The fundamental, philosophical purpose of a PhD is not to make the holder more employable, but to generate net-new human knowledge.
A bachelor’s degree is about consuming established knowledge; a PhD is explicitly about producing it. Do you have a PhD or a fancy BA?
In fields like psychology, biomedicine, and economics, systematic reviews have found that a substantial percentage of peer-reviewed research—sometimes estimated at over 60% to 80%—cannot be reproduced. If a PhD thesis produces findings that cannot be replicated, its provable value to the human knowledge base is effectively zero, or even negative if it misdirects future funding and research.
But in modern practice, the academic system has somewhat commodified it. Universities rely on PhD candidates as a source of highly skilled, low-cost labor to teach undergrads and run grant-funded labs. This structure produces far more PhDs than there are research roles to absorb them.
I mean, I don't have a PhD, but even they can agree that this is a Ponzi scheme, right?
If you hide away from the world you're supposed to be building by playing comfortable credential games, the banks will imprison you in pdfs? I don't know what the academic equivalent to golden handcuffs is. They will reduce you into this one-dimensional egomaniac. I think this is why I find the character of Sheldon Cooper so interesting. Most people who inhabit their jobs as their entire identity morph into a character from The Big Bang Theory. And academia is the most consuming job. What makes it especially tricky is that most people in academia haven't practiced the Eastern skill of separating oneself from one's thoughts. Reading has a special kind of hypnotism that it is up to the reader to find the exact voice in which they read someone else's, so it is easy to believe things you've read as your own thoughts later. And to believe, here, means to adopt these thoughts as if they're your own type of belief—not the God stuff. That is why it is so easy to form tribes based on the thinkers you read. "I am a Marxist." "I subscribe to the Austrian school." And a bunch of other tribal spells that force this lens over your eyes, forcing you to see a simpler fabrication of the universe that fits into the thoughts you've read.
My humble, uneducated opinion is that we should leave the work of defending or arguing against dead people for the BA. I would go as far as suggesting that we get rid of university altogether, but where will you eat? Go and work for Google, Pfizer, Coca-Cola, and other Big Businesses after your BA. Do your PhD on the job. Implement the new ideas in those businesses and let your children decide whether your thoughts added value to the world or not. You keep complaining about how big business is out to kill us—maybe you should get jobs there and, using your clever thoughts, unspell the evil capitalists from letting their greed kill us. And at 5 PM, when you leave work, just shut the fuck up. We don't care about what you do. We don't know how you're able to suffer through that excruciating boredom of academic shit, but having no ability to cultivate interesting hobbies that weren't forced on you by parents or government cannot be rewarded with some sort of prestige in our society. It is just a job.
Stop going on Joe Rogan because of your Harvard PhD to tell us that you know shit we don't while sneaking in the occasional supremacist propaganda. Eric Weinstein, build something instead if you're so much smarter than us—you're a guy who even met with Epstein. I am not that smart, but even I know there is a bad omen around an adult who abuses children. How could you not have sensed it before you met him? What are you, stupid? Joe should bring on more plumbers, prostitutes, and other people like his followers, because the challenges in those people's jobs are actually interesting to listen to. He is surrounded by so many people who have met Epstein, I wonder whether the witchcraft won't consume him.
If you cannot point to one thing in the real world and say, "Hey, look at that poultry farm, the plumbing is using an efficient design based on ideas from my PhD," just shut the fuck up. Especially Sam Harris. I know academia is low, but Harris is still a disgrace to academia.
If there is a famous person whose only significant credential is a PhD, and you don't actually know what their PhD is about, and you've never heard of any technology built off that PhD, they're a fraud. And perhaps even worse.
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