7 ms·

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have exp

> Too often I have been told to be proud of the great work I am a part of, as if this should outweigh the negative and harmful things myself and others have experienced. Actually, that's how it works in the real world from my experience. Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall. Most of us feel really lucky to get things done and be a part of something, and when we have to bear an unkind comment here or there... well, we're emotionally developed adults who balance the positive with the negative. It takes a lot of entitlement to expect to never hear anything negative or offensive or unkind.* College should prepare you for the real world, not shelter you from it. * Obligatory before someone makes a strawman: Of course if the advisor does something illegal, that's another matter, but the article never stated anything illegal being done. Just unkind from what I read.

pavanky 6y ago
That is just a terrible terrible thing to say to excuse abuse. You cant expect others to toil away to benefit your "genius".
- NicolasGorden 6y ago
  > You cant expect others to toil away to benefit your "genius" Brilliant reply. Except... I never said my genius. The fact that you make up arguments and distort what I said is evidence of the emotive nature of your response. I'll invite you to improve the quality of your discourse. I have respect for people who I disagree with as long as they can show the basic decency of engaging with what I said and not behave dishonestly by making up fake and silly arguments. I really dislike sophism.
  - pavanky 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you
ivraatiems 6y ago
I am deeply sorry that the sentiment you express has been your experience. That is not the way it is or must be everywhere, and I hope you are treated better in the future. Even so, I want to say explicitly that the idea that we should allow geniuses to abuse us and harass us because they are geniuses is dangerous and misguided nonsense. Being smart is not an excuse to behave poorly. With rare exception, producing something great for the world, or believing you are working on something great, is not justification for hurting others or not taking into consideration their needs or feelings, especially when they are working for you to try to help you. I also think that your reduction of 100-hour-minimum work weeks, no free time, emotional manipulation to prevent reporting, and frequent unnecessary cruelty disguised as "advice" or "help" to "unkind comments" is absurd. If people chose this lifestyle, knowing what they were getting into, that's one thing (and even then, it would still be dubious to demand it in the first place) - but clearly the author and their peers were mislead and manipulated into it. Finally, what is illegal and what is immoral are not the same thing, and we can and should hold people, as a society, to a higher standard than "guess they didn't break the law" when we put them in positions of power over other people. Edited to add: I had the pleasure of working as an undergrad with several professors and PHD students in a research capacity. Some of these people, I would absolutely consider "geniuses" in terms of both intellect and achievements. I still speak with many of them, and consider some of them good friends. I never, not once, observed or heard of people being treated in the ways described in this article (nor was I myself), despite the relatively prestigious people I worked with and their relatively prestigious work. It is not that way everywhere.
- NicolasGorden 6y ago
  If there was serious abuse I'd 100% agree with you. One problem we have is the word abuse, based on the modern definition and usage, encompasses a range of activities from things that are only slightly unkind and rather run of the mill to extreme examples of verbal cruelty. The particular points highlighted in the article don't strike me as being on the cruel side. My understanding of the world is that the higher you rise, the thicker your skin needs to be. Of course we shouldn't tolerate gratuitous cruelty. But anyone who has ever worked with very high level people will know they can be capricious. And for most of us, getting to those high levels is an honor. Personally in my career I've provided services to successful hard to deal with entrepreneurs. Was it a PITA? Yes. Did I learn a lot? Yes. The most demanding, harsh people are those that test your meddle and forge you in fire. Not the ones that are most pleasant. The reason elite universities are elite is because they push people to the brink, they are designed to demand as much from a human being as can be demanded. See, my issue with the article has to do with the author wanting to be an elite researcher holding the highest and most elite title (a PHD) in the most elite university in the world (MIT) and not thinking it's going to be a ton of hours a week. IMO, that's how you determine who is elite and committed; by applying stress and seeing who can handle it at the highest level. I mean, logically the guy who can work 80 hours a week will do more researcher, which will compound, and far outpace the productivity of someone who works 40 hours a week. This seems like a really logical and reasonable basis for how we've set up society and I've yet to meet anyone who is elite in their field who worked only 40 hours a week to get there. Now, I'll concede: Maybe there was an accusation in that article you consider so gratuitos and bad that it's worth condemning this institution which for better or worse has figured out how to squeeze out human innovation and potential like nothing before in history. I'll also concede I might be jaded and just accepting of things that are changing and should change. And last, I believe most things should move away from reputation based systems to more meritocratic systems, so if you want to talk about removing the biggest whip that the article mentions (not being able to leave for fear of a bad reference) - I 100% support such efforts.
the_jeremy 6y ago
No one "expects" to go through life without hearing insults, but that does not mean they should be tolerated. I fully expect to continue to hear racist, homophobic statements from US politicians. I do not want to, and I want to work to change that. Sure, the real world sucks. I don't see that as a reason to prevent colleges from improving.
- NicolasGorden 6y ago
  > Sure, the real world sucks. I don't see that as a reason to prevent colleges from improving. Absolutely. The problem I see is the deterioration of educational quality that seems to correlate with this improvement. Also, at some point, you need to accept that to be elite, you need to do things that others can't and won't do. A high drop out rate to becoming elite is precisely what defines the elite title being sought.
hinkley 6y ago
You need enough hubris to overcome friction, to dismiss or at least reframe the question, "Surely if this were possible, someone else would have thought of it first, right?" But you still get one quadrant that's mostly assholes and another that's more reasonable people. For a given event, the observed population is a factor of the number of distinct occurrences and the duration of each occurrence (eg, why Apple sales numbers are smaller than usage numbers). A kind genius will know when they are beaten, and wrap up the effort. The asshole will persist (increasing duration) and deflect (increasing anecdotes, and the likelihood those anecdotes will be recalled). Essentially you have not only survivor bias in effect, but also the Availability Heuristic telling you that if it's easier to recall 5 instances of assholes instead of nice people, then there must be a lot more assholes.
ironman1478 6y ago
They already went to college. PhD students are employees doing self guided research that brings in lots of recognition and money to these institutions. They are making little money yet doing work harder than 99.9% of people. They should not be demeaned. There are many work environments that are not like this and we should not pretend like it is the norm. If it is genuinely the norm, the we should work to fix it, not just say 'thats how the world works.' we get to define how the world works. Let's make it less shitty.
- NicolasGorden 6y ago
  > Let's make it less shitty. 100%. For me, Western Capitalism has been doing this my whole life. When I was growing up, in the little town in Central America that I come from, no one EVER traveled on an aero plane. Now it's normal. It was normal for kids to not have shoes. Now it's unheard of. I hope we can continue to make the world less shitty. Also, I hope there's more niceness. I also hope the fight for niceness doesn't make the world truly shitty. There's plenty of historical examples of the fight for what's right leading to what's very wrong.
mcguire 6y ago
"Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall." This may be true. But it's not right.
- NicolasGorden 6y ago
  Yes, but the question is what are you going to do about it? I'll tell you what happens in other countries: Cut all the tall poppies down. I love my new home, America, because she doesn't do this and it happens in my original home country. I love the results of the American system, it's something I'm grateful to live in everyday. Unfortunately I've personally witness that mentality creep in here. The perniciousness of the go along to get along system is hard to describe to someone who hasn't lived it.

