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I interact very heavily with academics (though am thankfully no longer one myself) and one thing I can't stand is that all of them will complain endlessly about

I interact very heavily with academics (though am thankfully no longer one myself) and one thing I can't stand is that all of them will complain endlessly about the horribly abusive and broken system that academia has become, then without hesitation turn around and flog the next person in line when it's their turn to continue the process from the abusing side. As someone who once held the title of assistant professor, I have little patience for people who recognize that the system is in many ways repulsive, and yet refuse to even consider to stop playing the game because it's all that they know. The amount of bullshit being produced and regurgitated in academia needs to be called out. Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad" Academics who defend a broken system are a major factor in why that system continues to decline. I'm glad the OP wrote this article and find it expectedly discouraging that someone creeps out from the woodwork to try to shush it.

Terry_Roll 4y ago
> Academics who defend a broken system are a major factor in why that system continues to decline. Much like military & law enforcement personnel who wear their medals defending a broken system. The OP should count themselves lucky they have seen that having a few letters after their name on a piece of paper or business card doesnt cut it with many. Estate agents (realtors) have devalued the letters after name's obedience to "authority".
spicybright 4y ago
I mostly agree, but I actually think the biggest pressure is people afraid of getting kicked out. You pay your weight in gold, but if you become a pain to someone high enough on the totem pole, it's easy to get kicked out of a program, leaving you with not much. You gotta play the game to have any chance of changing things. A lot like politics, actually.
sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago
> I interact very heavily with academics (though am thankfully no longer one myself) and one thing I can't stand is that all of them will complain endlessly about the horribly abusive and broken system that academia has become, then without hesitation turn around and flog the next person in line when it's their turn to continue the process from the abusing side. Completely agree. > The amount of bullshit being produced and regurgitated in academia needs to be called out. Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad" No, it isn't. First off, I'm not in the academia. I'm not part of the "us". It doesn't affect me if person A is attacking people B. For me I don't care at all. Also, I specifically said that the problem wasn't criticism. The problem is criticism so vague it's impossible to defend, because there's nothing to address. Person A says that person B is superficial. Person B responds "no I'm not". Very substantive!
- SantalBlush 4y ago
  The HN crowd generally hates academia with a passion and will welcome any criticism of it, regardless of how vague it is.
  - buitreVirtual 4y ago
    The HN crowd hates bullshit, which is different.
    - SantalBlush 4y ago
      Well yeah, everyone thinks they hate bullshit. That doesn't mean they're good at identifying it.
- hnfong 4y ago
  "I'm someone who finished a PhD" doesn't help your claims. But I digress. The real question is, why do personal opinions like "xxx is superficial" needs to be defendable? Is academia somehow a "protected class" of individuals where we need to keep our opinions to ourselves unless we have hard evidence? Or is this a standard you hold against other PhDs? Because the OP stated they quit, so it doesn't really apply. I can totally empathize with the GP's claim that 'Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad"'. You might not be in academia per se, but it seems to me like you picked up that mode of thinking nonetheless. And no, I didn't keep my opinions to myself despite I have no proof whatsoever. Sue me for unprofessionalism please.
dleslie 4y ago
> The amount of bullshit being produced and regurgitated in academia needs to be called out. Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad" This can be generalized, I think. Professional social standards, specifically, do seem to primarily be about protecting and saving face.
bumby 4y ago
I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on what's broken, why, and what avenues are available to fix it. (Genuinely curious, I know the tone of that sentence may come across as dismissive. It wasn't intended to.)
- afr0ck 4y ago
  Academia is no more motivated by a honest interest to understand things around us, raise questions and spend time deeply thinking and genuinely coming up with solutions that really make sense and bring change to the world. A lot of researchers are very mediocre and they treat research as a simple career where they superficially advise a bunch of PhD students. A lot of those researchers neither think nor raise questions nor make meaningful contributions. Exacerbated by research grants which favours researcher with lots of publications regardless of the quality of the research (usually real honest high quality research takes time and produces much fewer papers). Those researchers thus end up chasing low hanging fruit just to increase their paper count, making everything they do shallow and full of bullshit.
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    Okay that's your problem with the system, but how would you propose to fix it? That's the important part. And be careful in your proposal that you don't end up reinventing the current system (but worse), because lots of proposals I've seen tend to go that way (coming from a place that doesn't actually understand the system they purportedly want to fix).
    - afr0ck 4y ago
      To be honest, I have no idea how to fix this. This was just an insider observation. Luckily, I am doing a PhD on systems software and I have a large support network of very smart people on the Internet in the form of contributors to large open source projects such as the Linux kernel, GCC and LLVM. My supervisor is the shallow-type of researcher, but because of my special circumstances, it's easier for me to overcome the issue. However, it may not be that easy for other people working on exotic topics such as Quantum Computing.

