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Comment by morpheuskafka | Hacker News Reader

> I got emails that were like that, only it was grad students. Apparently if you have a blog about your field, that can make it harder to get or keep a job in academia. I'm not sure what we think we're gaining by ensuring the smartest and best educated people around aren't able to talk openly about the fields they're experts in, but I hope it's worth it.

This is very concerning, because it lends credence to the general public's idea of an "ivory tower," as well as academia's own idea that it can somehow achieve perfect neutrality through apersonality.

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Hi, I work in academia and disagree with the author’s take.

My admittedly anecdotal experience doesn’t support that. The worst perception I can think of would be a (likely older) PI wondering why you’re writing blog posts instead of papers. Blogs are generally seen favorably - they can be a friendly introduction to your work or act as a knowledge base/wiki for how-tos or popular tools.

I know many professors who blog frequently and/or encourage trainees to have a personal website; a PI I work with now has a blog and encourages his members, particularly the junior ones, to contribute for the exposure; and I have multiple grad school friends who blog regularly - so far without negative consequence.

Also, if you want to consider twitter “microblogging”, it only takes a few minutes of browsing scitwitter to debunk the idea that scientists don’t talk about their field online (even unprofessionally). It’s really the only thing they talk about.

> Hi, I work in academia and disagree with the author’s take.

There is a logical fallacy, and I don't recall its name, but it refers to rejecting an argument only because it does not confirm one's personal experience

> a few minutes of browsing scitwitter to debunk the idea that scientists don’t talk about their field online (even unprofessionally)

Perhaps these scientists' work is uncontroversial, or they are protected, or you are right and Scott is wrong. Spend some time with Slate Star Codex and the new blog, and you might become aware of counter examples which you would not become aware of by browsing Twitter

He alludes to an example in the article

> none of us are safe - not the random grad student with a Twitter account making fun of bad science

From that I assumed that the sort of people being referred to are those who are debunking or criticising work by already established scientists. I'm speculating here but I would guess it hurts their chances because those who do the hiring don't want to risk taking on someone who might criticise their science in future.

With some searching I found an example of a grad student being doxxed and harassed for criticizing a powerful professor, but in philosophy, not science. I wonder what incident Scott refers to, if any

https://twitter.com/christapeterso/status/114723702522703462...

This is also concerning because it contradicts the general sentiment here on HN that You Should Be Blogging. Maybe you shouldn't... or at very least, there's more to consider than first appears.

You should be blogging...and you can, as long as you avoid saying any of the Things You Can't Say, which seems to mean following a template, which means the content gets bland and repetitive - unless it is technical, in which case it's special interest and the censors lose interest.

(That's actually my best guess as to why HN has stayed high quality all these years - minimal politics.)

Bloging, or writing, is just thinking out loud. Thinking about the real world outside of technology can easily yield heterodox conclusions that are better off not published these days.

> avoid saying any of the Things You Can't Say

Ha ha, we should be so lucky. No, you also have to Say the Things You Must Say, or you're suspect.

Good luck!

Things You Can't Say change over time though, so you can't keep archives either.

A lot of things that may be sound career advice in SF tech scene would make terrible advice for other fields and other places. One example is frequent job hops. SF software companies may not judge you negatively because of it, but Zurich architecture firms (as a random example) might.

Depends on what you mean by frequent. At a SF software company, and I look at multiple 6-9 month stints as very big red flags that must have overwhelming evidence in the other direction to be considered. OTOH 2 - 3 years is perfectly fine; I can maybe imagine “Zurich architecture firms” viewing 2-3 years as flighty, if they are used to employees that used to be there decades.

I'd love blogging or doing YouTube videos but there are enough crazy people out there I'd rather stay anonymous my entire life

The reason doesn't have to be political (at least in the sense of national politics). It could be something more prosaic: "if morpheuskafka writes about string theory and conference interactions they could just as well write something negative about how things are done around here."

And in fact morpheuskafka could write something negative about their institution, even (and most likely) accidentally. But then again morpheuskafka could write something positive about their institution, even (and most likely) deliberately.

From my personal experience this is 100% true.

If you have time to write blog posts, you're obviously not serious enough about your research. That's the general sentiment.

I'm still not sure what this means though. Just that if you keep a blog your political leanings might slip out, which will cause you to get fired if you are discovered to hold conservative views?

No, you can get punished for holding any negative views about your field.

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