6 ms·

In my opinion the dominant discriminatory mechanism is: 1. The expected working hours and travel schedule 2. Poorly-compensated, unstable unemployment through

In my opinion the dominant discriminatory mechanism is: 1. The expected working hours and travel schedule 2. Poorly-compensated, unstable unemployment through the mid-thirties as de riguer I'm a man, but my experience is relevant in that I left early for industry from a Physics PhD that was dragging on, in large part because I wanted to start a family. I'm now, according to the feedback I receive, a high-performing C++ developer in the CAD / CAM space, and I didn't have to move around the country doing temp work for below-market compensation, work crazy hours, or suffer through the degrading administrative bullshit one must endure to convince a committee. And I have a seven-month-old and a partner getting a master's on my salary, and we get to live near my parents. It was unpleasant to nod along when "enduring the company of gross assholes like you" was presented (rather than the above) as the dominant discriminatory mechanism, but, you know. There were plenty of gross assholes and it was a learning experience and I guess I'm now probably better for it.

kspacewalk2 6y ago
The divide you're describing between careers C++ development and physics can be explained by simple supply and demand. You've responded to the market and are better off for it. Also, when you have a bunch of very intelligent and hard-working physics grad students, how on earth can "working hours" not be a discriminatory mechanism between them, when the coveted faculty positions are so few and far between? Does it not stand to reason that a person who devotes more of his day to the work will come out ahead, on average? It isn't good or bad, it simply is.
- bumby 6y ago
  “It isn’t good or bad, it simply is” implies it followed some amoral natural law. These are human-created systems, though, and would be built upon human ethics and morals. Stating academia as an institution just “is” isn’t much different than asserting the military-industrial-congressional complex just “is”
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > implies it followed some amoral natural law Doesn't it? If you have two lions of the same physical ability and one of them hunts for six hours a day and the other one hunts for 12 hours a day, which one would you expect to be more successful? > Stating academia as an institution just “is” isn’t much different than asserting the military-industrial-congressional complex just “is” It's not about academia specifically though, it's about any and all systems where individuals compete. Given similar talent, the one who puts in more time/effort will likely win.
    - bumby 6y ago
      Except I don’t think we can/should reduce our institutions to such a simple model. There’s many more inputs than just work-hours. We build our institutions to guard against this. That’s why we don’t live in an anarcho-capitalist society and have things like anti-trust laws.
      - luckylion 6y ago
        > There’s many more inputs than just work-hours. Obviously, but if you consider those to be very similar at the top of some field, wouldn't you expect work-hours to be important in predicting the outcome? I'm sure you can draw clear lines between two individuals, but when you look at many people of similar ability, how much time they put in will most likely predict their results pretty well. > We build our institutions to guard against this. We do? Is there a thing where you can explain that you're as smart as other people and therefore it shouldn't matter that they work 5 days a week in some area and you only work one day, and that it's unfair that they produce more results than you and get the promotion/grant/whatever you compete for? I've never heard of it.
        bumby 6y ago
        The anti-trust example in the previous statement is one. It doesn't matter if someone is more successful, even if it's due solely to an extraordinary work ethic; societal institutions will artificially limit their market share. Sports is another example. Leagues put salary caps as well as minimum salaries to artificially limit compensation. Both sports and economics put these in place to provide a bulwark against such "natural laws" in favor of human defined ethics like fairness.
- neutronicus 6y ago
  I did not argue that this situation is "bad," I argued that it's "hostile to people who want to start families." Now, you can guess based on my emotional language that I think it is good to pursue policies that make careers more open to people who want families. And, as it happens, the US government agrees, in so far as it designates wanting a family a protected class for the purpose of employment discrimination. My argument, devoid of moral content, is: If it's your aim to avoid excluding people who want families from a career, you need to regulate the amount of hours people in that career are expected to work, the amount they're expected to travel, and the distribution of lifetime expected earnings (don't unnecessarily gate a prosperous 40s behind penurious child-bearing years). Since this particular career is overwhelmingly government-funded, free-market analyses miss the point - the government decides how many Physics Grad Students there are, what they're paid, and largely what their future career trajectories are. Given that it holds the purse strings it also holds substantially more power to regulate working conditions than it otherwise would. It's empirically obvious that people who want families are excluded from science, and I'm positing that the above is why.
  - tomp 6y ago
    I also want the society to support more families, especially by the highly educated people (not in the name of some IQ-supremacy, although you could argue that's beneficial to society, but simply to level the playing field - low educated people don't seem to have any problem having tons of kids, while high educated are delaying family creation more and more - and in case of women, often into their less fertile years). However, my proposed solutions are quite different, and much more direct - simply address the main issues directly - the main issue IMO currently being housing (at least in major cities, near major colleges, in major Western countries). So you could make a simple rule, giving (either literally, or in a form of long-term (10+ years) loan that automatically gets written of under some conditions) young people apartments when they e.g. enroll in a difficult STEM PhD program. Once this problem is "sorted" (housing represents a major factor in how "secure" you feel about your future - you and your kids never going homeless) I think that would encourage many young highly-educated high-achiever couples to start families much sooner.
    - 6y ago
timwaagh 6y ago
poor compensation is normally a factor that filters out guys more than women because of societal (and partner) expectations.
- neutronicus 6y ago
  In the physical sciences (possibly others but I can only speak to what I know), there's an expectation that your compensation hits an inflection point somewhere in your mid-thirties (once you've endured the hazing of the PhD and multiple post-docs). For example, I know that in my company I make a 20 percent premium over junior engineers hired fresh out of college at the same time I was, and I'm a PhD program wash-out. So it's not exactly "poor compensation," it's more "poor compensation through the years when most educated people have children."

