Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Not shocking at all. One of the stunning things to me about my grad school friends' experiences is how many had stories of dealing with deranged, abusive faculty. Shit that would have me changing jobs in a heartbeat, but they couldn't really change PhD programs, and their departments would never do a thing beyond a pained look and a shrug of shoulders.

As an aside, if you want to be able to spot abusive behavior better, I strongly recommend this book:

https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/04251...

It's the single most astute book I've ever read. The author spent years as a counselor for abusers, mostly there because a court ordered them there. It's clear that after listing to years of abuser bullshit he said, "I'm going to write it down." It's nominally target at women in abusive relationships with men, as that's what he dealt with most. But a lot of the lessons transcend the context. It helped me spot an abusive boss, for example. And the details on abuser motivations and how abuse cycles benefit the abuser have been very helpful to me in a work context as well.

Agreed. I think academia is up for its #metoo moment. Not sexual abuse, but emotional abuse. Many professors particularly the most prestigious ones (man or woman) are collosal a-holes.

Though most would say I’m flourishing in the ivory tower now as a professor at a top tier med school, my training experiences have been terrible. For example, I’d be rich if I had a dollar for every time I heard my former boss say “I don’t care about this {thing that you spent 5+ years on that I didn’t really allow you to work on anything else}”.

It's happening, off and on:

http://www.businessinsider.com/christian-ott-caltech-profess...

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/12/15/uc-davis-prof...

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...

I think a lot of people in academia would be happy if the rampant sexual abuse would get some attention. I think we know that attention on the psychological and physical abuse is a pipe dream. It would be super good to get the rapists out, though.

I think there is a common economic structure in organization that creates a-hole cultures.

Actors, PhD students, etc. enter into superstar economy where many people compete for very small number of positions with prestige, money, power, fame (or whatever the measure of success is in the field).

Each position with value has large number of potential candidates who are all good enough. It's difficult or impossible to rank the top applicants with high accuracy and objectivity. Those who are selected are receiving something of great value from their mentors for subjective or arbitrary reasons.

Normally you would use auction or some other mechanism to sell the position, but actors or PhD student's don't have that kind of money and selling a position may be seen as ethically questionable because you are supposed to select the best.

The abusive culture is the result of this extra value that is given out for subjective reasons. Movie actors can be expected sell sex to cover the gap between their innate value and the position they are getting, PhD students can be used as a slave labor for years.

To correct the situation incentives should be aligned. If PhD student works on something for 5+ years, it should cost something for the boss. Dropping out from PhD program should cost something for those who are in the position to select who gets in.

Interesting that you focus only on actors and PhD students. What you describe is true of just about any field. The superstars are, by definition, rare. Sometimes they get their due to incredible skills, sometimes by luck, most often by both. It's also often the case that superstars not necessarily the best.

This is true for superstar programmers, lawyers, basketball players, managers, machinists, and just about everyone.

It's difficult to rank anyone for almost anything, the best aren't always chosen, and people often win for talents unrelated to their core competency.

To sum it up... life isn't fair.

The difference is that in some fields there is a huge gap between the superstars and everyone else. Someone who almost became a star actor probably has a second job as a waiter. Someone who almost became a tenured professor is probably making peanuts as an adjunct. Someone who almost because a superstar programmer is probably still making six figures.

You are either overgeneralizing or focusing in the wrong aspects of superstars.

Functioning job market is antidote for subjectivity. Basketball players and many other sports have selection process and auctions and player markets. Multiple teams can evaluate the candidates and there is binding contracts where money is exchanged.

(sports is US collages may be a form of abusing cheap labor though)

Every selection process or auction contains subjectivity. Ball players are not just judged on their stats, but on their pedigree, coaches, and endorsements, the compilation of which are subjective. Fine art, which is often sold at open auctions, is completely subjective. Brands, connections, styles, and attitude are all attributes that are bought and sold, and are almost entirely subjective.

Attempting to remove subjectivity from the job application or valuation process is a worthy goal, but has not historically been terribly successful.

The mechanism I described does not arise from the subjectivity alone.

Academia will never have a metoo moment. The power structure is basically feudal and there’s no role inside professional academia for free agents. You owe your adviser fealty as a grad student, then your principal investigator as a postdoc. If you speak out before you’re a PI yourself good luck with a career in academia. Even once you are a PI that horrible, abusive asshole? They know a lot of people. They sit on editorial boards and grant committees. If you don’t end their career they’ll at minimum severely damage yours. Film is a project based economy with many relatively well defined projects. Academia has very, very poorly defined ones. The economy of power and money are totally different.

And metoo worked because people care about sex. No one cares about harrowing psychological abuse. Stars being assholes to their assistants and others isn’t an open secret. It’s common knowledge. It’s not a scandal. Everybody knows everybody knows.

Just because what you say is historically true doesn’t mean it will always be true. One would have thought the #metoo movement should have happened decades ago with women’s lib movement but here it is 2018.

Information is massively more knowable now and bad behavior isnt hiding very well anymore. I’m putting my money on a-holes not winning like they use to.

and to add the literal gas lighting I have seen. Just manipulating students into thinking they are going nuts whenever they question norms that make NO sense.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com