Situations like this reminds me of my favorite part of Brave New World: > Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the har

Situations like this reminds me of my favorite part of Brave New World: > Not so much like drops of water, though water, it is true, can wear holes in the hardest granite; rather, drops of liquid sealing-wax, drops that adhere, incrust, incorporate themselves with what they fall on, till finally the rock is all one scarlet blob. This doesn't wear a hole into what a PhD is and erode away the foundation. It smothers it in something else, and slowly but surely we're not left with a rock, but one soft blob of wax -- totally different from what a PhD is, but slowly enough that we still pretend we're dealing with what it was.