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Moreover, your freedom is severely restricted by the scientific approach demanded by computer science. It is hard to fund/publish novel ideas that are not easy

Moreover, your freedom is severely restricted by the scientific approach demanded by computer science. It is hard to fund/publish novel ideas that are not easy to evaluate. What? That's the point -- science is hard. If it weren't hard it wouldn't be worth doing. I guess you could argue that academia is bad because you don't get to sit around and jerk off and collect a pay check, and you'd be right, but you would completely be missing the point. For me, academia is about examining the limits of our knowledge in a field and then working to expand it. The freedom you have is only an illusion. What good is this freedom if your grant proposals / papers get rejected? Fantastic! It means you are not good enough! (or your idea isn't anyway) The scientific community does not accept substandard research or conclusions and rightly so. Academia is not fun and games but it can be rewarding in its own way.

amichail 17y ago
I don't care about advancement of a field. I care about working on novel ideas that are of interest to me.
- foldr 17y ago
  Academia can often be a good place to do that, but it depends on exactly what you are working on. I don't know of anywhere else where I could get paid to work on what I find interesting (but I am not a computer scientist). One thing you're missing here is the collaborative aspect of academia. Most people work much better when they're constantly in contact with other people who are experts in their areas of interest. In many subjects, you just have to be in an academic environment to get that, since there isn't a culture of online discussion. For example, there is very little high quality discussion of philosophy online. (For whatever reason, the best philosophers just don't engage in it.) If you're trying to do serious intellectual work, don't kid yourself that you can work out for yourself whether you've got it right or not. You need other experts to tell you when you're full of crap.

amichail 17y ago

I don't care about advancement of a field. I care about working on novel ideas that are of interest to me.

foldr 17y ago
Academia can often be a good place to do that, but it depends on exactly what you are working on. I don't know of anywhere else where I could get paid to work on what I find interesting (but I am not a computer scientist). One thing you're missing here is the collaborative aspect of academia. Most people work much better when they're constantly in contact with other people who are experts in their areas of interest. In many subjects, you just have to be in an academic environment to get that, since there isn't a culture of online discussion. For example, there is very little high quality discussion of philosophy online. (For whatever reason, the best philosophers just don't engage in it.) If you're trying to do serious intellectual work, don't kid yourself that you can work out for yourself whether you've got it right or not. You need other experts to tell you when you're full of crap.