Norweigan oil fund - <AUTHOR> https://www.nbim.no/en/ <comment><USER2> Wow! These people must be extraordinary to use oil money this way! Not kidding! Never been in Norway, but in countries I have ever been this would be barely possible due to corruption and the needs of the politician's buddies. Like yachts, private jets, Bentleys and Vertu phones. This $186k/person isn't far from what average German poses: [https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/617492/cd59713c156ad...](https://www.bundesbank.de/resource/blob/617492/cd59713c156ad135e0a84518cd5ed4b6/mL/2016-03-household- data.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Norway was lucky to be a very developed society before oil was discovered. In most countries oil is a curse

<comment><USER4> I wonder if it's about being developed, vs being about having a high-trust society?

In a lot of places people will immediately get suspicious if you say you're setting up a government fund to hold everyone's money. For the benefit of society, of course.

<comment><USER5> It's about Norwegian climate: you don't work - you freeze to death in winter. In a dozen of generations an idea that everyone must work hard becomes an obvious thing.

<comment><USER6> Norwegian climate in the most populated areas isn't particularly harsh.

<comment><USER5> Exactly.

Norwegian climate is not so harsh that it makes life an perpetual fight for survival. But it's nasty enough to slap one's lazy nose every once in a while.

<comment><USER6> It's not so harsh in Norwegian West, East and South as to be remarkable in any respect. Poland has rougher climate. Northern parts and central-inland in the peninsula _are_ cold, but relatively sparsely populated.

Norway has its natural limitations though which made for a tougher life. Like insufficient options for agriculture, one thing that made feudal system here impossible and diets fairly lean.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The Norwegian success is the single biggest piece of evidence as to why the Venezuelan catastrophe was largely avoidable, and the fault of irresponsible leadership.

<comment><USER8> I can't stand this ideological sports-team type of commentary, so just to add some real information and context (after my downvote):

Venezuela produces ~70k barrels per person per day. Norway produces a little more than half as much total oil, but with one-sixth the population it works out to ~330k barrels per person per day. An order of magnitude per-capita difference.

<comment><USER9> That's not an order of a magnitude.

Even then, so, Venezuela produces 1/5th per capita the oil of Norway. Why doesn't there exist a fund with $37k/person in Venezuela?

<comment><USER10> You could ask a similar question of the UK.

<comment><USER11> This is a question I ask.

The UK policy was, effectively, 'paaarty!'

<comment><USER12> Well - capitalise trade in The City of London; without the oil it's pretty clear London wouldn't have developed the way it did.

<comment><USER11> Rather than the story of financial degregulation?

Sceptical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of the most mind blowing things to me, is that where I'm from (Canada) we've pumped almost 2.5 times more oil and gas than Nowrway over the past 30 years, yet our "oil fund" is somewhere around $20 Billion. Norway decided the benefits of resource extraction should be universal, while my country decided that the benefits should go to the wealthy and multi-national corporations.

<comment><USER14> Ha. Here in the US where we produce more than double what Canada does, there isn't even an oil fund.

<comment><USER15> The oil fund is Exxon, which is in the S&P 500, which is in your 401k.

<comment><USER16> Only available to people who have the means or opportunity to invest. We're taking from everyone and giving to few.

<comment><USER17> There are a lot of people who rely on those investments, whether through their government retirement, their employer's retirement, or through their own holdings. Even many social programs are funded with investments in equities.

<comment><USER18> Slightly less than half of all Americans have any investment in the stock market. Pension funds were largely replaced with 401k's, but salaries were not increased to compensate.

While you're technically correct, the stock market primarily benefits those with enough disposable income to generate large investments where they do not need to draw down the principle, and that certainly isn't the majority of Americans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I haven't seen this fact mentioned in this thread yet, but it's super important: This stack of money doesn't belong to any one generation. It's set aside for all future generations to enjoy.

Each year the government can choose to pull some of the money in to the current budget, but by law[0] they can't pull in more than 3%. This is the fund's estimated sustainable yearly return (It was adjusted down from 4% in 2017).

Some posters in this thread seem to think that this is all going to get spent on covering too-generous promises of pensions (yes we have those too!), but that isn't going to happen. It would be a travesty to rob Peter to pay Paul even if Peter hasn't been born yet. Everyone here generally agree on this.

[0] [https://www.statsbudsjettet.no/Statsbudsjettet-2019/Statsbud...](https://www.statsbudsjettet.no/Statsbudsjettet-2019/Statsbudsjettet- fra-A-til-A/Handlingsregelen/)

</comment><comment><USER20> "On average, the fund holds 1.4 percent of all of the world's listed companies."

This blew my mind.

<comment><USER21> Meaning a stake in 1.4% of companies, no indication of size of stake?

<comment><USER22> No, meaning it owns 1.4% of the global public equity market.

They have some $700bn in stocks. The market cap of the S&P 500 is $25tn. If they held US large cap stocks only they would have almost 3% of each one of the S&P 500 companies.

<comment><USER23> And US is about 50% of the world market cap, so yea 1.4% sounds about right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> a-priori I did some quick math and with their current annual return rate of 5.8%, the returns from the the Oil Fund could finance the government's budget entirely once it gets to be about $2T in size. That's about 2x its current size.

That's still about 20 years away at their current growth rate, and the government budget would probably increase by then, but it's still probably achievable. What happens then? Norway could theoretically cut its other income, including income tax, to zero and still maintain its current expenses.

<comment><USER24> Unfortunately (as a Norwegian), that is never going to happen. Norway's is a success story, but there is a darker side to the oil fund. This money will be spent on something. Our public sector has a tendency to grow without questioning from any political group, such that the total tax level stays the same, regardless of any incomes from the oil fund.

Currently, 1/3 of working-age Norwegians work in the public sector. 1/3 works in the private sector, and the final third are either unemployed or qualify for government benefits. (Meaning: Retired, long-term disabled, in full-time parental leave and so on). That this seems sustainable at all is very strange. We might as well go straight to a large-scale basic income experiment, because we almost have a basic income system in place already. In my opinion, this would be a more honest way of providing government benefits than the system we already have.

Currently, 3-4% of the oil fund is liquidated each year to pay for the deficit in the national budget, while total taxation has in fact _increased_ under the current Right government.

To my eyes, Norway has an exotic form of Dutch Disease in the form of our government spending, which is prevented from becoming a catastrophe by the oil fund. It will be interesting to see what the future brings, but it's not all roses.

<comment><USER25> I agree with your general argument - one thing to nitpick. Full time parental leave is not a bad thing in creating social wealth. Domestic labor is often unappreciated - until one has to do it or pay for it. I wouldn't lump those in with what you clearly consider "unproductive" use of human capital and labor. You get the benefit of a meal or a clean house, and if you pay for a maid and a cook, it also shows up on the national statistics for GDP.

<comment><USER24> Oh, I'm not really opposed to a strong social safety net at all, if it came across like that. In fact, a basic income system would be very interesting to try out. Everything doesn't have to be optimized for productivity; it's quality of life and individual choice that matters.

I'm just opposed to some aspects of the sustainability and wisdom of the current Norwegian system, as well as slightly disillusioned regarding the lack of quality debate around this in the country :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> A friend lives in Oslo, sometimes I visit, it shock me the amount of electric vehicles, in one single street all cars parked were Tesla(not the posh area).

The city have so much nature, is even hard to explain.

<comment><USER27> Along with being more eco minded, electric cars are actually more affordable in Norway, there is a significant tax placed on other vehicles.

[https://elbil.no/english/norwegian-ev- policy/](https://elbil.no/english/norwegian-ev-policy/)

<comment><USER28> They let poor countries burn the oil, and use the money to pay for electric cars.

<comment><USER10> True but other countries also let poor countries burn the oil and do nothing useful with the money.

<comment><USER29> Some invest it themselves into real estate, both in their own country (like highest towers, most fancy hotel, palm tree shaped islands) and abroad (skyscrapers and office buildings in various financial structures).

They're really setting themselves up for them and their future generations to remain rich and comfortable for the forseeable future even when oil dries up or demand goes down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This transparency is just admirable, with investments down to the exact real estate properties that is invested in. Just beautiful.

<comment><USER31> So much transparency is that, in Norway, you can look up the yearly income of anyone online on the government's website :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Yes those social Norwegian's invested; and the UK gave there north sea oil revenues to all the oligarchs

<comment><USER33> Same thing in Australia, the wealth coming from the resources boom has been and is being given to a few rich people, not the general public (who are having social services slashed regularly)

<comment><USER34> Compare Australian wages to the rest of the world. If you go on vacation to other places you see that Australians make more than people from other industrialized nations. You don't see it because your plumber wants to participate, too.

