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Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

> Would I have been more successful

What are you talking about? You _are_ successful. You're not a fraud like all those other tossers.

To me, at the time, successful would have been getting a tenure-track position at a Tier 1 university, discovering something important, and never publishing anything that was intentional fraud (I'm OK with making some level of legitimate errors that could need to be retracted).

Of those three, I certainly didn't achieve #1 or #2, but did achieve #3, mainly because I didn't write very much and obsessed over what was sent to the editor. Merely being a non-fraud is only part of success.

(note: I've changed my definition of success, I now realize that I never ever really wanted to be a tenured professor at a Tier 1 university, because that role is far less fulfilling that I thought it would be).

Most often #1 is sought after as the prerequisite for achieving #2. And due to the structural factors on the number of positions available, funding available, and supply of new PhDs and postdocs, it's most often a really good idea to avoid #1 these days.

PhDs and postdocs aren’t fungible. The ones worth working with go to the same top 20-40 programs in their field. Even finding PhDs that have the bare minimum qualification of “caring about the field” can be tough as there are all sorts of weird incentives pushing people towards PhDs. Applies for most other things in science as well. Number of papers has greatly increased. Number of papers worth reading has not increased nearly as much.

The older I get the more sympathy I have for people who claim they didn't become traditionally successful due to adhering to ethical principles.

I used to think that was just cope. But now I've been in a few situations where there's fairly clear opportunities to profit from shady behavior, and seen colleagues that I formerly respected jump at the chance.

Thanks for not being a fraud.

As another commenter said, thanks for being a scientist and not a fraud. Whatever you think you achieved (which may be more than you think).

That is not enough to most people. And if it is enough for others, then it is probably because they were fortunate enough to fall back on something better.

> That is not enough to most people.

You absolutely nail the most profound pathology of our time. Being a decent, honest, smart, hardworking person is just "not enough" any more. We've created a normatively criminal society.

Was it ever? Ancient texts are full of complaints that people have become immoral, unlike in the Golden Age, which was conveniently long ago.

Of course. We've always had criminals. And as you say, throughout history people have complained about it. All I'm saying is that today people positively celebrate it, and - according to the parent poster - we now demand criminality as a necessity for "success".

Just looking at capitals of many countries, lots of monuments (statues, etc.) are dedicated to conquerors that were basically celebrated for successfully killing, subjugating and stealling from the others.

There are still people that have success without anything criminal.

> Being a decent, honest, smart, hardworking person is just "not enough" any more.

Indeed. People want to be able to own a home and/or raise a family, too.

> own a home and/or raise a family

Agreed. And any system that cannot furnish these human basics to decent, honest, smart, hardworking people neither has nor deserves a future. Any criminality people have ought to be directed at that system rather than ones fellows.

Indeed! You would also been more "successful" selling drugs to teens, or trafficking with human organs. But you did not and that's a good thing.

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