Comment by away314159265 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by away314159265 | Hacker News Reader

We are living in a culture of overwork because work (esp. desk work) has lost all boundaries.

I'm in academia and had been idealizing overwork for quite a while ("the noble goal of devoting your life to science!"), but now have to fend off becoming cynical about the culture (increasingly after a parent with a blue collar-company died shortly before their well-earned retirement, stress played a role here).

I have met various of these types, obviously not all scientists are like this, but they seem to become more frequent the more one raises up the ladder:

* spending years in an excitingly different foreign country.. on a desk, experiencing little of what the country has to offer (think spending 10 years in California but never visiting Yosemite or the Grand Ganyon), sometimes condescending when told about travel experiences in the same country

* working up to the point where they appear to be in psychological pain and lost authentic interest

* complete tunnel vision about work

* abusive behaviour because of stress

* talking suicide in project meetings

* continuous smart drug usage

* lunch with them is usually cynical, edgy and negative

* regret that they've lost their 20s to academic work

Academically, these are often quite successful people whose ideas and scientific results are admired. I'd like to stay in academia but fear I will be erased from the system if I don't pay the same price. Is this view too negative? Can someone offer a different perspective here?

Could some older users share their (anecdotal) experiences and perspective on this topic? How did continuous heavy overwork pay off for people you have observed (or yourself)? Is this just temporary and can be overcome by smarter decisions about where to allocate energy?

I agree with the overall sentiment of your post, but not with: Academically, these are often quite successful people whose ideas and scientific results are admired. I find that putting in the hours is nothing that necessarily moves you ahead academically - since the competition is so high, it is simply a necessity to stay in the game.

I've been in C.S.-ish research for well over 20 years, and really the only reason to do it is because you love it. Otherwise, for the amount of work you need to put in to stay relevant, you might as well find a job in the industry where the pay is much higher given your qualification. Depending on which country you are in, you may not have much of a career perspective either, as tenured positions are rare, and to a good degree come down to luck. Not only luck, of course, but there are a lot of factors that you cannot influence (enough).

Not really related to your point, but the best parts of living in a foreign country are not the famous landmarks but rather going deep into the normal life. Anyone can see Yosemite if they visit, but few can develop the close relationships and fond memories where you’ve become a regular.

Agree. A bit off topic: living in a foreign country allows you to progressively discover those little differences in comparison to your own country: the way people say good morning, the way people wait (or not) for the light to turn green, paper bags or plastic ones for grocery shopping?...

I find those popular places (e.g., Yosemite, Eiffel tower, etc.) to be the less interesting parts of foreign countries. But sure, we all cannot afford living N years in every foreign country you may want to discover.

I find it hard to believe that anyone could visit Yosemite and not find it to be one of the best parts of the USA

I think you're talking about different things.

Yosemite could be breathtaking, but not interesting (because it feels very foreign) the way that a huge high school football game or a typical American diner might be interesting to non-American eyes.

(In case it's not obvious, I've never been to the USA)

Depends what you mean by best. I live in Japan, and if you look at Mt Fuji it certainly is very pretty, and some people are very impacted by that, but there’s little depth beyond that to me, whereas there’s infinite depth diving into the actual people and culture that makes up Japan, reveling in the mundane. And you’ll never find that no matter how much you look at Mt. Fuji.

There’s a vast difference between being in a place for the entertainment value of seeing nice things, vs actually immersing in that place - and personally I prefer the latter over the former.

It's indeed beautiful... But that sensation only lasts a few hours (in my limited experience), whereas living the mundane lasts a few years.

Not to mention cultural differences that are so ingrained that it’s hard to imagine people could consider things differently.

It’s become clear to me after visiting other (Western!) cultures that many things, e.g. political views that are as obvious as gravity here, are considered both incorrect and weird elsewhere.

It makes it easier to consider problems with impartial eyes once you’ve seen immovable truths challenged like this a couple of times.

For me this is a prime reason why we need to solve air travels climate problem. To develop our societies forward we need to engage with each other in person, for prolonged times. To be able to better understand the world we live in and to learn from each other.

>continuous smart drug usage

How prevalent is this in academia? I've heard it's fairly common in tech circles but this is the first I've heard of it in academia (although I suppose it shouldn't be surprising in any field where intellectual acumen and ambition are both high).

"Academia" is so broad it's difficult to generalize, caffeine addictions are ubiquitous like everywhere else but quantities consumed seem high

Chronic amphetamine/etc (ab)use is probably linked more to the intensity of competition in some particular field or institution, tends to be stress-induced in my experience and seems orthogonal to intrinsic motivation or competence

Cal Newport has been advocating Deep Work for years. He himself has been practicing it and was able to work 8 to 5 for 5 days a week, while still managing to publish high-quality papers to get his tenure and publishing books on self-improvement. Would his method help people working in academia?

Working in industry is a different matter, though, especially for those in a big company. Senior engineers spend most in meetings, while still need to find time to write docs, building prototypes, diagnosing ops issues, and of course learning/deep diving technologies. I'm not sure if there's any solution to such problem except for such engineers to leave for a smaller company, where one is expected to build instead of being a "force multiplier".

This is very hard to implement.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com