<comment><USER35> How is that relevant? Australian wages are high because of a long period of unionised action demanding better wages and working conditions in the 20th century. It's tangential to having a lot of natural resources.

Norwegian wages are good too, Venezuelan and Saudi wages are terrible.

We squandered all our mineral wealth on nonsense, have huge respect for what the Norwegians have achieved with their fund.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Think hard about it, would you rather your government do something like this, or get a cheque every year like in Alaska (or right before an election in Alberta)?

</comment><comment><USER37> A lot of comments in this thread seem fixated on the fact that this originated from oil profits, but to me it feels like more of a consequence of the Norwegian government's partial public ownership of its domestic energy companies and other industries. Lots of countries have a surplus of at least one natural resource; few of them have central governments with the authority (and lack of corruption) to publicly own those resources. Most governments just can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar.

Every time I hear someone talk about socialism, whether its pundits or politicians or columnists, they talk about welfare. Everyone seems to have forgotten that that public ownership of capital is by definition the more important part of socialist policy that makes welfare possible. Norway is probably the best example of this idea's power. I'm not saying socialism is without weaknesses, but I don't understand how anyone can look at Norway and think that it doesn't work or is somehow evil.

<comment><USER18> Yes, thinking of funds like this as cash flow is absolutely a mistake. Strong democratic ownership of capital will be necessary for true democratization of society, and this is an important step (although too centralized in my uninformed opinion :D).

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> The thing that's the most powerful to me is that they actively decide which companies aren't following ethical practices and decide to invest away from them.

[https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/news-list/2019/decision- to-r...](https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/news-list/2019/decision-to-revoke- exclusions-of-companies-from-the-government-pension-fund-global/)

When the companies behave properly and decide to follow ethical behavior, they put them back again on the investment list.

I also wonder how the Softbank 100B vision fund is going to fare compared to the Norway investment fund. Although 5% growth rate sounds meager, they have done well since 1998, and it seems that the fund is generally betting on low risk returns.

Massive kudos to Norway for showing the world how not to fuck up your country like Venezuela when you're sitting on a money mountain.

</comment><comment><USER39> Some points of comparison.

\- CalPERS[1] has about $360 billion in assets under management.

\- The US Social Security Trust fund (which, depending on your POV you might count as an accounting fiction) is about $2.9 trillion.

\- Vanguard has about $5.3 trillion in AUM.

1\. California Public Employees' Retirement System

<comment><USER40> How many employees does this cover? California has almost 40 million people. Norway has about 5.3 million.

<comment><USER39> ~1.6 million employees + their families for CalPERS

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Considering this is explicitly stated to be for welfare, it would be really interesting to see a major UBI experiment. If the fund doesn't grow there's 186k 4 per person could be 12k/yr for over 15 years.

<comment><USER42> 15 years is not UBI. If you can't rely on it being around for the rest of your life it would be insane to leave your career to live on UBI.

<comment><USER43> I don't the point of UBI is for everyone to leave their careers. If anything, it's the opposite.

<comment><USER41> Which is exactly why UBI is generally suggested to give below the poverty line. Enough to survive but not enough to be comfortable. Enough to get you through downturns but not enough where you'll abandon a well paying job.

<comment><USER3> Which is why i can't fathom why every business would not raise their prices to match the UBI minimum. I mean it's not like there would be anyone who can't afford that.

<comment><USER41> Because UBI could open their market to more people. If they can make the same profit per person but increase their market size, why raise prices? That prices out more people. In fact this is commonly done now. You sell at a competitive price to expand your market share. It's exactly the tactic of companies like Amazon and Walmart. The problem is if a company has a monopoly and the good is a necessity.

<comment><USER3> > If they can make the same profit per person but increase their market size, > why raise prices

There is no dichotomy here- their market size increases magically with UBI. If the answer to that question was even remotely close to yes, the tech sector would be full of hungry workers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Assuming that a fund like that grows ~10% per year or so, each norwegian makes a bonus of 19230.7 just by existing. That is enough for a family to live in the european south.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway#/media/File:Norway_Oil_Fund.png)

<comment><USER44> "Since 1998 the fund has generated an annual return of 5.8 percent, or 4,404 billion kroner."

<comment><USER3> Still, for a family of 4 that's ~ 45.000$ of free money. If southern european countries were smart , they would give incentives to norwegians to move there and have a permanent vacation in the sun.

<comment><USER45> The fund is not distributing to citizens like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> It's interesting to me that they don't appear to hold private equity or venture funds, unless I'm missing something. Presumably at that scale they have unlimited access to any asset class in the world. Does anyone have any insight as to why they might be avoiding those?

<comment><USER47> My guess would be that they are considered too risky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Interesting news [0] on companies that were previously on the "black list" of the fund's investments (most notably, Rio Tinto):

> "Decision to revoke exclusions of companies from the Government Pension Fund > Global"

> Norges Bank has decided to revoke the exclusions of Grupo Carso SAB de CV, > General Dynamics Corp, Nutrien Ltd, Rio Tinto Ltd, Rio Tinto Plc, Walmart > Inc and Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB de CV from the Government Pension Fund > Global.

[0]: [https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/news-list/2019/decision- to-r...](https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/news-list/2019/decision-to-revoke- exclusions-of-companies-from-the-government-pension-fund-global/)

</comment><comment><USER49> There but for the poor policial decisions goes Canada

</comment><comment><USER15> And all it cost was the earth's climate.

I think this "oil fund" will be an interesting target when countries and states start disappearing under water and their crops start failing for reparations.

Also, why does Norway not contribute the full 2% to NATO spending again?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have the second largest investment per person in NATO.

1\. US = 1894 USD (3,5% GDP)

2\. Norway = 1483 (1,61%)

3\. UK = 899 (2,1%)

4\. France = 787 (1,81%)

5\. Canada = 643 (1,23%)

[https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/forsvar/innsikt/budsjett/...](https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/forsvar/innsikt/budsjett/budsjettgrafikk2019/nato/id2613480/)

Because of the GDP-measure, if we stop producing oil/gas we will be over the 2% but with a lot of value in the 'bank'. So the GDP measure is not the best. We still try to get to 2% by building up our own industry around the money, not pending it blindly.

<comment><USER15> The NATO treaty is that every member will spend 2% of GDP and nothing about per person or per capita. This keeps it fair for countries that are less wealthy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Holding details: [https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/holdings/holdings-as- at-31.1...](https://www.nbim.no/en/the-fund/holdings/holdings-as- at-31.12.2018/)

</comment><comment><USER51> Surprised nobody mentioned that the whole fund and its future returns have been promised away already as future pension for the people working for the government (far too many). This is due to politicians and a too large part of the population that mistake "feeling good" as "being smart", and failure to recognize that the economic model that has worked for as long as the oil revenues kept flowing in, will stop working once the oil revenues start declining. There is no frugality, and all the traditional parties on the right/conservative side would be characterized as socialist in most other developed countries. And as the government overspending keeps growing, so do the taxes...

<comment><USER52> The "About the fund" page has a section called "The fund's purpose and history" which seems to completely contradict what you're saying.

<comment><USER24> It's a contentious political question, and it's impossible to make predictions about how the fund might eventually be emptied. We could easily end up on a track that would empty the fund in 50 years, but of course you'd hope the electorate is wise enough not to let this happen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Our fund has grown by 500 Billion Norwegian kroner (aprox $55 USD Billion) just since April this year

</comment><comment><USER54> What's the percentage of all US stocks fund owns?

<comment><USER55> [https://www.nbim.no/contentassets/d3a372eb9d234e57a07caaf0f3...](https://www.nbim.no/contentassets/d3a372eb9d234e57a07caaf0f35cef67/spu_1q_19_web.pdf)

Updated: 1.3%

Edit: Oops, I misunderstood a question. Actually further in PDF they specify that US specifically is 39%, which is roughly 400 billion. If we go by this number of total capitalization of the US stocks being 30 trillion, then Norwegian oil fund owns 0.4/30 which is 1.3%

<comment><USER56> The quote is:

> North American stocks returned 14.6 percent and amounted to 41.4 percent of > the equity portfolio.

That's to say 41% of their equities are North American stocks, _not_ that they own 41% of all North American stocks!

<comment><USER57> 41% of all US stocks would be about $13 Trillion

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Right people on the right places. Simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER59> Does Alaska have something like this? Or Texas?

<comment><USER60> Alaska does, and also pays a dividend every year: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund)

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> .

<comment><USER62> No, it's in USD. it's about 9.5 trillion kroner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Isn't this contributing to climate change? The economy everyone uses as an example to replace the current system in the US...

