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> the solution evolution came up with was to program us to take our cue on that from the people around us

Exactly, I cannot agree more. One of the most striking examples of this is a classic experiment where people are no longer able to trust their own judgment in a very simple matter and are compelled to give an obviously wrong answer to avoid deviating from the norm:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

That was an interesting read. I'm not sure it actually proves your point though, seeing as two thirds of the subjects did not yield.

Also, from the end of the article:

> Asch's 1951 report emphasised the predominance of independence over yielding saying "the facts that were being judged were, under the circumstances, the most decisive." However, a 1990 survey of US introductory psychology textbooks found that most ignored independence, instead reported a misleading summary of the results as reflecting complete power of the situation to produce conformity of behavior and belief.

It's worth pointing out that 75% of the subjects did yield at some point.

"25 percent of the sample consistently defied majority opinion, with the rest conforming on some trials."

Ie, when taking the test individually, everyone got the correct answer almost all the time. But when taking the test in a group, 75% gave the incorrect answer at some point.

To be precise, he admits that it ruined his life, but he doesn't regret it. Regret is a fairly specific emotion, and not regretting something doesn't mean you think it was okay.

I do broadly agree with you, though.

Doing a PhD...?

Most PhD programs have negative return on investment, mostly because the academic job market has a glut of postdocs looking for work.

("But but but look at all of my smart grad student friends getting their PhDs! They can't all be doing something irrational, can they?!")

I guess, if your benchmark for a satisfying life is to maximize discounted future cashflow.

Maximizing discounted future cash flow often gives you the option of scaling back those hours you're trading for cash. Want more leisure time? Earn more during the hours that you are working!

HN is so myopic they cant conceive of anything else. Life is obviously an equation that can be tweaked, "hacked", and gamified.

No matter your goal(s) you can always treat it like that.

Just that with most humanly shaped goals, the formula would be too complicated to be tractable, especially since you have to account for all your guesses of the unknown. People don't even know what makes them happy before they live through it, and you can only live through so many experiences.

So we `give up' and rely on rules-of-thumb and call them wisdom. And mostly we should!

It's not all discounted future cashflow, it's discounted future utility. And a lot of people get the best part of their utility from family, friends, and relationships. Finding a reasonably prosperous position from which to secure a future with your family may be the best investment one can make.

Academia's contribution to that position is a murky proposition (added debt without added earnings potential undermines financial security). And while there are certainly immediate rewards from the pursuit of intellectual goals and from your friends at university, you can also get not-too-dissimilar rewards and more cash doing something like programming computers. And then you can use the cash to do things like: honeymoon with your wife in South America, enroll your child in a really good arts or music program, or spoil your grandchildren with a study-abroad semester in Europe.

That's an argument against going into postdoc academia, not getting the Ph.D. Getting the degree typically costs you nothing except for the time invested.

Economics tells us that an activity that takes time costs the opportunity cost of that time. Whatever else you could have done with that time, you now can't. This puts people behind where they could have been on career, savings, family relationships, and so on.

If I could live my life over, I would never have gone to grad school. And I'd have probably had kids 10 years earlier than I did.

Why kids earlier?

Don't know about btilly. Here are some general reasons:

- more overlap of your lifetime with the kids lifetime (so, see more of your kids) - get the scary parts over earlier, and enjoy more of the rest - if female, easier time conceiving

Being an older parent is no fun. Your kids run circles around you and you're _always_ tired.

Or maybe that's just parenting in general.

So I'd have more energy to enjoy them, have more of a window between them growing up and being old, and so I'd have better odds of living long enough to get to know my grandchildren.

Let's put some numbers on that. My first child was born when I was 35. I turn 48 this year, and will not have all my children in college until I'm nearly 60. I'm not looking forward to figuring out college when I'd like to retire.

Moving on, my family health history sucks - I do not have a male relative who has reached 60 without a heart attack and/or stroke. That includes 2 brothers that I know of. I'm working to take care of myself with diet+exercise, but already have hypertension. If my children have children as late as I did, there won't be a grandchild until I'm in my 70s. I have very few male relatives who survived to 70, and none arrived there with their minds intact. There is reason to believe that I could do better, but realistically there is a good chance that I won't.

I was aware of most of these facts in my 20s. They just didn't seem relevant to the life choices that I was making then. In retrospect, I wish I'd chosen differently. I won't push my children towards any particular life decisions, but I hope to give them tools to make choices that better reflect what they want in the long term than I did.

Thanks. Interesting to see the similarities across the answers here. Some things as a younger person I hadn't thought of.

"... except for the time invested"

Fundamentally, as individuals, time is all we have. Using it wisely is important.

> Most PhD programs have negative return on investment

If that's what you're looking for, you shouldn't even be considering a phd.

Many are in research to get paid for something they would otherwise do for free.

Those interested in cash will grow tired of the funding cycles and move on.

There isn't much of a financial reward in research. You believe you're on the brink of discovering something others have tried and failed to explain.

No they cannot do it for free otherwise. Research takes a lot of time, and if you're not getting money to do it you can't keep doing it (need to pay rent, food, etc). Perhaps you meant to say that the people in research would like to do that research regardless of the money it earns them; that seems true enough.

The funding cycles will also make the people not in it for the money tired, except for the ones that keep winning; it's a rat race regardless of your interest in cash. Most research is not about being "on the brink of discovering something [...]"; that is a romantic idea of research which is exceedingly rare.

I meant what I said. I believe a lot of researchers (in academia) would do it in their spare time, after hours, weekends, etc, even if it wasn't also their means for income. Their hobby and curiosities happen to align with a job that pays living wage.

Money in the bank is not the end goal for everyone. You can work a job to get paid so that one day you don't have to work anymore. Or, you can work a job that pays sufficiently and you'll happily do until your last days of life.

Lastly, most research is on the brink of discovering something. Whether or not there is a life changing impact (or application whatsoever) as a result of that discovery is another argument all together.

"Conclusion: do not put yourself in an environment where the people around you are doing bad things."

Who you "associate with matters", always has.