OP here. I'd like to say that I did not know about the author's other controversial articles and many of which I find disturbing. I was on a journey to figure out whether PhD (esp. in other fields than your prior ones) makes sense, for myself and while doing so came across this article and HN seemed like a nice place to have a discussion.

My apologies to not have searched HN prior to submitting this, to see if it will be a re-post. However, even if comments were anecdotal, it still helped me understand the gravity of the situation.