<comment><USER64> Perhaps this is why they can afford many government programs that the US simply cannot. Without a prolific income stream comparable to Norwegian oil, the only way to provide more social services is to tax individuals and businesses harder.

Tax any group too heavily and you create brain drain, which hurts in the long run.

<comment><USER65> Norwegian software developer here. I pay my taxes with pleasure, knowing that the money supported my education, my ability to go to the hospital, good roads, good airports, and lots of other public functions that are great because we collectively invest in them. I think anything below 20% in taxes simply means a country's public functions will suffer.

It's weird to me that Americans have so much against taxes. If a country has a low degree of curruption, and has incentives to innovate in the public sector, then taxes are a good thing.

Obviously I can't speak for the general population, but as for my close proximity: My colleagues think taxes are good too. No brain drain here.

<comment><USER66> Take a look at what the American government budget is spent on: [https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal- bud...](https://www.nationalpriorities.org/budget-basics/federal- budget-101/spending/) (scroll down to "Total Federal Spending 2015"). The three largest parts of the spending pie, constituting over two thirds of government spending, are "Social Security, Unemployment and Labor", "Medicare and Health", and "Military". Less than 20% goes to education/infrastructure. Many conservative Americans oppose welfare and socialised medicine, and similarly many liberal Americans oppose high military spending (which makes up over half of "Discretionary Spending"), so it's easy to see why they think their taxes are being wasted. There are countries like Singapore that have extremely good infrastructure and schooling with government spending under 20% of GDP, because they spend only on infrastructure, not welfare, so high spending isn't a prerequisite for good infrastructure.

<comment><USER67> Less than 20% of Federal spending goes to education and infrastructure because the States pay for most education and infrastructure, it is misleading to only use Federal numbers for services provided primarily by States.

The US spends more on K-12 education alone than on the military.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I do wonder whether this fund should be subject to punitive measures, since it is built on an activity that is generally acknowledged to be destroying the planet. It's not right that a group of people should be able to insulate themselves from the carnage they have wrought.

</comment><comment><USER69> > On average, the fund holds 1.4 percent of all of the world's listed > companies.

Why fund businesses in other countires? Shouldn't Norway try to set up some more industries at home?

Everyone claim Europe (was: EU) needs more VC funding to stop the brain drain. Well, here is a huge pool of money just waiting to be spent

<comment><USER70> Norway is not an EU member, so by funding EU industries, they would found businesses in other countries ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> We have to follow all their legislations and fund a lot of EU investment (based on our GDP). So we are practically a member, but don't get to vote.

This is not a bad thing because EU is mainly about social benefits, and not politics as we are used to (and a lot of people think): [http://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative- train/](http://www.europarl.europa.eu/legislative-train/)

<comment><USER69> EU is also about single market (to simplify life for businesses), which iirc Norway is mostly part of.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't Become a Scientist (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html <comment><USER2> The only thing missing is that the grants administrators are very often (I can think of two, dear to me counterexamples) people who got into science and couldn't hack it, making for sort of a bureaucratic dunning-kruger effect. I remember meeting DOE bureaucrats coming to visit our site, and being in awe at their complete lack of basic scientific concepts, and thinking, "these idiots probably get paid six figures to sit around pushing paper and get nice paid junkets to pretty places like San Diego while I'm struggling trying to push innovation and deal with failure as a postdoc on 30k". Of course you can't say that to their face, because you won't get your grant continued.

In one particular egregious example, I remember a grants administrator who came to our facility, got a ride in the boss' tesla roadster, and for whom a cocktail party was thrown. Several years later, this administrator's PhD research came to light as being very likely artefactual. [https://raphazlab.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/stripy- nanopartic...](https://raphazlab.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/stripy- nanoparticles-revisited/)

The uncharitable interpretation is that this person escaped academic science to administration because _they knew they couldn 't hack it_, because the data are willfully overinterpreted and that wouldn't fly for too long. And of course wound up in the position of managing hundreds of millions of dollars in grant moneys. I can't accuse this particular person of that particular motivation; but isn't it evident that science funding positions would disproportionately attract such people, and is that a situation we want to be in?

<comment> bjelkeman-again I am sadly unimpressed by a lot of people who end up managing investment or research funds. I wonder if it is similar to politicians? It takes some specific social skill to get there, but it doesn't mean you are any good in that position when you get it.

<comment><USER2> I don't think its a "social skills selects orthogonally" problem. Its a "to want this job selects for low intelligence" problem. One of the counterexamples I have in mind chose to pursue the alternative despite being brilliant because as a professor she wound up in a place where the red tape was unbearable and the median quality of postdoc and grad student she was getting was impossibly low to achieve reasonable results, but like I said, I think she is an exception and she rails about the difficulties she has as an administrator (but at least it pays better than professor)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> As an alum of the physics department at WUSTL - the author of this piece has quite a negative reputation on campus due to his outspoken beliefs on various political matters. It has led to his removal from many important projects and nearly cost him his tenure

Removal from Obama commission during BP oil spill: [http://archive.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202393](http://archive.ksdk.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=202393)

One of his other essays, "In Defense of Homophobia": [http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html](http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html)

Essay "Why Terrorism Matters": [http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/terror.html](http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/terror.html)

Letter to school newspaper about global warming evidence: [http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/10/28/letter-to-the- edito...](http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/10/28/letter-to-the-editor- jonathan-katz/)

<comment><USER4> Even though I find his political beliefs repulsive, and am sure that his beliefs have put him afoul of the academic groupthink (which leaves me in a weird place, because I dislike his beliefs but also dislike the leftist conformity being brandished against him and breaking his career) I don't think any of this stuff is relevant.

Standing alone, everything he says in this essay is correct and insightful. So I'd rather discuss that than him.

<comment><USER5> Did you actually read what he wrote? The views he expressed are much closer to what you so derisively call "leftist conformity" than his titles would seem to indicate.

<comment><USER6> Huh? Modern "Leftist conformity" involves placing homosexuality and heterosexuality in a scientifically and sociologically spurious equivalence. His piece on homosexuality is _extremely_ far from leftist conformity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Extensive discussion from 6 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=122106)

Scott Aaronson's reply: [http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=312](http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=312)

That was submitted[0] six years ago, but got no discussion at all.

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123584](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=123584)

There have been many, many more occasions when this was submitted,

<comment><USER2> Scott's quip "many PhD programs even see training students for industry as a fundamental part of their mission." Has long been true for chemistry and biology, and that has possibly staved off the phenomenon for a bit longer than it was for physics (original article, 1999), but it is certainly now true in these fields too.

Of course, these are all anecdotes, by which I mean data strongly filtered through confirmation bias. So it's worth thinking about the bias here; we have tons of grad students and postdocs comiserating, and a select few professors. One of which says it's miserable and is trying to warn people in the future, and the other who has had a fabulously successful career saying everything's more or less fine.

<comment><USER8> It is really a simple analysis: The number of tenured faculty is not increasing, so to have a long-term sustainable job market, each one can only graduate one PhD. The actual number over their career is probably more like 5-10. Every one except one of them will not get a tenured faculty job, that's just basic numbers.

<comment><USER9> > The actual number over their career is probably more like 5-10

Where did you get that number? I think that number is actually closer to the number of PhD's in training at any given time. The number over a career is probably 10x that. Heck, I can name one professor who whas 25 PhD students at any given time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel rather conflicted by any advice given to anyone to not become as scientist. I have been through the whole science treadmill all they way up to tenured professor, but I have recently given up tenure to work on my original start-up full time. I loved everything about being an professor except the pointless committee work and paper shuffling, but I reached the point where I felt I could do more good science outside of academia than inside.

My advice for what it is worth is do science if that is what you are passionate about, but work on side skills like programming, business and networking (yes networking is a skill) so that when you reach a point where science is not the way forward anymore you can do something else without feeling like you are a failure.

<comment><USER11> What field are you working in? I am a prospective physics graduate student, and I want to do physics research as a career. However, I am uninterested in going into academia after attaining my PhD, and I am also financially independent due to inheritance.

<comment><USER10> I develop genomics software - my company is in my profile.

If you are financially independent then you should look at becoming an adjunct professor as a long term goal. If you don't cost the university any money and you generate papers and grants then you will not have too much trouble finding a position.

You should use this freedom to work on areas that other less fortunate scientist can't like project that may not generate any results for 3 or more years. No grant funded scientist, or even tenured staff member, can afford to tackle projects that don't generate publications within a relatively short timeframe as any breaks in publication output is career killing.

<comment><USER12> Hm this is an interesting thought but I'm having trouble parsing it. Isn't there a contradiction there? If you generate grants and papers, you can find a job, but then you should tackle stuff that doesn't produce any results for awhile and doesn't get grants?

