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That's why it's called overproduction - because there simply isn't demand for research in certain fields. The issue is society producing an elite with a skill

That's why it's called overproduction - because there simply isn't demand for research in certain fields. The issue is society producing an elite with a skill set that isn't needed.

philipov 5y ago
Suppose that the skill of the elites you produce is a normal distribution. There are only jobs for the best 0.001% of people in the field, but to get enough candidates that reach that 0.001% bar, you have to produce the other 99.999%. You're sifting through sand to try to get the flakes of gold. There might not be a need for the grains of sand that are produced by the system, but without filling the system with them, you wouldn't have been able to extract the gold that's mixed in. This is why elite overproduction occurs. Many of them may be perfectly competent individuals, but as long as employers are competing to hire only the best of the best, the system will have to massively overproduce to satisfy that demand.
- stdbrouw 5y ago
  Except that's not what is going on. Usually, when the time comes to look for a new postdoc or a new professor, there are plenty of candidates of very high talent and future potential and committees end up deciding based on low-information signals such as publication count because otherwise they'd have no clue who to prefer. Of course you want there to be more PhDs than professors to allow for an additional selection for the very top talent at that point, but the current situation is that we're producing too much sand as well as too much gold.
  - philipov 5y ago
    The place where the sand/gold analogy breaks down is that the goalposts are constantly shifting due to competition. If I've hired the best person in the world, and they're the best out of 100,000 candidates, then if someone else also wants to find the best person in the world, they'll need to be better than the current best person in the world. It may take 200,000 candidates to find that person. To keep finding someone better than the current best person in the world, you constantly need to increase the amount of sand. To find the new best person in the world, you'll produce geniuses who are as good as the old best person in the world, but they're no longer good enough to be the NEW best person in the world. So yes, we're overproducing on gold, but now we're looking for something even better than gold.
    - stdbrouw 5y ago
      This presumes (a) a highly reliable ability to identify the "best person", which we simply don't have, (b) the idea that "best" is unidimensional and unrelated to the context one finds oneself in and (c) the idea that such a "best" person will also be the one who will do most to advance science. Just take a look at a century of Nobel prize winners and you'll see that none of those assumptions hold.
      - philipov 5y ago
        The assumptions don't hold in reality, but the myth of them holds in the minds of people doing the hiring, and that is enough.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      They would cost too much. You take the second best and claim they are the best person on the market.
      - lupire 5y ago
        It doesn't cost too much, because the employer doesn't pay for it; the candidates do.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"because there simply isn't demand for research in certain fields" Our society has enormous demand for clean energy, but it has completely failed to fund fusion research. We have spent more on lipstick and casinos. So physics researchers can't get decent pay while the world is going to hell in a handbasket
- Dudeman112 5y ago
  That's a problem with how we think about demand, isn't it? If society needs some serious phlogiston research because of existential threats, but refuses to fund phlogiston research, can you say phlogiston research is in high demand?
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  The rhetorical trick here is the assumed definitions of "society" and "demand". Is there enormous "demand" for eg useless plastic garbage or non-nutritive fast food, or is that the choice-of-least-resistance offered to and taken by millions who lack the resources to consistently "choose" more "wisely", and lack the voice or knowledge to demand better choices? Or, why is food optimized for looks and uniformity rather than nutritive value? Does "society" choose how to allocate resources, or are there a handful of insanely powerful people whose hands rest lightly on an incredible variety of policy levers that they'll never move for personal financial reasons? Or, why is Australia so intent on coal production?
- simonh 5y ago
  ITER alone has absorbed about as much investment as the entire Manhattan project, in inflation adjusted terms. That’s just one project to produce a prototype reactor. Fusion has been very heavily funded, to lots of hype but very little evident progress. Sometimes throwing money at a problem just isn’t the answer.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Every year $731B is spent on US military, $380 B on makeup, 10.7 B on NSA, and measly $4 B on ITER by the whole world combined, of which US contribution is ~10% In what world is this pathetic level of funding adequate, let alone heavy? Do you realise the cost of this reactor is roughly in the same ballpark with 'normal' nuclear reactors? You claim there has been little progress, do you know that fusion has advanced faster than Moore's law?
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I thought it was less about skillset than that implies. If you structure society so that the kids of aristocrats are the only ones that have degrees in basketweaving, then you can say "to get this prestigious job you need a degree in basketweaving" and it all kind of works (for the aristocrats). Non-aristocrats then do what they've been told will lead them into the elite, and at first a few might make it in. So it all seems to be working for everyone except those too ”stupid" (i.e. poor) to pay their way through 20 years of education in basketweaving. Meritocracy in action. But as it progresses, and more and more people follow the path things go wrong. Not because there's a limit to the number of basketweaving professionals needed, but a limit to the number of people who can be elite in the society, and that piece of paper used to be the limiting factor (previously acting as a proxy for "are you already connected to the elite")
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  And this doesn't even cover the sub rosa truth that the degree was never the actual ticket to aristocracy. The degree is a necessary, but insufficient, cause of aristocratic acceptance. There will be plenty of skilled yet mysteriously impoverished basketweavers; they aren't allowed into the Serious basketweaving studios because they, er, aren't a good cultural fit. Yet, thanks to cultural factors, basketweaving has never been more popular! Bright young people pour into degree programs and reckon they'll change it from the inside! There's even good examples of that sort of thing on TV all the time! Am I talking about public policy? Or urban planning? Or law? Or computer science? Or--
  - apercu 5y ago
    I like the way your mind works.
  - wyager 5y ago
    The other way of looking at it is that the degree used to be an accurate proxy for what actually mattered, like intelligence and field interest, but now with a billion people pursuing it because the money looks good, it’s not going to be an accurate proxy anymore.
dbspin 5y ago
That's absolutely not the issue. The issue is an economic system that prioritises what can be readily produced and consumed, rather than the most degrees of freedom that can be created. Whether in terms of general purpose computing devices, or education that maximises individuals capabilities, skills and life satisfaction.
heresie-dabord 5y ago
A clear definition of "elite" is needed to make any sense of this discussion. "People with Diplomas": We have many expensive diploma mills and some effective schools. "Educated people who work in their field of study": This is an unnecessary constraint on talent and interest. Also, education does not equate to talent or interest. "Rich People": We appear to have many, both conspicuous and inconspicuous. You're in the planetary top decile if you have healthcare, shelter, clean air, food, and water, and safety. "Leaders": We have a system to generate simulacra that protect the corporate assets. "Brilliant minds": Hard to produce by traditional means. We print diplomas instead.

