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GP here - I honestly think we're honestly mostly in agreement! It's obviously not a completely worthless institution - there have clearly been some impressive

GP here - I honestly think we're honestly mostly in agreement! It's obviously not a completely worthless institution - there have clearly been some impressive discoveries despite all of the bullshit. I think the main source of distrust comes from the jarring disconnect between the way that the institution is presented to the public vs. the way it actually functions in real life. "Messy" is a beautiful way to describe things from the inside.

emilsedgh 5y ago
Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. But academia is really accessible to public nowadays. The problem, in my opinion, is how external entities treat science. Some examples: * Media reporting low grade papers as "Science" which constantly contradict each other. "Scientists found out $something causes cancer", then a year after that "Scientists found out $thatsamething cures cancer * Pseudo scientific drugs being sold for a health-and-beauty-obsessed general public with little to no effect * Political think tanks funding flawed research to push their own agenda and heavily echoing those researches in their echelons for political gain It seems that academia has become a foundation for other entities to cling on for profit, and now the it's the acamedia's reputation that has been shattered.
- AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. There absolutely is. Scientists and universities are constantly declaring themselves to be bastions of reason and enlightenment, and their research that they themselves know is shit to be of great significance and rigor. I'm not even talking about the outright corruption that you mentioned - just the more mundane things like researchers publishing papers with completely useless/misleading information (e.g. testing a ML algorithm on a single dataset and declaring it as a breakthrough in neurosignal decoding) just to get those updoots from your mates.
- beerandt 5y ago
  Even when something in academia doesn't have an agenda, it will be interpreted by everyone else as if it does. Despite all the brilliant minds and appearance of professionalism and pride and campus pageantry... it's easily a much more insecure, drama-filled, immature, and petty social dynamic and environment than most high schools. That seems imo to be due to a combination of academia itself and a govt (or govt style) administration apparatus, where everyone is constantly trying convince everyone else of the importance of what it is they do.
  - mach1ne 5y ago
    I don't remember where I got the quote, but it fits: "Competition in academia is so dirty and brutal because the stakes are so low."
BongoMcCat 5y ago
The problem here is that your initial post, critical of how academia is presented, reads as very black and white to me. I get the feeling that you claim that it is all fraud and lies, and that those who disagree can see no wrong with it at all. Then someone responds with a nuanced reply, something that I, as someone who lives in a university town in Sweden, have the impression that almost everyone in academia actually agrees with. And then it turns out that you also mostly agree. So, now I'm asking myself (and you): Why did I read that first post of yours as so hostile? As someone who was actively trying to create mistrust? Is it just because how the debate climate is on the internet, or should you perhaps consider trying to be a bit more nuanced when communicating on the internet?
- moonchrome 5y ago
  >Why did I read that first post of yours as so hostile? As someone who was actively trying to create mistrust? I think this happens all the time - popular opinion swings far in one direction, criticisms then go in the opposite direction as disillusionment and problems get exemplified, again too far, back and forth, rediscovering the lessons of the past and settling down.

emilsedgh 5y ago

Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. But academia is really accessible to public nowadays. The problem, in my opinion, is how external entities treat science. Some examples: * Media reporting low grade papers as "Science" which constantly contradict each other. "Scientists found out $something causes cancer", then a year after that "Scientists found out $thatsamething cures cancer * Pseudo scientific drugs being sold for a health-and-beauty-obsessed general public with little to no effect * Political think tanks funding flawed research to push their own agenda and heavily echoing those researches in their echelons for political gain It seems that academia has become a foundation for other entities to cling on for profit, and now the it's the acamedia's reputation that has been shattered.

AussieWog93 5y ago
>Your comment makes it sound like there's an agenda in some entity consciously misrepresenting how acamedia works. There absolutely is. Scientists and universities are constantly declaring themselves to be bastions of reason and enlightenment, and their research that they themselves know is shit to be of great significance and rigor. I'm not even talking about the outright corruption that you mentioned - just the more mundane things like researchers publishing papers with completely useless/misleading information (e.g. testing a ML algorithm on a single dataset and declaring it as a breakthrough in neurosignal decoding) just to get those updoots from your mates.
beerandt 5y ago
Even when something in academia doesn't have an agenda, it will be interpreted by everyone else as if it does. Despite all the brilliant minds and appearance of professionalism and pride and campus pageantry... it's easily a much more insecure, drama-filled, immature, and petty social dynamic and environment than most high schools. That seems imo to be due to a combination of academia itself and a govt (or govt style) administration apparatus, where everyone is constantly trying convince everyone else of the importance of what it is they do.
- mach1ne 5y ago
  I don't remember where I got the quote, but it fits: "Competition in academia is so dirty and brutal because the stakes are so low."

BongoMcCat 5y ago

The problem here is that your initial post, critical of how academia is presented, reads as very black and white to me. I get the feeling that you claim that it is all fraud and lies, and that those who disagree can see no wrong with it at all. Then someone responds with a nuanced reply, something that I, as someone who lives in a university town in Sweden, have the impression that almost everyone in academia actually agrees with. And then it turns out that you also mostly agree. So, now I'm asking myself (and you): Why did I read that first post of yours as so hostile? As someone who was actively trying to create mistrust? Is it just because how the debate climate is on the internet, or should you perhaps consider trying to be a bit more nuanced when communicating on the internet?

moonchrome 5y ago
>Why did I read that first post of yours as so hostile? As someone who was actively trying to create mistrust? I think this happens all the time - popular opinion swings far in one direction, criticisms then go in the opposite direction as disillusionment and problems get exemplified, again too far, back and forth, rediscovering the lessons of the past and settling down.