[hourago]

> In academia, it’s almost impossible to say “no” to a senior faculty.

That is so strange. In the corporate world it is always easy and straightforward to say no to higher ups. They always accept a no gracefully. /S

In my experience, the best organization are the ones that are willing to get bottom up feedback. The more feedback is accepted and acted upon, the best is the organization. None gets it 100%, most are just half good at it.

> do the right and scientific thing and ruin my future in academia, or do what my peers are doing and make senior faculty like me.

Look for a middle ground. Do not make things worse if you cannot make them better. You will get small wins and wins will become bigger with time. And remember how it felt so you do not repeat the same behavior when you are at the top.

Sometimes, there are reason why things are like they are. Try to change the system instead of change people.

[YetAnotherNick]

I had a short stint in academia, and it is much easier to say no even in worst company compared to average professor. The problem is not even that the people are bad but in the setting itself, it is that there is no clear data to see the direction in which to put effort in acedemia and in IT jobs at least you could argue with clearer points for why something can't be done in some way, or why developing something would interfere with some other thing.

When two people are arguing with just opinions, the senior person assumes their choice is valid. At least for me, this was frustrating as I felt my opinions are not given any respect.

[EGreg]

“It’s as if the goal is not to do science, but to publish and tell an interesting story in your papers.”

Yup, it is the result of the profit motive. I think thanks to the Internet there has become a lot LESS respect for all kinds of views. Every blogger who has comments below can receive pushback. It wasn’t the case when people were simply publishing books with references.

I have taken advantage of this to some extent by interviewing some of the top people in what I am interested in. “Freedom of association”. I didnt even bother posting the videos as public, they are often unlisted.

Tim Berners-Lee

Noam Chomsky

Inventor of Freenet

Grandson of Milton Friedman

The author of Regulation S

Richard Heart from Hex

And so forth. A random assortment of people. Also people building new movements:

Andrew Yang

Tulsi Gabbard

Brock Pierce

Ben Swann

In general, I think people trust institutions less now, including scientists. Look at RFK Jr on Joe Rogan challenging the prevailin establishment on the coronavirus, etc.

[marcosdumay]

As a rule, on the industry you are not pushed out of the entire industry if your superior dislikes you. Instead, you get a career bump; surely with long-term consequences, but your career is not killed right there.

Academia nowadays is a hyper-competitive hellhole.

> In my experience, the best organization are the ones that are willing to get bottom up feedback.

Yes, and those are distributed about equally everywhere. What changes is the impact of the bad ones.

Anyway, a clear sign you are in one of the good places is that people don't keep asking you "yes/no" questions.

[behnamoh]

> That is so strange. In the corporate world it is always easy and straightforward to say no to higher ups. They always accept a no gracefully. /S

I know, the grass is always greener on the other side.

> Look for a middle ground. Do not make things worse if you cannot make them better. You will get small wins and wins will become bigger with time. And remember how it felt so you do not repeat the same behavior when you are at the top.

This is what I'm currently trying to do. Unsurprisingly, it takes more effort (time and energy) to solve this problem given constraints (the constraints being: make advisor happy + find a middle ground). It'd be much easier if the constraints were not there, or if I could just drop the second constraint.

[MobiusHorizons]

Would it be useful to voice your dilemma to your advisor? Something like:

When I hear your request, I am hearing you ask me to fudge the numbers so that this experiment has a more desirable outcome. Is that really what you want me to do? If not can you help me understand how to achieve what you are asking?

Also even if you can’t ask your advisor, maybe there is someone else with authority you could ask

[juve1996]

It's definitely easier to say no in a corporate setting. You have way more options than someone in academia. It's really hard to transfer and your higher ups control pretty much everything.