Long term I am curious about going back to academia, and finances aren't a big issue. But being forced to do short term work is a dealbreaker. I have done some original research outside of academia (mostly in the form of source code, some semi-published), and I'm curious about thoughts on how to "work the system".

EDIT: I looked at what an adjunct professor actually is, and it sounds sorta horrible? You don't even get benefits? I assumed low pay, but at least with benefits, but apparently that's not the case. What do you get out of it, other than a title? Access to facilities? Since I am in software I don't really need facilities....

Or do you get students to do work for your pet project? I imagine the good ones would want to work for a "real" professor.

<comment><USER13> If I were independently wealthy, an adjunct professorship would be pretty appealing (in the right institution). Getting frontline access to very smart people working on potentially world-changing problems while having very few hard responsibilities/commitments (lectures, committees, etc) seems like a nice way to work. Being independently wealthy is a pre-requisite as the institution offers nothing but access.

<comment><USER10> I agree - it is a pity I was not born to really wealthy parents.

There was a paper in Science about 15 years ago that was on how the independently wealthy worked in science that was really interesting (I might see if I can find it online).

If we go back to the foundations of science all scientist were just wealthy dilettantes :)

Edit. Found it - actually it was from 16 years ago :P

[http://www.sciencemag.org/content/279/5348/178.summary?sid=7...](http://www.sciencemag.org/content/279/5348/178.summary?sid=7c3cb97a-7522-4cc8-9cb7-ee68c72007c1)

<comment><USER11> Thank you very much for linking this article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if/when this will happen to programmers. I keep thinking that the job market for programmers will be radically different in ten years, what with the enormous amount of people "learning to code" these days. He did however suggest people to become programmers in 1999, and if you followed his advice then, you would probably still be quite happy with that decision today.

<comment><USER15> It's a completely different situation. Programming leads to some serious concentrated rewards, while science leads only to dispersed rewards. As a result, there are plenty of people wanting to invest in programming, but mostly governments want to touch sciences.

That of course does not mean that the job market for programmers will always be good, only that when it stops being, it will be for very different reasons.

<comment><USER16> > Programming leads to some serious concentrated rewards, while science leads > only to dispersed rewards.

Can you explain what you mean by this?

<comment> UK-AL He means science is a public good, everybody wins when a scientist discovers some knowledge/cure/whatever.

<comment><USER17> But the scientist generally wins less than a programmer who has a moderately good year making a website to help people find other people who would like to walk their dog.

<comment><USER15> It's almost impossible to sell a public good. A career that focus on them will inevitably get less monetary rewards than one that focus on excludable ones.

A scientist gets less money than a programmer because despite creating much more total wealth on average[1], nobody needs to pay to get a share of the results, thus nobody has much of an incentive to pay.

As a related concept, life ain't fair.

[1] Does he really? I'm going with the common opinion, but I'd love to see data on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think a more nuanced article would instead explain to students how to gain competitive advantage, and work with the system, while simultaneously fulfilling the desire to work on one's own problems of interest.

I still don't know for sure if I made the right choice in 1995, sticking to bio grad school, instead of trying to get a job at Yahoo! I mean, had I done the latter, I would likely be independently weathy and able to fund any science project I wish. On the other hand, I really did learn a lot about politics trying to be a scientist. And how to write prose that gets funded. And how to tell a good story.

Same story for 2001, when I did a couple postdocs instead of dedicating all my time trying to get a job at Google. Again, would be wealthy instead of having to work, and could contract out to answer any scientific questions I cared about...

The process of becoming a scientist was painful. The vast majority of being a scientist seems to be doing work that ensures you are free to pursue something of interest... but not having enough time to pursue it, due to bureaucracy. However, spending well over 10,000 hours laboring on interesting problems, and being able to apply the skills gained from that (without having to apply for funding) is very satisfying.

<comment><USER19> >I would likely be independently weathy and able to fund any science project I wish

That is what I determined would be the best way to ensure that I could get the research projects I wanted to do actually funded.

<comment><USER20> But how would you have determined what projects were worth funding?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> " I have known more people whose lives have been ruined by getting a Ph.D. in physics than by drugs."

and

"The result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sensibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa."

Well, I'm sure glad I don't work with this professor. Yeesh! Talk about confirmation bias.

<comment><USER22> I don't think it's fair to assert a confirmation bias.

The first quote: That is probably a factually true quote. He did _not_ say, "Therefore, more people's lives are ruined by physics than drugs."

The second quote is also probably factually true, and jives with my experience in graduate school. Of course, many of the foreigners are also weak, but he leaves that out.

<comment><USER21> Ok, I used my list of logical errors incorrectly, my bad.

Still, yes, for him, maybe he does in fact know more 'failed' physicists than junkies. However, there are many many many more junkies with much much worse lives than almost all PhDs.

I'm going into neurosci this fall, so I don't know yet personally. However, the attitude expressed in that sentence is so very toxic. If that's what the professor publishes, then I'd never want to hear what he gossips to the other professors. Maybe, just maybe, the professor is a jerk. And maybe, just maybe, the only people that are left near him are the ones not smart enough to avoid him in the first place. I don't remember what bias that is.

<comment><USER22> I'm finishing my 5th year of grad school now. My adviser constantly sets expectations so high that they literally cannot be met. I have had to skip holidays and neglect my family and I have still often had my work trivialized. My work is not appreciated, the fact that I have given up almost everything else in my life is not appreciated. Most people do not even make it to their 5th year in our group.

I spent a lot of time being really bitter about all this. But I have realized that _you have to do this to be a good scientist._ My adviser only wants to train good scientists. So I'm not even upset about it any more. I have to look beyond my adviser, and look at the actual science I am doing, and realize that he is irrelevant, but that I still have to behave in this way (i.e. giving up much else in my life) to make progress.

I don't know if you'll encounter this in neurosci. Perhaps good neurosci research can be done without this level of commitment. I'm sure it would depend on your exact specialty. But I'm telling you all this so that you don't end up being really bitter towards your adviser if you get into a situation like many aspiring scientists face. It's not his fault.

I'm not exactly sure what your problem was with the quotes you posted. I guess it was that he was calling his students weak? My point is: in school, what your adviser says is fundamentally irrelevant. Don't let it affect your self- esteem. But science itself has a way of absolutely kicking your butt. And that is _why_ professors say things like that in the first place.

It takes massive virtue to be a good scientist. It also takes a particular set of life circumstances in order for it to be a rational choice. What _I_ do would not have been a rational choice if I had considered it mandatory (for me) to have a girlfriend or start a family, for example (at this stage in life).

That said, I haven't left because what I do truly is rewarding. I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. I am a purely selfish person. I don't do science for the greater good. So my point here is: it can be worth it.

<comment><USER21> Wow, thank you for the advice, I do appreciate it!

I'm going to push back on you though. Having to skip out on your life and family to satisfy an advisor who "sets expectations so high that they literally cannot be met" is NOT ok. I have done this to myself and family before as well, and am old enough now to know that it is WAY unhealthy and detrimental to the work over the long term of months.

Honestly, it sounds like you are kinda Munchhausen-syndroming here. I mean, bravo for sticking with it and having the hardihood, but... dude.... wake up. Your advisor seems to be an ass. If they ride you this hard and trivialize all the hard work it is not helping you be a scientist, it's helping them further their career. You are getting screwed here.

Also, you seem to be very confused as to why you are doing this. You claim to not have a life outside of grad school and yet your life in grad school is terrible. You claim to love what you are doing but only after years of struggle and browbeating. From what little data you have shared (and thank you for doing so, I do appreciate it) you seem resigned. You advisor is not going to give you a good letter of recommendation. You indicate your science is not good enough for your advisor and do not refute this. You claim to be selfish but care about missing out on family and friends. You state your advisor is trying to make you a better scientist, but only discovered so after 5 years of their bad treatment. What is your plan? What are you going to do with your life? If this is what science is doing to you, you might want to reconsider. You seem miserable.

Back to the quotes; my problem was that he is self selecting out the good students. You advisor is a person you should trust. Writing an article like this sends out big red flags to anyone maybe thinking of working with him. I'd never work with the guy because I know for a fact he is a bad investment. If he had any students at the time of the writing, he just threw them all under the bus, along with most of his co-professor's students. He tarnished the reputations of his lab, department, and school by saying those things. Mostly he tarnished his own reputation.

<comment><USER22> Thanks a lot for your comments. You are insanely good at reading between the lines.

I don't let it get me down that my adviser doesn't give me that much approval, because I'm not in it to get his approval. I also don't let it get me down that he doesn't think my work is that much of a contribution, because I genuinely do believe it is.