That's why it's called overproduction - because there simply isn't demand for research in certain fields. The issue is society producing an elite with a skill set that isn't needed.

philipov 5y ago

Suppose that the skill of the elites you produce is a normal distribution. There are only jobs for the best 0.001% of people in the field, but to get enough candidates that reach that 0.001% bar, you have to produce the other 99.999%. You're sifting through sand to try to get the flakes of gold. There might not be a need for the grains of sand that are produced by the system, but without filling the system with them, you wouldn't have been able to extract the gold that's mixed in. This is why elite overproduction occurs. Many of them may be perfectly competent individuals, but as long as employers are competing to hire only the best of the best, the system will have to massively overproduce to satisfy that demand.

stdbrouw 5y ago
Except that's not what is going on. Usually, when the time comes to look for a new postdoc or a new professor, there are plenty of candidates of very high talent and future potential and committees end up deciding based on low-information signals such as publication count because otherwise they'd have no clue who to prefer. Of course you want there to be more PhDs than professors to allow for an additional selection for the very top talent at that point, but the current situation is that we're producing too much sand as well as too much gold.
- philipov 5y ago
  The place where the sand/gold analogy breaks down is that the goalposts are constantly shifting due to competition. If I've hired the best person in the world, and they're the best out of 100,000 candidates, then if someone else also wants to find the best person in the world, they'll need to be better than the current best person in the world. It may take 200,000 candidates to find that person. To keep finding someone better than the current best person in the world, you constantly need to increase the amount of sand. To find the new best person in the world, you'll produce geniuses who are as good as the old best person in the world, but they're no longer good enough to be the NEW best person in the world. So yes, we're overproducing on gold, but now we're looking for something even better than gold.
  - stdbrouw 5y ago
    This presumes (a) a highly reliable ability to identify the "best person", which we simply don't have, (b) the idea that "best" is unidimensional and unrelated to the context one finds oneself in and (c) the idea that such a "best" person will also be the one who will do most to advance science. Just take a look at a century of Nobel prize winners and you'll see that none of those assumptions hold.
    - philipov 5y ago
      The assumptions don't hold in reality, but the myth of them holds in the minds of people doing the hiring, and that is enough.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    They would cost too much. You take the second best and claim they are the best person on the market.
    - lupire 5y ago
      It doesn't cost too much, because the employer doesn't pay for it; the candidates do.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"because there simply isn't demand for research in certain fields" Our society has enormous demand for clean energy, but it has completely failed to fund fusion research. We have spent more on lipstick and casinos. So physics researchers can't get decent pay while the world is going to hell in a handbasket

