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Comment by Tehchops | Hacker News Reader

I worry there are long-term implications to the exodus of intellectual capital from academia -> industry.

However, I don't blame anyone who makes this obvious choice:

A)Years of underpaid, thankless, exhausting work, for a... fractional probability of getting even a livable wage.

Contrast this with:

B)$techCo, where even a decent undergrad CV will get you a six-figure job, advancement opportunities, and maybe even a modicum of respect.

What sane(or not blindly idealistic) individual would willingly choose option A?

If there isn't some kind of concerted effort by higher-ed orgs to reduce the administrative and bureaucratic overhead of post-grad education, it's going to have long-lasting consequences.

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Note that this also depends on field. For example, public health tends to have a much higher proportion of it's graduates be able to stay in the field. At the same time, physics (and applied math) is remarkable for just how mobile their graduates are, thanks to considerable overlap between the skills needed for modern physics research and several industries.

In contrast, biology PhD students, for example, don't have nearly as obvious an industry-based pathway.

Also, having taken Option A, it's not quite as clear as you lay it out to be.

I'm not in biology, but I imagine that doctorates in biology depending on their specialization could find work in biotech.

Industry was the pathway for doctorates in chemistry & the life sciences until 2008, when the jobs went away. With a physics degree you have a decent grounding in mathematics and programming, so you can go to work on Wall Street, in the life sciences, not so much.

Wall St., data science, etc. Way more pathways than the life sciences, which had biotech, at best.

I have a huge beef with academia and science and all as it exists today, but your description misses how thankless and exhausting $techCO jobs can also be, on top of working for companies like fb or google that are endlessly wrapped in intrigue, or working hard for what at the end of the day is a mundane purpose like increasing ad revenue which is fundamentally about making other people more wealthy than you.

A lot of the issues with academia depends on what specialization you choose, especially if you choose something closely related to theory. Particle physics is a great example of this and given that those who popularize science seem to hold up such pursuits as "pure", "fundamental", and thus important.

My favorite though is the all the masters and phds that end up teaching k-12.

I know a couple of people who went into a masters/phd programs with the intention of teaching in schools later after finishing. They wanted to learn some mental skills and they wanted to dedicate their lives to teaching. Nothing wrong with it.

I just dont think its economically efficient. It would seem like a huge waste of talent and potential.

That’s funny, seems like reinvesting to me. Better long term returns.

Let me put it in worker placement board game terms.

If you have invested in making a worker scientist you probably want to place them on the location where you get a chance of getting a Tech upgrade. You likely dont want to place them on the location where you have a chance of upgrading another worker to a scientist worker when a much less specialized worker will do. And if you have too many tech upgrades then it makes no sense to try to upgrade normal workers to scientist workers.

Anyone that plays games actually has an intuitive sense of economic calculation.

I think there’s societal level value in having normal workers with a better appreciation for and understanding of science. Something like at a particular saturation level: +10% bonus to research lab output, 25% reduction of policy update costs with presence of overwhelming scientific evidence (stacks), bonuses to population health improvement with Medical Lifestyle Research unlocks, 25% reduction of knowledge rust, 5% reduction in knowledge related production costs, faster to upgrade to scientist, 2% chance that a normal worker will automatically upgrade to a scientist worker, etc. Obviously there are opportunity costs.

I don't think anybody is obliged in any sense of the word to work a job that is the best return to society or themselves. Society can encourage people with certain talents to go for certain jobs, but people should be able to refuse such encouragements and instead do what makes them happy. Isn't the purpose of life to do what gives you satisfaction and makes you happy?

You're definitelly not from a Scandinavian country.

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