> I see nothing wrong with professors communicating the value of what they are building as effectively as possible. Oh for sure, the grad student get value out

> I see nothing wrong with professors communicating the value of what they are building as effectively as possible. Oh for sure, the grad student get value out of it because there's someone established advocating their work. For people w/ no reputation and marketing know-how, being cross-selled like this is of value, in fact it's one of the primary value add of the PI. > The media lab is made up of a large number of research teams doing very different stuff. Yeah fair, wish I knew more about cryptography so I can comment. In general, I don't think narratives are "bad" per-se, or they are strictly less valuable than rigorous mathematically proven technical work. For example every nation has a shared myth/narrative right, and US's myth of freedom of thought and social equality encourage lots of people to try hard, which I think of as a good thing in general.