Dudeman112 5y ago
That's a problem with how we think about demand, isn't it? If society needs some serious phlogiston research because of existential threats, but refuses to fund phlogiston research, can you say phlogiston research is in high demand?
revolvingocelot 5y ago
The rhetorical trick here is the assumed definitions of "society" and "demand". Is there enormous "demand" for eg useless plastic garbage or non-nutritive fast food, or is that the choice-of-least-resistance offered to and taken by millions who lack the resources to consistently "choose" more "wisely", and lack the voice or knowledge to demand better choices? Or, why is food optimized for looks and uniformity rather than nutritive value? Does "society" choose how to allocate resources, or are there a handful of insanely powerful people whose hands rest lightly on an incredible variety of policy levers that they'll never move for personal financial reasons? Or, why is Australia so intent on coal production?
simonh 5y ago
ITER alone has absorbed about as much investment as the entire Manhattan project, in inflation adjusted terms. That’s just one project to produce a prototype reactor. Fusion has been very heavily funded, to lots of hype but very little evident progress. Sometimes throwing money at a problem just isn’t the answer.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Every year $731B is spent on US military, $380 B on makeup, 10.7 B on NSA, and measly $4 B on ITER by the whole world combined, of which US contribution is ~10% In what world is this pathetic level of funding adequate, let alone heavy? Do you realise the cost of this reactor is roughly in the same ballpark with 'normal' nuclear reactors? You claim there has been little progress, do you know that fusion has advanced faster than Moore's law?

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

I thought it was less about skillset than that implies. If you structure society so that the kids of aristocrats are the only ones that have degrees in basketweaving, then you can say "to get this prestigious job you need a degree in basketweaving" and it all kind of works (for the aristocrats). Non-aristocrats then do what they've been told will lead them into the elite, and at first a few might make it in. So it all seems to be working for everyone except those too ”stupid" (i.e. poor) to pay their way through 20 years of education in basketweaving. Meritocracy in action. But as it progresses, and more and more people follow the path things go wrong. Not because there's a limit to the number of basketweaving professionals needed, but a limit to the number of people who can be elite in the society, and that piece of paper used to be the limiting factor (previously acting as a proxy for "are you already connected to the elite")

revolvingocelot 5y ago
And this doesn't even cover the sub rosa truth that the degree was never the actual ticket to aristocracy. The degree is a necessary, but insufficient, cause of aristocratic acceptance. There will be plenty of skilled yet mysteriously impoverished basketweavers; they aren't allowed into the Serious basketweaving studios because they, er, aren't a good cultural fit. Yet, thanks to cultural factors, basketweaving has never been more popular! Bright young people pour into degree programs and reckon they'll change it from the inside! There's even good examples of that sort of thing on TV all the time! Am I talking about public policy? Or urban planning? Or law? Or computer science? Or--
- apercu 5y ago
  I like the way your mind works.
- wyager 5y ago
  The other way of looking at it is that the degree used to be an accurate proxy for what actually mattered, like intelligence and field interest, but now with a billion people pursuing it because the money looks good, it’s not going to be an accurate proxy anymore.

dbspin 5y ago

That's absolutely not the issue. The issue is an economic system that prioritises what can be readily produced and consumed, rather than the most degrees of freedom that can be created. Whether in terms of general purpose computing devices, or education that maximises individuals capabilities, skills and life satisfaction.

heresie-dabord 5y ago

A clear definition of "elite" is needed to make any sense of this discussion. "People with Diplomas": We have many expensive diploma mills and some effective schools. "Educated people who work in their field of study": This is an unnecessary constraint on talent and interest. Also, education does not equate to talent or interest. "Rich People": We appear to have many, both conspicuous and inconspicuous. You're in the planetary top decile if you have healthcare, shelter, clean air, food, and water, and safety. "Leaders": We have a system to generate simulacra that protect the corporate assets. "Brilliant minds": Hard to produce by traditional means. We print diplomas instead.