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From personal experience, it is all I've seen. Could anyone be in a position to extrapolate to all of academia without speaking from personal experience? I'm no

From personal experience, it is all I've seen. Could anyone be in a position to extrapolate to all of academia without speaking from personal experience? I'm not speaking of all academics (hence 'most'). It's a statement similar to "Hollywood has a drug problem" or something of that sort. My advice to anyone going into Hollywood would be to stay away from drugs; my advice to anyone going into academia is to treat every interaction as if you've just sat at a poker table in Las Vegas.

georgeecollins 2y ago
I work in Hollywood. I am not sure it has more of a drug problem more than say tech or finance. Maybe it does-- I don't know. The point is when a celebrity is a drug addict you hear about it. When a banker or a lawyer is you don't. Our experience of things has a lot of bias toward what we want to hear. Generalization plays into sterotypes and ideology.
- CarpaDorada 2y ago
  I believe that tech and finance also have a drug problem. Those that sell expensive drugs like cocaine go after rich clients. You work in Hollywood, but have you been attending wild private parties? I've worked in academia and I was in the thick of it, I've experienced first hand the fraud I'm talking about, and it was a large part of my experience, not some side note. Perhaps it's an uncomfortable truth that academia is in the state it is in, but again, it is of utmost importance to warn younger people to its perils. (Act as if you're at a poker table at all times.) In any case, how do you know that it isn't your biases that prevent you from considering what I describe? What is so surprising with the claim that people who are very incentivized to steal and commit fraud do so if they are not punished for it? edit: and it's not things I've heard, instead it is direct experiences, i.e. people stole my work, and things like that. As a graduate student to watch professors come to you with problem X, take what you've said (an actual solution) and publish a paper without attribute, that sort of thing; to report it and have nothing be done about it, et cetera, and on it goes, it's just instance after instance of such behavior, or the million ways in which they are careful to trick you into working on their problems without receiving attribute. One such trick for example, that again happened to me, is that after a conference talk I got into an e-mail discussion where I explained my approach; I was told that "they already have these results" (the trick here was to divulge less in the talk than what was currently known in order to be able to avoid "significant progress by another person" in the case another person does share new progress that they have already established, and hence not having to share attribution.) It turned out that our discussion was enough for them to go from n=3,4 to a general formula involving primes, because I pointed out a certain property they had not noticed. This is just a single example of the sorts of tricks, aside from total fraud, that happen, and one of the milder incidents I had happen to me.
slashdave 2y ago
> you'll realize the academic dishonesty policy is essentially the playbook by which academics behave If you are unable to "extrapolate to all of academia" then I suggest you be more selective in your statements.
- CarpaDorada 2y ago
  I extrapolate to all of academia, but not to all academics (persons working in academia). My methodology is based on my intuition and my experiences. Already in this YC article the comments appear to be akin to the first meeting between battered housewives. You don't have to believe me or others, I'm just issuing a warning to anyone thinking of getting into academia: be alarmed and alert, and always careful. It's nothing like the movies portray academia to be, instead it's a thieves den, or a poker table, etc, you get the point.
  - slashdave 2y ago
    Sorry that your experience in academia has been so negative in this regard. If it is any consolation, mine has been the opposite.

georgeecollins 2y ago

I work in Hollywood. I am not sure it has more of a drug problem more than say tech or finance. Maybe it does-- I don't know. The point is when a celebrity is a drug addict you hear about it. When a banker or a lawyer is you don't. Our experience of things has a lot of bias toward what we want to hear. Generalization plays into sterotypes and ideology.

CarpaDorada 2y ago
I believe that tech and finance also have a drug problem. Those that sell expensive drugs like cocaine go after rich clients. You work in Hollywood, but have you been attending wild private parties? I've worked in academia and I was in the thick of it, I've experienced first hand the fraud I'm talking about, and it was a large part of my experience, not some side note. Perhaps it's an uncomfortable truth that academia is in the state it is in, but again, it is of utmost importance to warn younger people to its perils. (Act as if you're at a poker table at all times.) In any case, how do you know that it isn't your biases that prevent you from considering what I describe? What is so surprising with the claim that people who are very incentivized to steal and commit fraud do so if they are not punished for it? edit: and it's not things I've heard, instead it is direct experiences, i.e. people stole my work, and things like that. As a graduate student to watch professors come to you with problem X, take what you've said (an actual solution) and publish a paper without attribute, that sort of thing; to report it and have nothing be done about it, et cetera, and on it goes, it's just instance after instance of such behavior, or the million ways in which they are careful to trick you into working on their problems without receiving attribute. One such trick for example, that again happened to me, is that after a conference talk I got into an e-mail discussion where I explained my approach; I was told that "they already have these results" (the trick here was to divulge less in the talk than what was currently known in order to be able to avoid "significant progress by another person" in the case another person does share new progress that they have already established, and hence not having to share attribution.) It turned out that our discussion was enough for them to go from n=3,4 to a general formula involving primes, because I pointed out a certain property they had not noticed. This is just a single example of the sorts of tricks, aside from total fraud, that happen, and one of the milder incidents I had happen to me.

slashdave 2y ago

> you'll realize the academic dishonesty policy is essentially the playbook by which academics behave If you are unable to "extrapolate to all of academia" then I suggest you be more selective in your statements.

CarpaDorada 2y ago
I extrapolate to all of academia, but not to all academics (persons working in academia). My methodology is based on my intuition and my experiences. Already in this YC article the comments appear to be akin to the first meeting between battered housewives. You don't have to believe me or others, I'm just issuing a warning to anyone thinking of getting into academia: be alarmed and alert, and always careful. It's nothing like the movies portray academia to be, instead it's a thieves den, or a poker table, etc, you get the point.
- slashdave 2y ago
  Sorry that your experience in academia has been so negative in this regard. If it is any consolation, mine has been the opposite.