Hacker News Reader

Comment by jltsiren | Hacker News Reader

Ignoring the incentives is a key skill in science. And in all creative work in general. If you respond strongly to external incentives, you are unlikely to create anything truly novel, because you are doing what others are telling you to do. You may be good, and you may be successful, but your work is probably not as good as it could be.

View on HN

But you need money to research stuff. And the ones who gives you money are expecting a return on their investment.

Wow maybe its a bad idea to think of research purely in investment terms. Like housing. Or health care.

But I guess this is what decades of capitalistic thinking does to people

It's absolutely amazing to me that so many people find research-funding a crazy thing to do, almost equivalent to throwing money down the drain.

Not even close. You do science often in the middle of a complex regulated system called university. Is a highly regulated, highly hierarchical environment and a faux pass can be the end of your career easily.

You can safely ignore everybody, as long as you do it with your own money; or when you achieve the status of holy cow. Big mistake otherwise.

Sad but true. Academia’s biggest problem right now is that every PHD student has to be a political mastermind (or very lucky) to survive until tenured holy cow status is achieved

Luckily those that respond strong to external incentives go straight to industry.

I agree but the incentives are sometimes too strong to ignore. I've seen too many cases where even if you're trying to ignore the incentives, they're sometimes forced on you, or you're bullied into them. Sometimes it's not an emotional thing even, the bullying starts to have practical consequences.

I'd even go so far as to say today this is a sign of a strong academic department, one that is comfortable with its faculty sometimes having periods of time where they are going against trend. Unfortunately, it's becoming less and less common.

Citation? I highly doubt these claims. /s

Sounds like a recipe for getting fired.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com