Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

Extensive discussion from 3 days ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2019665

More extensive discussion from an alternative point-of-view submission:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2020128

Yet more discussion from an article/submission about what it's really like to do a Ph.D.:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1588727