I did let that stuff get me down for a long time, so I have been miserable part of the time, but I have learned an important life lesson about not letting your own self-esteem come from other people's standards. You have to set your own standards and do your own thinking and evaluation. This is true in all areas of life, but it's super important for self-esteem.

I don't think my adviser is just using me to help his career. He's too established to need that. It's just not a factor. That is definitely something to look out for in academia but not all professors are that hardcore/machiavellian.

Your questions may have been purely rhetorical, but in case not, my plan is to finish my doctorate and then most likely go on to become a practicing (i.e. non-academic) computer scientist.

I do think all this is worth it in terms of not spending much time with my family (I mean my parents' generation, as I'm not married and have no kids) on holidays. It would have been a much larger tradeoff if I had had much social (friends/romantic) prospects, but I don't think I really would have done much better outside of grad school (my best years are still ahead of me in all that kind of stuff). And I do have some really good colleagues that basically are friends, AND I get to do real computer science full time, which is basically a dream come true.

<comment><USER21> " You have to set your own standards and do your own thinking and evaluation. This is true in all areas of life, but it's super important for self-esteem."

I agree and also struggle with this. Many times I put others opinions of me in front of my own. I need to work on it, but I don't have any clue where to start. If you know of any strategies, I'm all ears.

Do remember to watch out for recommendations though. Having an advisor that thinks little of you can and does hurt your chances at jobs. Especially for a PhD candidate, they will be looking to you as a senior role and likely will ask for recommendations. Make sure to have friends that can vouch for you that make sense to a hiring manager. You need to weave a good reason you are using some friend and not your advisor. I know it seems silly, considering what I just said about external self-esteem, but cover your bases.

I am envious of you a bit. I wish I could love programming as much as you seem to. I struggle a lot with the logic and basic concepts. I hate doing it, but since I am willing to, I get the job a lot. Also, the dyslexia makes bug finding an impossibly frustrating job. ';' and ':' look just the same to me.

Lastly, thank you for the compliment. "You are insanely good at reading between the lines." At least, I hope it was. Wait, I'll keep my self-esteem and think of it only as such.

<comment><USER22> I think when we are little children we learn that when our parents or other adults tell us we are good, we are good, and when they tell us we are bad, we are bad.

For the kinds of things that a child deals with, they were possibly or probably accurate most of the time (unless your parents were alcoholics or something---and one of mine was; then you get told or treated as "bad" all the time).

So your brain just learns to operate this way, until you retrain it.

And retrain it, you must. Because the kinds of things adults deal with are much more complicated, plus some adults take advantage of others, are dishonest, don't think things through thoroughly, make mistakes, etc. So if you don't retrain your brain in this regard, you will constantly get "punished" by other adults judging you negatively.

The question is, how to retrain it? In a nutshell, I think the answer is: it just happens automatically by consciously thinking about this issue every time it is relevant. e.g. when my adviser says something that threatens my self- esteem, I remember the principle that his judgement may not be correct, and that it should not affect my self-esteem, and then come up with my own honest, meticulous judgement, which should and does affect my self-esteem. (If you aren't "honest" and "meticulous", you won't really trust your own judgement, so it won't sink in and the whole technique won't work.)

Those are my thouhgts/strategies, hope it's helpful.

I appreciate your point about recommendations. My adviser's judgement _does_ matter for that, just not for my self-esteem, and you have to separate the two, because they _are_ different things. I think I'll probably be OK on the merit of eventually publishing the code I am working on (plus some more papers), which will mean more than anything my adviser could say for the kind of work I want to potentially do (though I might actually just totally change fields after I graduate [1]).

And don't worry, if you keep looking and refuse to give up, changes are very, very high that you will find something as fulfilling as programming could have been, had you actually enjoyed it more. I guess you've already figured this out though since you mentioned planning to study neurosci.

[1] Because the kind of programming I like doing is really cutitng edge and research-y. I like solving really challenging problems slowly and carefully and thoroughly. Not sure I'll find this in industry and not sure I could live with "just normal" programming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I read this article 2 years ago and translated it to chinese [http://article.yeeyan.org/view/160173/332716](http://article.yeeyan.org/view/160173/332716).

After I got a MS degree in Entomology, I found a job as a Software Developer.

"the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa."

not sure about the first part, but the second part is true. a lot of foreigners know this is no way out after you get Phd, but no other choices.

My advice to students who are doing a Phd in Biology or Chemistry is to learn coding by yourself and then you can find a job to live a better life.

</comment><comment><USER24> To be successful in science, as in most other professions, requires a combination of direct skills (ability, knowledge, industriousness, perseverance, etc.), indirect skills (e.g. connections, political ability, salesmanship) and luck.

As a field gets more overcrowded, the job itself becomes less attractive (lower pay, more hours, less interesting work) and the relative importance of the indirect skills and luck becomes much greater, leading to a lower average quality of practitioners.

Presumably, the demand to enter the profession should subsequently decrease and eventually lead to some sort of equilibrium.

<comment><USER2> I don't think it works like that because public grants are not a free-market phenomenon.

<comment><USER25> Key observation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Mr Katz, please remove the third party link to the "German" translation ([http://uhrenstore.de/blog/seikeinwissenschaftler](http://uhrenstore.de/blog/seikeinwissenschaftler) ). The translation is completely off - probably done using machine translation.

e.g. first two sentences:

      Don't Become a Scientist!

      wrong: Sei kein Wissenschaftler!

      correct: Werde kein Wissenschaftler!

      Are you thinking of becoming a scientist?

      wrong: Denken Sie an einen Wissenschaftler zu werden?

      correct: Spielen Sie mit dem Gedanken ein Wissenschaftler zu werden?

      or: Möchten Sie eine wissenschaftliche Karriere einschlagen?

(the uhrenstore.de website is a fake website - all blog articles are machine translated and makes no sense, probably part of a SEO link farm network)

</comment><comment><USER27> Scientist here who managed to get out of the science trap:

Prof Katz is totally right. I started a great career as string theorist, postoc at several elite universities, international lectures and talks, wrote a book, appeared on TV etc etc ... and then didn't get a professorship (at least not on a reasonable time scale). Tried scientific management for a while, but that was too depressing. So, in my late thirties (!) I went into automotive industry, working on self-driving cars, having a fantastic and cool job with a salary I could only dream of a few years ago.

I wouldn't have wanted to miss large parts of my scientific career. But I really regret my excursion into scientific management. I should have switched careers five years earlier.

My advise to young scientists: define some aims and a time scale, and if you don't meet them (i.e. get a tenured job), say good-bye. There is nothing to regret. Don't believe those professors, friends of yours, who promise you a position next year or in two or in three ...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would like to know

* how true this is, today?

* Since I already have an alternative career path (computer science, programmer) can I now pursue my passion of science by going to grad school (physics)?

<comment><USER28> I'm under the impression that it has only gotten worse.

Anecdote: A super smart friend of mine from physics grad school finished in 2008 and went on to post-docs at Caltech and Harvard. He was unable to get a tenure track job, primarily because in that 4 year timespan only 1 faculty position opened up in the entire US for his (tiny) field. He now works at Google.

In fact I'm not sure that anyone from my cohort is still in academia. Other students used to come ask me questions all of the time, because I had worked in industry before going to grad school. Their questions were always some variation of "what are my options if I get out of physics?".

Edit: I'll also add that most grad students I knew gave little thought to their post-grad job prospects before starting grad school. It seems now that the message has trickled along a little better that the outlook is very poor.

<comment><USER29> I interviewed recently for a Data Engineer position in Chicago and was surprised when 2 interviewers from the data team introduced themselves as astrophysicists. They reasoned that they weren't happy with the career path in academia and so found a way out.

<comment><USER30> It's becoming more common as far as I can tell - I also left academia (mathematics) since academia is less about the work you do now. My brother stuck it out and finished his PhD in chemistry, but he too bolted from academia since he hated it as well (and that is with the fortune of having a high reputation thesis advisor, but who milked him for as many papers as he could before my brother threatened to just up and leave) - he's now a senior engineer at Samsung.

The academic landscape is just poor these days - it is a pretty brutal world to operate in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Given that cheap and disposable trainees — PhD students and postdocs — fuel the entire scientific research enterprise, it is not surprising that few inside the system seem interested in change. A system complicit in this sort of exploitation is at best indifferent and at worst cruel.

[http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110302/full/471007a.html](http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110302/full/471007a.html)

Potential missing staff in some areas is a separate issue, and educational programmes are not designed to make up for it. On-the-job learning and training are not separated but dynamically linked together, benefiting to both parties. In my three years of operation, I have unfortunately witnessed cases where CERN duties and educational training became contradictory and even conflicting.