pavanky 6y ago

That is just a terrible terrible thing to say to excuse abuse. You cant expect others to toil away to benefit your "genius".

NicolasGorden 6y ago
> You cant expect others to toil away to benefit your "genius" Brilliant reply. Except... I never said my genius. The fact that you make up arguments and distort what I said is evidence of the emotive nature of your response. I'll invite you to improve the quality of your discourse. I have respect for people who I disagree with as long as they can show the basic decency of engaging with what I said and not behave dishonestly by making up fake and silly arguments. I really dislike sophism.
- pavanky 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generic_you

ivraatiems 6y ago

I am deeply sorry that the sentiment you express has been your experience. That is not the way it is or must be everywhere, and I hope you are treated better in the future. Even so, I want to say explicitly that the idea that we should allow geniuses to abuse us and harass us because they are geniuses is dangerous and misguided nonsense. Being smart is not an excuse to behave poorly. With rare exception, producing something great for the world, or believing you are working on something great, is not justification for hurting others or not taking into consideration their needs or feelings, especially when they are working for you to try to help you. I also think that your reduction of 100-hour-minimum work weeks, no free time, emotional manipulation to prevent reporting, and frequent unnecessary cruelty disguised as "advice" or "help" to "unkind comments" is absurd. If people chose this lifestyle, knowing what they were getting into, that's one thing (and even then, it would still be dubious to demand it in the first place) - but clearly the author and their peers were mislead and manipulated into it. Finally, what is illegal and what is immoral are not the same thing, and we can and should hold people, as a society, to a higher standard than "guess they didn't break the law" when we put them in positions of power over other people. Edited to add: I had the pleasure of working as an undergrad with several professors and PHD students in a research capacity. Some of these people, I would absolutely consider "geniuses" in terms of both intellect and achievements. I still speak with many of them, and consider some of them good friends. I never, not once, observed or heard of people being treated in the ways described in this article (nor was I myself), despite the relatively prestigious people I worked with and their relatively prestigious work. It is not that way everywhere.

