An Aspiring Scientist’s Frustration with Modern-Day Academia (2013)
90% of everything is crap. And there's no guarantee that the other 10% isn't crap as well. I get it, we need the social dialogue, so that people know how and why it's crap, but really the only way forward that doesn't result in eternal loss of control of your efforts to sociopaths with no interest in your happiness or society's well-being is to blaze your own path forward.Academia is crap. Most jobs are crap. Most people do not make any dents in the universe. Most relationships end.One should learn to recognize situations where irrationality is the norm. The easy one to spot is music. Way more people want to be musicians than the market for their output can bear. These market realities will dominate your life if you decide to become a musician. Doesn't mean you can't make it, just means that if you want a semblance of control over whether you'll make it or not, you have to create that control yourself and you'll have nobody to help you that can really help you because they have to deal with the market realities too. Even if you do make it you'll be similarly powerless to change the realities.Once you understand the dynamic you will immediately see the pattern everywhere. Film. Academia. Comedy. The Apple App Store. The dating market for very attractive women. People who want me to work on their websites or otherwise hire me. Silicon Valley. You have to deal with all the other assholes in the world who want the same thing you want, and there's only so much of it to go around. The ones that succeed learn how to increase the demand for the services they want to provide. The ones that don't bitch about how unfair everything is.