is the case the field isn't struggling, the people are. The solution wouldn't be to make things less competitive, it would be to have alternatives for people who don't make it into one of the coveted positions. This is something I think a lot of specialized fields are struggling with. Over time (looking at century timescales) people have become increasingly specialized due to the nature of the economy. Specialization makes switching expensive. I think this is something we will have to grapple with as specialization continues.