Terry_Roll 4y ago

> Academics who defend a broken system are a major factor in why that system continues to decline. Much like military & law enforcement personnel who wear their medals defending a broken system. The OP should count themselves lucky they have seen that having a few letters after their name on a piece of paper or business card doesnt cut it with many. Estate agents (realtors) have devalued the letters after name's obedience to "authority".

spicybright 4y ago

I mostly agree, but I actually think the biggest pressure is people afraid of getting kicked out. You pay your weight in gold, but if you become a pain to someone high enough on the totem pole, it's easy to get kicked out of a program, leaving you with not much. You gotta play the game to have any chance of changing things. A lot like politics, actually.

sdfhdhjdw3 4y ago

> I interact very heavily with academics (though am thankfully no longer one myself) and one thing I can't stand is that all of them will complain endlessly about the horribly abusive and broken system that academia has become, then without hesitation turn around and flog the next person in line when it's their turn to continue the process from the abusing side. Completely agree. > The amount of bullshit being produced and regurgitated in academia needs to be called out. Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad" No, it isn't. First off, I'm not in the academia. I'm not part of the "us". It doesn't affect me if person A is attacking people B. For me I don't care at all. Also, I specifically said that the problem wasn't criticism. The problem is criticism so vague it's impossible to defend, because there's nothing to address. Person A says that person B is superficial. Person B responds "no I'm not". Very substantive!

SantalBlush 4y ago
The HN crowd generally hates academia with a passion and will welcome any criticism of it, regardless of how vague it is.
- buitreVirtual 4y ago
  The HN crowd hates bullshit, which is different.
  - SantalBlush 4y ago
    Well yeah, everyone thinks they hate bullshit. That doesn't mean they're good at identifying it.
hnfong 4y ago
"I'm someone who finished a PhD" doesn't help your claims. But I digress. The real question is, why do personal opinions like "xxx is superficial" needs to be defendable? Is academia somehow a "protected class" of individuals where we need to keep our opinions to ourselves unless we have hard evidence? Or is this a standard you hold against other PhDs? Because the OP stated they quit, so it doesn't really apply. I can totally empathize with the GP's claim that 'Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad"'. You might not be in academia per se, but it seems to me like you picked up that mode of thinking nonetheless. And no, I didn't keep my opinions to myself despite I have no proof whatsoever. Sue me for unprofessionalism please.

dleslie 4y ago

> The amount of bullshit being produced and regurgitated in academia needs to be called out. Your definition of "unprofessional" is just "this makes us look bad" This can be generalized, I think. Professional social standards, specifically, do seem to primarily be about protecting and saving face.

bumby 4y ago

I'd be interested in hearing your perspective on what's broken, why, and what avenues are available to fix it. (Genuinely curious, I know the tone of that sentence may come across as dismissive. It wasn't intended to.)

afr0ck 4y ago
Academia is no more motivated by a honest interest to understand things around us, raise questions and spend time deeply thinking and genuinely coming up with solutions that really make sense and bring change to the world. A lot of researchers are very mediocre and they treat research as a simple career where they superficially advise a bunch of PhD students. A lot of those researchers neither think nor raise questions nor make meaningful contributions. Exacerbated by research grants which favours researcher with lots of publications regardless of the quality of the research (usually real honest high quality research takes time and produces much fewer papers). Those researchers thus end up chasing low hanging fruit just to increase their paper count, making everything they do shallow and full of bullshit.
- ModernMech 4y ago
  Okay that's your problem with the system, but how would you propose to fix it? That's the important part. And be careful in your proposal that you don't end up reinventing the current system (but worse), because lots of proposals I've seen tend to go that way (coming from a place that doesn't actually understand the system they purportedly want to fix).
  - afr0ck 4y ago
    To be honest, I have no idea how to fix this. This was just an insider observation. Luckily, I am doing a PhD on systems software and I have a large support network of very smart people on the Internet in the form of contributors to large open source projects such as the Linux kernel, GCC and LLVM. My supervisor is the shallow-type of researcher, but because of my special circumstances, it's easier for me to overcome the issue. However, it may not be that easy for other people working on exotic topics such as Quantum Computing.