[http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse- stud...](http://ombuds.web.cern.ch/blog/2013/06/lets-not-confuse-students-and- fellows-missing-staff)

The numbers make the problem clear. In 2007, the year before CERN first powered up the LHC, the lab produced 142 master's and Ph.D. theses, according to the lab's document server. Last year it produced 327. (Fermilab chipped in 54.) That abundance seems unlikely to vanish anytime soon, as last year ATLAS had 1000 grad students and CMS had 900.

In contrast, the INSPIRE Web site, a database for particle physics, currently lists 124 postdocs worldwide in experimental high-energy physics, the sort of work LHC grads have trained for.

The situation is equally difficult for postdocs trying to make the jump to a junior faculty position or a permanent job at a national lab. The Snowmass Young Physicists survey received responses from 956 early-career researchers, including 343 postdocs. But INSPIRE currently lists just 152 "junior" positions, including 61 in North America. And the supply of jobs isn't likely to increase, says John Finley, an astrophysicist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, who is leading a search to replace two senior particle physicists.

"How should we make it attractive for them [young people] to spend 5,6,7 years in our field, be satisfied, learn about excitement, but finally be qualified to find other possibilities?" \-- H. Schopper

Indeed, even while giving complete satisfaction, they have no forward vision about the possibility of pursuing a career at CERN.

This lack of an element of social responsibility in the contract policy is unacceptable. Rather than serve as a cushion of laziness for supervisors, who often have only a limited and utilitarian view when defining the opening of an IC post, the contract policy must ensure the inclusion of an element of social justice, which is cruelly absent today.

[http://staff- association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-...](http://staff- association.web.cern.ch/content/unsatisfactory-contract-policy)

The long-held but erroneous assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biomedical science has created an unsustainable hypercompetitive system that is discouraging even the most outstanding prospective students from entering our profession—and making it difficult for seasoned investigators to produce their best work. This is a recipe for long-term decline, and the problems cannot be solved with simplistic approaches. Instead, it is time to confront the dangers at hand and rethink some fundamental features of the US biomedical research ecosystem.

[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/09/1404402111](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/04/09/1404402111)

Since 1982, almost 800,000 PhDs were awarded in science and engineering (S&E) fields, whereas only about 100,000 academic faculty positions were created in those fields within the same time frame. The number of S&E PhDs awarded annually has also increased over this time frame, from ~19,000 in 1982 to ~36,000 in 2011. The number of faculty positions created each year, however, has not changed, with roughly 3,000 new positions created annually.

[http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/full/nbt.2706.html](http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v31/n10/full/nbt.2706.html)

One is simply that graduate students represent the cheapest form of labor, and so graduate programs have expanded to keep researchers well supplied. The end result is that 8,000 people get a PhD in the biological sciences each year, far more than can ever hope to find faculty positions. Only about 20 percent of them end up staying in research positions, yet graduate education generally provides training in nothing but research.

The problem is that everybody who would actually implement these reforms at the institutional level won't like them. Successful researchers will have to accept smaller and more focused labs and see their smaller pool of grad students distracted by training in areas other than research. University administrators will see their departments and incoming money both shrink. You can count on many of them to resist.

[http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/is-us-biomedical- rese...](http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/04/is-us-biomedical-research- heading-for-a-breakdown/)

</comment><comment><USER32> I don't know about America, but our university here in UK just received a huge, 15 million pound grant to open another 11 PhD positions in Big Data Analysis, fully funded by Red Hat - and they practically guarantee a job afterwards, a well paid job. I am doing something completely unrelated, but I have to say that a prospect of job security for 4 years and then a good job afterwards is very enticing.

<comment><USER33> Do you have a link to this program?

I think the piece this prof wrote targets classical PhD programs and does not take into account industry-sponsored PhD programs like the one you mention.

<comment><USER32> [http://digitalinstitute.ncl.ac.uk/centre-for-doctoral- traini...](http://digitalinstitute.ncl.ac.uk/centre-for-doctoral-training-in- cloud-computing-for-big-data-announced/)

And also the email we've been sent directly by the university:

We're delighted to announce that we have been awarded an EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Cloud Computing for Big Data. This new multi-million pound initiative will train the next generation of experts in the analysis of "big data" using the latest cloud computing technologies and statistical techniques. People with these skills are in such demand that the Centre is being heavily backed by industry worldwide (including Microsoft, Red Hat and IBM); companies will work with us on the training, and provide placements during the PhD.

Some additional details are included in the University Press Release: [http://t.co/5HvBUhhZ1t](http://t.co/5HvBUhhZ1t)

We have eleven fully funded, four year PhD studentships available for home (including EU) students to start in October 2014. These fully cover both the fees, and living expenses (no loans or debts are needed).

We are recruiting students from both Computing Science and Mathematics/Statistics backgrounds and providing an intensive course of interdisciplinary training during Year 1 of the four year PhD programme. Students from a CS background will be trained in advanced cloud computing and statistical skills during year 1, beginning with a crash course in "Statistics for Computer Scientists" in October. Students will then work on a PhD research project.

As well as working with closely with industry, the course will also teach and support students interested in setting up their own company.

We can provide full funding (fees plus living expenses) for students expected to gain a II(i) or First who meet the usual Home fee status regulations (contact us if you are not sure).

If you would like to register an interest in this programme, or ask any questions, please send an email to email@example.com containing your full name, stage, degree programme, fee status and predicted degree classification. In the case of a predicted degree classification of II(i), please also include a predicted final average. Students registering an interest will be sent further details about the programme, including information on how to apply, as soon as applications formally opens.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone know how the situation in Europe compares for post grads in Math, Physics and CS?

<comment><USER35> It is pretty simple to get a permanent position in Physics here. All you need is a vagina.

<comment><USER36> All: When you see a comment that is truly bad for HN, you can flag it by clicking "link" to go to the item page and then "flag" at the top. We monitor those flags and take action based on them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I rather dislike these essays that deter young, intelligent and motivated young people from a career they might otherwise enjoy and be passionate about. There are legitimate problems with the career track as established and outlined in this essay. It is even wise to inform young people of those problems so they know what they're getting into. However it is discouraging to hear from tenured professors that they should give up their passion and dreams and be a lawyer.

I can think of no greater torture, save complete isolation, than eternal boredom.

It's disingenuous to deter the curious on account of your cynicism, is it not?

<comment><USER38> I don't think disingenuous fits for what you are saying. In particular, the author seems quite sincere in his belief that the job market for PHDs has lots and lots of candidates and that this creates disadvantages for it as a career path.

I also don't think that young, intelligent, motivated, passionate and curious individuals are especially fragile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I was thinking about trying to become a computer science professor.

I think I could potentially get more top-quality research done living an impoverished lifestyle and working at something else part time, than I could in academia, where you have to focus on pleasing the "powers that be" (program committees, grant committees, tenure committees).

<comment><USER39> This reminds of something Feynman said something in "You Must Be Joking..."

"When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don't get any ideas for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and they're not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come. Nothing happens because there's not enough real activity and challenge: You're not in contact with the experimental guys. You don't have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!"

The internet has probably nullified this effect to some extent.

<comment><USER10> I think Feynman was just jealous :) When you consider that von Neumann was at IAS and he managed a huge amount of collaboration of vast importance I think it had more to do with the individual than the environment.

<comment><USER40> Feynman had an offer from IAS which he declined for the reasons discussed above.

<comment><USER10> I am aware of this - hence the :)

I do think it is more of an issue with the individual than the nature of IAS as great collaborative work was done by people there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "Leave graduate school to people from India and China, for whom the prospects at home are even worse."

Even worse in terms of what?

<comment><USER42> It's been 15 years since this article was originally written, which doesn't seem like a long time.

But China's GDP was $1T in 1999, and was $9T in 2013. I confess near-absolute ignorance but the job prospects for advanced degrees in China probably have gotten at least a _little_ better in that time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_the_People's...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_GDP_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China)

<comment><USER23> the problem is far more people getting a advanced degree.

In 1999, if you hold a Phd degree from US, it is easy to find a faculty position in China. However, Even you hold a PhD degree from Top Univ in US today, you can hardly find a faculty position in China. You have to do postdoc to publish more papers in top journal.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with you. I see the same pattern with Indian science landscape. Unless you have nice and strong connections, landing an academic position in India is tough too, even with a PhD from some ace university in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> There's a rather interesting perspective that touches some of these issues (and covers many more) in the following book: [http://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical- Professiona...](http://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Minds-Critical- Professionals-Soul-battering/dp/0742516857)

</comment><comment><USER44> The facts presented here are OK, but the facts would be even stronger if they were about: "Don't build a hundred million dollar company; don't get traction or leave an indelible imprint on humanity." (i.e. many of us here are doing far less justified things, statistically speaking, regarding career choices as entrepreneurs. Rather like the physicists discussed in the article.)