NicolasGorden 6y ago
If there was serious abuse I'd 100% agree with you. One problem we have is the word abuse, based on the modern definition and usage, encompasses a range of activities from things that are only slightly unkind and rather run of the mill to extreme examples of verbal cruelty. The particular points highlighted in the article don't strike me as being on the cruel side. My understanding of the world is that the higher you rise, the thicker your skin needs to be. Of course we shouldn't tolerate gratuitous cruelty. But anyone who has ever worked with very high level people will know they can be capricious. And for most of us, getting to those high levels is an honor. Personally in my career I've provided services to successful hard to deal with entrepreneurs. Was it a PITA? Yes. Did I learn a lot? Yes. The most demanding, harsh people are those that test your meddle and forge you in fire. Not the ones that are most pleasant. The reason elite universities are elite is because they push people to the brink, they are designed to demand as much from a human being as can be demanded. See, my issue with the article has to do with the author wanting to be an elite researcher holding the highest and most elite title (a PHD) in the most elite university in the world (MIT) and not thinking it's going to be a ton of hours a week. IMO, that's how you determine who is elite and committed; by applying stress and seeing who can handle it at the highest level. I mean, logically the guy who can work 80 hours a week will do more researcher, which will compound, and far outpace the productivity of someone who works 40 hours a week. This seems like a really logical and reasonable basis for how we've set up society and I've yet to meet anyone who is elite in their field who worked only 40 hours a week to get there. Now, I'll concede: Maybe there was an accusation in that article you consider so gratuitos and bad that it's worth condemning this institution which for better or worse has figured out how to squeeze out human innovation and potential like nothing before in history. I'll also concede I might be jaded and just accepting of things that are changing and should change. And last, I believe most things should move away from reputation based systems to more meritocratic systems, so if you want to talk about removing the biggest whip that the article mentions (not being able to leave for fear of a bad reference) - I 100% support such efforts.

the_jeremy 6y ago

No one "expects" to go through life without hearing insults, but that does not mean they should be tolerated. I fully expect to continue to hear racist, homophobic statements from US politicians. I do not want to, and I want to work to change that. Sure, the real world sucks. I don't see that as a reason to prevent colleges from improving.

NicolasGorden 6y ago
> Sure, the real world sucks. I don't see that as a reason to prevent colleges from improving. Absolutely. The problem I see is the deterioration of educational quality that seems to correlate with this improvement. Also, at some point, you need to accept that to be elite, you need to do things that others can't and won't do. A high drop out rate to becoming elite is precisely what defines the elite title being sought.

hinkley 6y ago

You need enough hubris to overcome friction, to dismiss or at least reframe the question, "Surely if this were possible, someone else would have thought of it first, right?" But you still get one quadrant that's mostly assholes and another that's more reasonable people. For a given event, the observed population is a factor of the number of distinct occurrences and the duration of each occurrence (eg, why Apple sales numbers are smaller than usage numbers). A kind genius will know when they are beaten, and wrap up the effort. The asshole will persist (increasing duration) and deflect (increasing anecdotes, and the likelihood those anecdotes will be recalled). Essentially you have not only survivor bias in effect, but also the Availability Heuristic telling you that if it's easier to recall 5 instances of assholes instead of nice people, then there must be a lot more assholes.

ironman1478 6y ago

They already went to college. PhD students are employees doing self guided research that brings in lots of recognition and money to these institutions. They are making little money yet doing work harder than 99.9% of people. They should not be demeaned. There are many work environments that are not like this and we should not pretend like it is the norm. If it is genuinely the norm, the we should work to fix it, not just say 'thats how the world works.' we get to define how the world works. Let's make it less shitty.

NicolasGorden 6y ago
> Let's make it less shitty. 100%. For me, Western Capitalism has been doing this my whole life. When I was growing up, in the little town in Central America that I come from, no one EVER traveled on an aero plane. Now it's normal. It was normal for kids to not have shoes. Now it's unheard of. I hope we can continue to make the world less shitty. Also, I hope there's more niceness. I also hope the fight for niceness doesn't make the world truly shitty. There's plenty of historical examples of the fight for what's right leading to what's very wrong.

mcguire 6y ago

"Most geniuses have terrible shadows that are as dark and long as they are brilliant and tall." This may be true. But it's not right.

NicolasGorden 6y ago
Yes, but the question is what are you going to do about it? I'll tell you what happens in other countries: Cut all the tall poppies down. I love my new home, America, because she doesn't do this and it happens in my original home country. I love the results of the American system, it's something I'm grateful to live in everyday. Unfortunately I've personally witness that mentality creep in here. The perniciousness of the go along to get along system is hard to describe to someone who hasn't lived it.