kspacewalk2 6y ago

The divide you're describing between careers C++ development and physics can be explained by simple supply and demand. You've responded to the market and are better off for it. Also, when you have a bunch of very intelligent and hard-working physics grad students, how on earth can "working hours" not be a discriminatory mechanism between them, when the coveted faculty positions are so few and far between? Does it not stand to reason that a person who devotes more of his day to the work will come out ahead, on average? It isn't good or bad, it simply is.

bumby 6y ago
“It isn’t good or bad, it simply is” implies it followed some amoral natural law. These are human-created systems, though, and would be built upon human ethics and morals. Stating academia as an institution just “is” isn’t much different than asserting the military-industrial-congressional complex just “is”
- luckylion 6y ago
  > implies it followed some amoral natural law Doesn't it? If you have two lions of the same physical ability and one of them hunts for six hours a day and the other one hunts for 12 hours a day, which one would you expect to be more successful? > Stating academia as an institution just “is” isn’t much different than asserting the military-industrial-congressional complex just “is” It's not about academia specifically though, it's about any and all systems where individuals compete. Given similar talent, the one who puts in more time/effort will likely win.
  - bumby 6y ago
    Except I don’t think we can/should reduce our institutions to such a simple model. There’s many more inputs than just work-hours. We build our institutions to guard against this. That’s why we don’t live in an anarcho-capitalist society and have things like anti-trust laws.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > There’s many more inputs than just work-hours. Obviously, but if you consider those to be very similar at the top of some field, wouldn't you expect work-hours to be important in predicting the outcome? I'm sure you can draw clear lines between two individuals, but when you look at many people of similar ability, how much time they put in will most likely predict their results pretty well. > We build our institutions to guard against this. We do? Is there a thing where you can explain that you're as smart as other people and therefore it shouldn't matter that they work 5 days a week in some area and you only work one day, and that it's unfair that they produce more results than you and get the promotion/grant/whatever you compete for? I've never heard of it.
      - bumby 6y ago
        The anti-trust example in the previous statement is one. It doesn't matter if someone is more successful, even if it's due solely to an extraordinary work ethic; societal institutions will artificially limit their market share. Sports is another example. Leagues put salary caps as well as minimum salaries to artificially limit compensation. Both sports and economics put these in place to provide a bulwark against such "natural laws" in favor of human defined ethics like fairness.
neutronicus 6y ago
I did not argue that this situation is "bad," I argued that it's "hostile to people who want to start families." Now, you can guess based on my emotional language that I think it is good to pursue policies that make careers more open to people who want families. And, as it happens, the US government agrees, in so far as it designates wanting a family a protected class for the purpose of employment discrimination. My argument, devoid of moral content, is: If it's your aim to avoid excluding people who want families from a career, you need to regulate the amount of hours people in that career are expected to work, the amount they're expected to travel, and the distribution of lifetime expected earnings (don't unnecessarily gate a prosperous 40s behind penurious child-bearing years). Since this particular career is overwhelmingly government-funded, free-market analyses miss the point - the government decides how many Physics Grad Students there are, what they're paid, and largely what their future career trajectories are. Given that it holds the purse strings it also holds substantially more power to regulate working conditions than it otherwise would. It's empirically obvious that people who want families are excluded from science, and I'm positing that the above is why.
- tomp 6y ago
  I also want the society to support more families, especially by the highly educated people (not in the name of some IQ-supremacy, although you could argue that's beneficial to society, but simply to level the playing field - low educated people don't seem to have any problem having tons of kids, while high educated are delaying family creation more and more - and in case of women, often into their less fertile years). However, my proposed solutions are quite different, and much more direct - simply address the main issues directly - the main issue IMO currently being housing (at least in major cities, near major colleges, in major Western countries). So you could make a simple rule, giving (either literally, or in a form of long-term (10+ years) loan that automatically gets written of under some conditions) young people apartments when they e.g. enroll in a difficult STEM PhD program. Once this problem is "sorted" (housing represents a major factor in how "secure" you feel about your future - you and your kids never going homeless) I think that would encourage many young highly-educated high-achiever couples to start families much sooner.
  - 6y ago

timwaagh 6y ago

poor compensation is normally a factor that filters out guys more than women because of societal (and partner) expectations.

neutronicus 6y ago
In the physical sciences (possibly others but I can only speak to what I know), there's an expectation that your compensation hits an inflection point somewhere in your mid-thirties (once you've endured the hazing of the PhD and multiple post-docs). For example, I know that in my company I make a 20 percent premium over junior engineers hired fresh out of college at the same time I was, and I'm a PhD program wash-out. So it's not exactly "poor compensation," it's more "poor compensation through the years when most educated people have children."