Maybe none of us should be building anything. The facts are pretty strong toward that one, as well, and most readers building a company would have a much safer path coding at Microsoft.

It just doesn't matter. Did you know Fermat was an "amateur mathematician" and Wikipedia introduces him as such, after giving his introduction as "a French lawyer."

So what? Was mathematics a waste of his time - certainly. Would you have advised him not to squander it doing that? Would you have told him not to actually study mathematics formally and devote his profession to it? Who knows what we could have gotten.

Thankfully these arguments are never going to affect the bright minds of our or any generation, and people will go and do whatever fascinates them.

Planck, too, was discouraged from studying physics:

"The university's professor of physics, Philip von Jolly, discouraged the young student from studying physics because—as Jolly told him—it was very nearly a closed subject with little left to discover. Luckily, Planck disregarded his professor's advice." [1]

Basically that's all you need to know about the current blog post as well :) :)

[1] [http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Pl-Pr/Planck- Max.html](http://www.chemistryexplained.com/Pl-Pr/Planck-Max.html)

<comment><USER44> I should clarify that I mean that the argument and facts that the article uses are OK. It starts:

>Are you thinking of becoming a scientist? Do you want to uncover the mysteries of nature, perform experiments or carry out calculations to learn how the world works? Forget it!

and ends

>What can be done? The first thing for any young person (which means anyone who does not have a permanent job in science) to do is to pursue another career.

But the very same argument would apply to: "Are you thinking of founding a company? Do you want to build value and change the lives of millions of people, getting rich in the process? Forget it!"

We could then go on to state why entrepreneurship has an even lower success rate than that talked about in the article. For every one hundred people who set out to change the world by founding a company, how many succeed?

The truth is that the average founder's prospects are, rationally, miserable.

That does not stop the best and brightest from going into entrepreneurship, building companies and actually changing the world.

In the exact same sense that Planck was not discouraged by his university's professor of physics stating that he should not study physics, and should concentrate on something else. Likewise Von Neuman's father insisted he study chemistry (which he did, along with mathematics.)

The facts presented in the article just don't matter to those who have a true passion for science, just as the statistics don't matter for those of us building companies. They will study mathematics, or physics, or start companies, regardless of the odds. It's not a rational decision so much as a passionate one.

If I've missed something please do tell me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> This guy also wrote an essay titled "In Defense of Homophobia":

[http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html](http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html)

<comment><USER46> Let's please evaluate the current article on its own merits. I'm really tired of the new witch-hunt-as-acceptable mentality on here and the news.

It's frustrating reading the comments and seeing it filled with complaints about unrelated articles by the same author.

<comment><USER47> I don't think it's entirely inappropriate in this case because this kind of article is only of value if the author is basically trustworthy and sane. He's not really reporting facts or making an argument so much as just reporting his own experiences and opinions. That's fine but it does make his personal credibility relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> The exact advice I'd give to people today, having done just that.

</comment><comment><USER49> Here's another similar article. [http://rense.com/general88/cold.htm](http://rense.com/general88/cold.htm)

</comment><comment><USER50> So the constant cry by the government for better STEM programs is just a sham? It should be just renamed to TEM.

</comment><comment><USER51> Read this in 1999. Still went to grad school in 2004 after working in .coms of that era. No regrets.

</comment><comment><USER52> I hope I don't get too many downvotes: I see people wanting to make a change from academia to technology and I think I may have something for you. If you are interested in working on interesting data problems, Golang, and living in Austin, TX, please message me.

</comment><comment><USER4> _The result is that the best young people, who should go into science, sensibly refuse to do so, and the graduate schools are filled with weak American students and with foreigners lured by the American student visa._

Not quite true, but what I have noticed is that, at the graduate-school level, there's a very low correlation between the quality of the program and the students.

If you go to a top-5 PhD program, you'll be surprised by how many of these supposedly "best in the generation" people just aren't that good. Many are, and the talented outnumber the talentless, but you'd expect there to be zero talentless schmucks at the top programs, and it just ain't so. This is where the OP's perception that PhD programs are "full of weak students" probably comes from; the fact that even top PhD programs can't keep the schmucks out. It's not hard, even for a total mediocrity, for a 22-year-old packing socioeconomic advantages, and already coming from an elite college, to appear smart.

Drop down to the #10 or #20 or even #35 department, and the talent distribution isn't much different. The difference, in raw intelligence, between the students isn't that strong. There are some really good students and some terrible ones, at any of them. The change is barely perceptible. You wouldn't be able to tell the difference except by the reputation of their advisors.

If you go in to a top school and expect its students to be the best of the best, you'll be disappointed when only 75-85% of them are halfway intelligent, and you might conclude that the #30 school has _no_ intelligent students. In fact, it has almost as many. There are probably 20-100 times as many people (probably 3-5% of the general population) with the talent for academia as actually put themselves anywhere near contention for the positions.

What we now have, and it's not new, is evidence of a sorting system that doesn't really work. We can't sort talent from well-positioned mediocrity (read: socioeconomic status) before college, we certainly can't do it in college, and we don't do it for graduate school (George W. Bush is a Harvard Business School graduate). At all levels, we do a terrible job. We're actually talent-rich as a society, because we've had the smartest people coming here for generations. We just haven't a clue what to do with it.

<comment><USER53> Why are you so surprised that a metric like GPA (or undergrad accomplishment in general), with a hard ceiling, loses its correlation with actual talent at the top end of the scale? That is, most undergrads will simply never get the opportunity to publish _one_ paper in undergrad, let alone two or three, so if you admit them to grad-school based on _maybe_ a publication, good grades, and maybe some internship/REU experience, you should expect to admit some highly talented students and some students who were very talented at optimizing the capped metrics on their resume to the maximum but not at actual research.

Hell, in a way, it's basic reinforcement learning, is it not? What sort of rational agent or system will "go above and beyond" when the reward signal is capped at a maximum value? When you look at it that way, every single step of the selection, sorting, and filtering process we call academic meritocracy is optimizing for irrational devotion to careerist signaling, which has only a weak correlation to real devotion to science.

<comment><USER54> Well, one thing you can do is admit everyone who a colleague you know and trust says can do research (what I've heard, quite logically, is the #1 way to get into a good graduate program, after of course convincing a professor in one to demand your admittance).

So the "schmucks" ... and I've known of one MIT professor who didn't get tenure who was in that category (a friend tried to do research in her laboratory and found it impossible, it was so badly run, something subsequent events proved) ... are either false positives from the above metric or from the cohort of department's best guesses after running out of them.

<comment><USER53> >Well, one thing you can do is admit everyone who a colleague you know and trust says can do research

I always thought this was simply how you get into grad-school: do research in undergrad, and have your research mentors write you letters of recommendation, trusting their reputation to carry information the admissions committee will understand and care about where grades and awards won't.

>So the "schmucks" ... and I've known of one MIT professor who didn't get tenure who was in that category (a friend tried to do research in her laboratory and found it impossible, it was so badly run, something subsequent events proved) ... are either false positives from the above metric or from the cohort of department's best guesses after running out of them.

Kinda. Politics become a problem, but it _is_ true that once you actually get to the point of publishing papers, the _cap_ on your achievements disappears, so you do, in some way, get career credit for doing more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> i don't totally disagree with the article, but it's probably worth pointing out that this guy is apparently a "proud homophobe." great. one might question his judgement after reading this drivel.

[http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/05/washington...](http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2010/05/washington_university_jonathan_katz_deepwater_horizon_gulf_oil_spill_obama.php)

[http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html](http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html)

<comment><USER56> This is a textbook ad hominem attack. Although I have very little respect for homophobes, this doesn't automatically torpedo every other argument a person makes. (Especially when it is on a completely unrelated subject).

<comment><USER55> Both of these are questions of judgement and rational thinking. Should one take career advice from a bigot? I leave it up to you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Part of the problem is that Murkans are inherently fearful/distrustful of science and scientists, so it's hard to get any respect -- and the attendant pay raises -- unless you work in defense or "national security". The situation is different in Europe or Asia, though, so if you do want to become a scientist, you'd have a much better time of it outside the USA.

</comment><comment><USER58> Getting PhD and trained as scientist has a HUGE value counter to the arguments in this article.

