6 ms·
Funny, as someone who works in private sector, I always had the opposite view of academia: A zero-sum system based around a fixed pool of grants and positions
by tjwebbnorfolk 1y ago
Funny, as someone who works in private sector, I always had the opposite view of academia:
A zero-sum system based around a fixed pool of grants and positions that everyone competes for, and a terminal job ladder position where, once reached by successfully having competed for aforementioned grant $$, I become un-fireable.
I would have to sleep with a gun under my pillow in such a world.
There's already plenty of cheating in business, which is full of positive-sum win-win opportunities. I don't even want to imagine how badly I might behave in academia just in order to survive.
- physicsguy 1y ago> I become un-fireable That's not been true in most countries for a long time
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoDepends what you do. Yes you can get fired, but you have to do some really nasty things (embezzlement, sexual assault, etc) to get fired.
- labcomputer 1y agoYou are un-fireable for the usual reasons for which people outside academia worry about being fired. Layoffs aren't a thing in academia. Poor performance in the classroom isn't punishable. Failure to bring in grants isn't punishable. You can't be fired for disagreeing with your boss. You can (in most cases) publicly criticize the administration you work for, and advocate for many (yes, not all) controversial ideas.
- physicsguy 1y agoThis is totally not true in my country (UK). Staff are laid off. Tenure doesn't exist. Departments are not closed.
- aydyn 1y agoBut thats UK, a small backwater island
- physicsguy 1y agoA small backwater island with 4 universities in the top 10 of worldwide rankings and outperformance in the top 100 too?
- aydyn 1y agoyeah
- zipy124 1y agoThey are, but extremely infrequently and when they are it is minor numbers, at least at the largest universities. And when they are laid off it is for financial reasons not performance.
- physicsguy 1y agoNot sure if you're following the news, but almost every university is in financial trouble at the moment.
- jltsiren 1y agoThat's an American thing. By default, you can fire anyone at any time for no reason. Universities then overcompensate and give extensive protections for tenured faculty. In Europe, it's more common that a professor has roughly the same job security as a teenager in their first real job. There are some exceptions due to academic freedom, but they are mostly about the substance of the work rather than the performance in it. And other independent professionals, such as doctors, lawyers, and civil engineers, often have similar exceptions.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y agoLook up "rubber rooms". They sequester teachers and professors accused of sexual harassment of children, and keep paying them, because they cannot be fired. Look up teachers' and academics' unions (e.g. AAUP), and the contracts they have in place to keep them from being fired. You have no idea what you're talking about.
- physicsguy 1y ago> in most countries Not every country is the US, lots of Hackernews audience isn't in the US
- 77pt77 1y agoAcademia. Nowhere else do people fight so much and so dirty for so little.
- karmakurtisaani 1y agoStudent politics, perhaps.
- snapcaster 1y agoWhy do people say "so little". How is an appointment to a high prestige job for life small stakes?
- aaronbaugher 1y agoIt's a slam on how petty many of the internal grudge matches are. But of course they don't seem at all petty to those engaged in them.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y agoAt the state university in my smaller city, an actual professorship (not some adjunct) earns up towards $200k/year salary. Maybe pretty modest by FAANG standards, but for many people outside of tech that sounds like a lottery jackpot. So it's not just prestige, though that's on offer too.
- pohl 1y agoEspecially once you factor in the lower cost of living (relative to FAANG jobs) in that smaller city.
- hyperbovine 1y agoDon't forget 3-4 months off in the summer too.
- Fomite 1y agoProfessors don't get the summer off. If you have a heavy teaching load, summers are your one window to get research work done. If you don't, like me, the difference between the summer and the rest of the year is its easier to find parking.
- ocschwar 1y agoFrom 1945 to about 2000, academia in the western world was slowly growing. That made the pool of positions not-quite-zero-sum, and way too many people went into it expecting a much more genial environment.
- tjwebbnorfolk 1y agoIf the pool grows at the same rate as the academics who need money from the pool, it's zero-sum. If the pool were ever to grow more slowly, then it's a negative-sum game. That's when all hell breaks loose -- by many accounts, this is unfolding now. In other words, the academics do not grow the pool through their own actions, as in private business. They are forever reliant on the kindness of strangers.
- whatshisface 1y agoThat's not quite right. Academics do grow the pool through public outreach and demonstrating value to companies which lobby the government to fund them, but since there is usually one big pool (such as the NSF budget), it is impossible for people to grow their own pool directly. It's closer to working at a large company, where your impact on earnings is next to nonexistent and your career is determined by the beliefs of the people around you about your impacts on them.
- nothercastle 1y agoNegative sum is the worst outcome. Only the cheaters win in that scenario and they slowly eat the legitimate players, then the weak cheats so only the biggest cheaters remain. The entire pool is then tainted. We have acquired a couple such companies and the people that survived that environment are some of the most toxic players you ever meet. They are also really good at the game so they immediately rise to power and begin to devour their next victim.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- 1y ago