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Comment by rb808 | Hacker News Reader

> After doing a PhD you can be a high school teacher, a soldier, an actor, start a company, go into politics, do whatever you want.

Most PhDs dont want to do that stuff which is why they got a PhD in the first place.

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That's tough. Not everyone who wants to be an actor gets to be an actor either.

People have to settle for not fulfilling their dreams every day.

Not to take this off track, but imagine how much more prone to taking risks we would be if we had guaranteed health insurance. No one wants to risk financial ruin and death in poverty.

The "winners" usually come from old money and then just play with VC billions, never risking a dime, or at least not much.

I'm very fortunate to live in Canada, and can't imagine how much harder it would be to take risks in the states. When I left my stable job to pursue my own small business, my health wasn't even one of the factors I considered. I have never asked for details about health insurance prior tom accepting a job.

Yet for whatever reason Canadians are far less likely to take risks than Americans.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/c...

That’s the culture. The risk takers just need to go south for more opportunities anyway, why stay in Canada?

I don't know why this is getting downvoted. I'm an American living in Canada and I totally agree. Canada has a better minimum wage, so the middle-of-the-bellcurve crowd has it a lot better. Like, I could afford to go back to bartending and live a decent lifestyle, albeit probably have a roommate (I'm married though, so that's covered).

However, STEM salaries are on the order of 40% lower -- lower overall numbers on top of 20-30% currency difference (CAD to USD, with CAD being weaker to drive exports). If you're a motivated engineer you're headed south, getting into oil & gas (where salaries are still decent), or learning to accept things as-is.

OTOH the number of well adjusted people, broke people, and all-around happy people is higher north of the border.

True that, but a system that relies on a steady stream of people with unrealistic ideas about what they're doing and going to do, is not a healthy system. Either it will continue to receive misplaced hopes and turn them into cheap labor, or it will not. Either way is bad.

Right. Some people are afraid of discovering that they cannot compete in "real life". Those fears are mostly unfounded. In many cases this stems from over-demanding parents, making children question their worth. "Can I really be as successful as my parents if I enter the workforce? Or will I find out that I am not capable?".

And so they hide out in academia to see when they are ready to take that risk. After a certain point, they just stay there.

You cannot possibly be suggesting that academia is a path one takes to avoid competition.

Not OP: Seems a reasonable hypothesis with the proviso of "avoiding commercial competition". Competing academically is different to competing commercially/financially and it seems reasonable that those who've mastered working in academia might struggle to adapt to corporate or other non-academic roles?

If one is already in academia and is fairly successful, why not? I am not saying that's why ALL people stay in academia. Some really love it for what it is, but I have seen it first-hand.

One sibling working her ass off to prove that she can be as successful as her parents, under tremendous stress, and the other one never leaving school to not even deal with that.

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