First, as Guy Kawasaki puts it, you want to be in school as long as possible. Getting a job means life long working on your bosses orders whether you like it or not. Going to graduate school allows you to work on _your_ favorite area, become master at something and gives you an opportunity to add that little bump in the human knowledge with your name.

After you get PhD, you should also realize that not everyone is cut out becoming next Einstein or Feynman. If you can get good postdoc with interesting challenges then fine but otherwise you can always go to industry and get a job. You enjoyed your years in graduate school unlike spending those years trying to make some company little bit more profit and that's what counts.

Today, having a PhD in any field is invaluable if you want to enter the software industry. Most PhD work today involves some level of data science and software work anyway. When you apply for a job, at least in software industry, you will get better offer faster.

The correct way to look at this not how much money you would have made if you weren't doing PhD and straight went to industry but rather how much fun you would have missed out on your favorite area of work and possibly childhood passion if you didn't.

Software is eating academia. Concern for not getting tenure positions should be minimal today. There has never been better time to get PhD and get trained as scientist.

<comment><USER59> This is a very... optimistic view of the value that a Ph.D. confers.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Causemap – Crowdsourced Causality - <AUTHOR> http://www.causemap.org

<comment><USER2> I liked the title, but I don't understand this.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a collection of real-life situations, like that whole #bendgate fiasco on the internet, Occupy Wall St. or the american-led military campaign against ISIS, linked to the situations that people think caused them.

For example: there are rumors that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been toppled ([http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-kim- rumo...](http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-north-korea-kim- rumors-20141006-story.html)), and the cause for these rumors is that he hasn't been seen in public in more than a month. A user could go to Causemap to understand what caused the rumors ([http://www.causemap.org/situation/160d455f667aa6134efe251746...](http://www.causemap.org/situation/160d455f667aa6134efe2517468389d3)), add what they know by editing the situation (a la wikipedia) or expand the list of causes and/or effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Such a great tool for social experiments. Love it

<comment><AUTHOR> Social experiments? Such as?</comment></comment>


Is The NFL Keeping Cable/Satellite Companies In The TV Business? - <AUTHOR> http://www.macdougherty.com/macblog/2010/12/is-the-nfl-keeping-cable-companies-in-the-cable-tv-business.html

<comment><USER2> Key point here.

You can't actually stream any other major pro sport _in your local market_ you only get out of market games (ie no Giants baseball in the Giants territory - and the territory extends north to oregon and about 300 miles south of SF)

Here's the funny thing - you generally don't need cable to watch your local NFL team. You can actually usually get your local NFL team using an over the air HD antenna and if you get a decent signal you can get pretty good HD. This is because most NFL games air on local broadcast affiliates which still transmit an OTA signal. Most of the other sports games are on local cable nets.

So really NFL is actually the only sport where you can get a local game feed without cable. So to answer the article's premise - no.

<comment><USER3> But what about blackouts? When the team stadium sales are below x% they aren't allowed to broadcast the game at all, in order to theoretically drive more ticket sales.

<comment><USER4> True, but blackouts are relatively rare in the NFL, unless its 2009 and you're the Raiders. In fact, the Chargers were about 1,000 tickets away from a blackout earlier this year, and posted this on their Twitter account, and quickly sold enough tickets.

<comment><USER5> [http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2010-09-06-nfl-t...](http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2010-09-06-nfl- tv-blackouts-forecast_N.htm)

"Last year's blackouts were confined to five teams, all of which had losing records: the Jacksonville Jaguars (seven blackouts, seven wins); Detroit Lions (four blackouts, two wins); Kansas City Chiefs (one blackout, four wins); Oakland Raiders (seven blackouts, five wins); and St. Louis Rams (three blackouts, one win)."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The main reason I subscribe to cable is for sports. Football is infrequent enough that I can go to a bar, but if I went to a bar for every baseball game I'd be poor and drunk all the time. MLB.tv is great if your favorite team isn't your local team. If you like the home team you have to go through hoops (alternate billing address, proxy) and always live in fear that you'll be cut off.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think it's the reverse at this point: The cable companies are keeping the NFL off of the internet. The NFL makes so much money off of broadcast / cable TV that I don't see how they could make it up with internet fees.

<comment><USER8> There is the model that takes cable fees and applies them to online content. This is how espn3.com works and is getting even more interesting now that you can stream that content to an Xbox 360.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Like others have said, sports is the only thing that keeps me buying cable, but this whole "cable is dying" argument neglects one main point: the TV viewing experience is still way better than online video. Try flipping through 100 streaming videos as quickly as you can flip through 100 TV channels. Until IPTV or whatever you want to call it can perform as well as cable, and it can't yet, I don't see cable dying.

Mark Cuban had a good piece on this subject a year ago, still rings true:

[http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/03/25/mrk-cuban:-cable- tv-...](http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2009/03/25/mrk-cuban:-cable-tv-winning- battle-against-internet-delivered-tv)

<comment><USER10> It's a demographics issue - all the 20-somethings I know follow shows, almost nobody does the whole "I just want to see what's on" thing anymore. There's a major shift in how people use TVs, and the new user mode supports intentional watching (as opposed to passive surfing).

This is supported by the rise of DVRs, allowing people to choose when they want to view their content without delving into the online realm of Hulu, Netflix, etc.

The problem right now is that none of the major online streamers have _really good_ integration into any TV set. There also does not exist a good discovery system ("you like House? You might also like...") for anyone except Netflix, and they're more of a movie house than a television one.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I buy a digital cable package with HD just for the football season. We only turn it on for football games. ~300 channels and an extra $80 or so over my cable modem costs for 2-3 games per week. We cancel post-Super Bowl every year and restart for preseason.

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't know why everybody is so keen to encourage others to give up cable TV.

Sure, I don't have cable TV, and I get most of my video-watching via the internet. Where do I get my internet access from? Why, Comcast, the only provider of high-speed internet in my area.

If everybody starts getting all their TV through the internet, what will Comcast do? They'll start charging everybody a lot more for internet access in order to make up the lost revenue. For the moment, though, I'm flying under the radar, getting my internet _and_ all the video I can watch for less than the cost of basic cable TV. I'd like to keep it that way. Therefore, sssshhh!

<comment><USER13> What you're describing sounds suspiciously like an abuse by Comcast of their monopoly, to the consumers' detriment.

<comment><USER14> Ha - I think that's already happening...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this is an accurate assessment based on my own observations. My brother (in his twenties) just told me the other day that the only reason he wants cable is for Monday night football.

The one factor that cable companies can rely on is that they have positioned themselves to be the primary ISP for a good portion of the US population. It will be interesting to watch how/if these companies pivot in the next few years.

</comment><comment><USER16> I haven't had cable or satellite for 4 years, so this rings true for me. I go to bars or friends' houses to watch MNF, or I just skip more of them these days. Other than that, there's no way to get the current episodes of Dexter online without subscribing to Showtime.

Funny thing is...I'd pay for both MNF and Dexter a la cart on iTunes/Amazon if it we're available. As it stands, neither networks get any of my money. But the local bars do :)

<comment><USER17> But the bars pay commercial rates for cable, which are thousands of dollars a month. Trust me, the NFL is peachy keen with your purchase behavior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think one aspect of this is that every NFL game is on a national network. Most NBA, MLB, and NHL games are on local stations.

I think the NFL has the tendency to sign big exclusivity contracts, given that the only way to watch out of market games is through DirecTV.

<comment><USER8> I wonder how many DirectTV subscribes would jump ship if they lost Sunday Ticket.

<comment><USER4> DirectTV has a strategy of using sports as an acquisition/retention tool, and paying handsomely for it. They also have exclusive NCAA Tournament content - like being able to watch 4 games at once on your TV. Sunday Ticket is the biggest driver here, though, for sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was recently thinking of switching from Time Warner Cable ($95/month) for Xbox 360 with ESPN3, Roku, and OTA. However, TWC only offers ESPN3 to customers who have internet and cable tv.

</comment><comment><USER20> ESPN and NFL network are the _only_ reason I still pay for cable. I'd cancel tonight if i could stream both (willing to pay significantly for both as well)

<comment><USER21> ESPN recently started letting you watch a simulcast of their cables channels if you (or say your parents) get ESPN from their Time Warner cable service. I don't know that there is any other providers signed on yet but they seem to be working on adding more. It's how I cut the cord.

<http://espn.go.com/espnnetworks/index>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> did the author of this article actually take a moment to google for NFL Streaming? The game hasn't started yet but I have it open in a browser and watched many games this way before. Horrible article.

<comment><USER22> Go ahead and down vote me for suggesting the author do a simple web search. BTW New England is up 3 to 0.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't know about that but it sure is keeping my local bar in business.</comment>