Maybe a correction is needed. Academia has become so gamified. It's supposed to be about ideas, truth, beauty. Too many are in it for the prestige, which has ironically made it less prestigious.
I can't speak for other fields, but this does seem true of computer science. I worked in a university lab for a couple years and knew many PhD students, and most of them were most interested in leveraging the PhD to make more money in industry.
I think the issue, should that be an issue, is in industry setting unrealistic requirements for education. There certainly are some jobs where the work is true research and a PhD can be a good indication of experience in that, but a great many PhD-locked careers are not really so research oriented. Requiring a PhD to demonstrate expertise in something that makes up 10% of a job is excessive and creates this system where people do 4-5 year PhD programs just to check off a box for the resume filter.
I don't disagree with you really, although the reasons for that are complicated.
Everyone wants the benefits of research but no one wants to pay for it, and slowly over the last three or four decades administrations have pushed researchers into these Faustian bargains that have led to the system have today. A lot of what we have is a pyramid scheme, but that pyramid scheme exists in part because people somewhere along the legislator-funder-administrative chain decided that is what would be rewarded. Once it started and was encouraged it snowballed.
All of it is made worse by governments that don't seem to understand the problems or implications of their decisions. Anti-immigration laws (not talking about the US here actually necessarily) hurts enrollment, which has downstream effects even though that immigration is bringing in net income. Yes, indirect costs are gamified sometimes, and there should be some accountability system put in place with researcher protections (the original point of tenure), but no, that doesn't mean just cutting indirect costs down to some unsustainable level that doesn't reflect real costs.
Also to be fair there's a lot of this gamification and false prestige that happens all over the US and world economy, we just don't like to admit it. I think it's one of the defining problems of our time probably.
Academia is about whatever the academics want it to be.
Personally, I think it’s a system for “experiments”: projects that mostly produce negligible real-world impact, but occasionally lead to major advances (“breakthroughs”). Whereas industry focuses on projects that are likely to succeed, and industry research focuses on projects that are less likely but not as risky as academia permits.
In that respect, I agree there’s an issue with prestige. I think it’s largely because of “publish or perish”: academics aren’t risky because they have to publish ‘quality’ papers, and papers on rejected hypothesis aren’t published and/or considered ‘quality’; and those who still take risks, don’t end up as powerful or get as many students, as those who “play the game”. Some people also say it's because academics naturally have high egos, but I disagree, because if anything, a high ego would make someone more likely to take risks (and focus on "ideas, truth, beauty" which 'only a genius can understand', vs boring practical results that anyone can produce).
Ironically, industry has somewhat recently created breakthroughs via venture capitalists (like YC), who fund many risky projects expecting only a couple to succeed (because they also expect the returns from the couple successful projects to recoup the losses from all the failed ones). But nowadays, it seems even VCs are avoiding experiments, focusing mainly on AI (which is arguably an experiment, but even if so, a single one; "couple successes recoup many failures" doesn't work if most of the projects will all succeed or fail together).
I think the problematic current software development industry is the result of too many safe and short-term projects and not enough risky and long-term experiments, which isn't an uncommon view. But, I guess a more uncommon view, I think that means we need more academics.
> Academia is not about truth or beauty and never was.
I feel this idea is tired--like a 1978 Ford Pinto banged up and running on worn out re-treads. Will it go somewhere? Maybe, but not too far, not comfortably, and unlikely to end up where you want it.
Academia started as medicine, math, theology, and philosophy, if memory serves, and has given us so much of the basic research that leads to the applied technologies we have today.
The incentive structures get weird, certainly, like resources on the Serengeti.
rhines|1 year ago
I think the issue, should that be an issue, is in industry setting unrealistic requirements for education. There certainly are some jobs where the work is true research and a PhD can be a good indication of experience in that, but a great many PhD-locked careers are not really so research oriented. Requiring a PhD to demonstrate expertise in something that makes up 10% of a job is excessive and creates this system where people do 4-5 year PhD programs just to check off a box for the resume filter.
glial|1 year ago
This sounds like a market dynamic to me. If it were difficult to find qualified candidates, requirements would be lowered.
Just leaving this here... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_overproduction
derbOac|1 year ago
Everyone wants the benefits of research but no one wants to pay for it, and slowly over the last three or four decades administrations have pushed researchers into these Faustian bargains that have led to the system have today. A lot of what we have is a pyramid scheme, but that pyramid scheme exists in part because people somewhere along the legislator-funder-administrative chain decided that is what would be rewarded. Once it started and was encouraged it snowballed.
All of it is made worse by governments that don't seem to understand the problems or implications of their decisions. Anti-immigration laws (not talking about the US here actually necessarily) hurts enrollment, which has downstream effects even though that immigration is bringing in net income. Yes, indirect costs are gamified sometimes, and there should be some accountability system put in place with researcher protections (the original point of tenure), but no, that doesn't mean just cutting indirect costs down to some unsustainable level that doesn't reflect real costs.
Also to be fair there's a lot of this gamification and false prestige that happens all over the US and world economy, we just don't like to admit it. I think it's one of the defining problems of our time probably.
armchairhacker|1 year ago
Personally, I think it’s a system for “experiments”: projects that mostly produce negligible real-world impact, but occasionally lead to major advances (“breakthroughs”). Whereas industry focuses on projects that are likely to succeed, and industry research focuses on projects that are less likely but not as risky as academia permits.
In that respect, I agree there’s an issue with prestige. I think it’s largely because of “publish or perish”: academics aren’t risky because they have to publish ‘quality’ papers, and papers on rejected hypothesis aren’t published and/or considered ‘quality’; and those who still take risks, don’t end up as powerful or get as many students, as those who “play the game”. Some people also say it's because academics naturally have high egos, but I disagree, because if anything, a high ego would make someone more likely to take risks (and focus on "ideas, truth, beauty" which 'only a genius can understand', vs boring practical results that anyone can produce).
Ironically, industry has somewhat recently created breakthroughs via venture capitalists (like YC), who fund many risky projects expecting only a couple to succeed (because they also expect the returns from the couple successful projects to recoup the losses from all the failed ones). But nowadays, it seems even VCs are avoiding experiments, focusing mainly on AI (which is arguably an experiment, but even if so, a single one; "couple successes recoup many failures" doesn't work if most of the projects will all succeed or fail together).
I think the problematic current software development industry is the result of too many safe and short-term projects and not enough risky and long-term experiments, which isn't an uncommon view. But, I guess a more uncommon view, I think that means we need more academics.
Almondsetat|1 year ago
soared|1 year ago
tomrod|1 year ago
I feel this idea is tired--like a 1978 Ford Pinto banged up and running on worn out re-treads. Will it go somewhere? Maybe, but not too far, not comfortably, and unlikely to end up where you want it.
Academia started as medicine, math, theology, and philosophy, if memory serves, and has given us so much of the basic research that leads to the applied technologies we have today.
The incentive structures get weird, certainly, like resources on the Serengeti.
ashton314|1 year ago
jaco6|1 year ago
[deleted]