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Comment by ggregoryarms | Hacker News Reader

You managed to blame feminists and immigrants in one paragraph, impressive. I'm sorry to hear about your experiences tho.

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Re: immigrants. I have several relatives who totally upended their lives in foreign countries to become grad students in the US. If nothing else, they are very excited to get to spend 5 years in the US. Believe me, they would not be even the slightest bit offended by that post. I think that type of offense on behalf of others is mostly a US citizen thing.:-)

Thank you for your kind words. It's mostly because this particular American thinking is driven by a sense of belonging to an in-group and need to feel that they are good people (versus actually doing good and staking something of value, which I respect completely regardless if I agree with someone's politics or religion or whatever). I push back on them because (a) most of time, ad-hominen attacks mean they have already lost the argument and (b) for people who are too timid to speak against the toxic group-think. Life is too short to live and placate this type of mentality held by people who don't really like you or mostly don't really believe in it themselves, just go along to get along.

I think it says more how you read things and where we are coming from - I meant int'l students earn my respect for being cleared eyed and pursue both their economic and academic interest. For the feminists professors, I'm actually shading the sciences by saying that a lot of times, the so-called tangible and much well-funded science departments produce just as little tangible value as the intangible humanities. But don't get me wrong, I also understand your comment - hope you get social capital up so one day you can stake it in the future to help an immigrant or a feminist stranger for real.

Your post sounds like it is made by a disgruntled misanthrope. I lead teams of biologists and data scientists and both are part of a vast team, each of us playing our bit part, myself included. If your desire is to be the center of attention, you are in the wrong field.

And lay off the immigrants. Jeez.

My post may come off disgruntled (point taken). But my point is to completely dispel any romantic notion for someone who is young and want to make the switch into life science research, if they learn all of these ugly things and still want to do it - then they made the right decision and I've done my job. Kindness imho is not being polite and then taking advantage of people's passion/enthusiasm later (nobody so far has disputed the -EV nature of the field itself just my tone) - it is doing right by people from the jump, not serving the institution or my interest in it. And I'm not sayin you're wrong either or that you are not dedicated (by default I presume everybody is in the research), just sharing my perspective, hope you have a good one.

As long as we acknowledge that is your perspective, and in my opinion based on 30+ years of experience, is one that is typical. Most people on the data side, enjoy their work and are well paid, perhaps not near FAANG standards, but they do enjoy their work and life.

I have no doubt you had a bad experience. There are a LOT of egotistical professors and grad studentss who don’t value others. Have you given industry a fair go yet though? You may find a job there more to your liking. The people are generally less arrogant than those in academia, and we view ourselves, rightfully so, as cogs in a big machine.

Did you see the announcement from Moderna today? That was the result of decades of us grunts chipping away the problem.

…. scamming the taxpayers like a humanities professor in women's studie…..

It says more how you write things and where you are coming from.

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