The centralization of the public and private sectors and the centralization of the research world that accompanied all that has made so that there is far less research and research opportunities than there otherwise would be; and on top of that, this paradigm as caused and enabled much of the deleterious to research situations that we have, like the corrupting aspects of perverse incentives related to there not being enough jobs/research opportunities, the grant cartels, the perversions of patent law, etc.
"My intuition is that the biggest unnecessary attrition from academia happens due to the absence of an established “pure researcher” career track."
Positions like that used to be more common across the board - but the funding cuts to public universities and other research institutions due to policies in place under Reaganomics (etc) means the last time this was a viable career plan was 4 decades ago ! Since then project-oriented funding of research and positions is the norm. If there is a perceived slow down by some people, it could be that the late 20th c experiment with project-oriented science and hiring policies fueled by the commodification of research articles and Impact Factors, is part of that failure.
Another one of the hidden, rather insidious effects of the short-term, project-oriented approach imposed (which BTW was supposed to "fix" research and make it "efficient") is that now there is less and less intellectual and methodological continuity in laboratories. I often have the impression that parts of science are starting over and over again with the same ideas because no one is there to talk about how "we already tried that" and explain why it didn't work then (and still won't work). It can be even more difficult to progress on a topic when you don't have a good idea of what went wrong before.
I had a discussion the other day with someone that the 80,000 hours job board seems to be oversubscribed, in the sense that each job posting is getting far more qualified, highly intelligent applicants than they should be getting. In the same way that a charity which is getting way more money than they can effectively spend, without an influx of "meaningful" jobs, aspiring EAs should probably just return to earning to give.
If it's actually true that there are many research assistant positions on important projects for intelligent motivated people which are unfilled simply because of funding constraints, it sounds like it would be beneficial to make such positions known (or the path to creating them legible), so that the hordes of aspiring EAs out there could take them while working at discounted rates. Best case scenario is they catch the Nobels that you are dangling, worst case is they develop biology skills that they can use in their own startups five years from now.
I think things are considerably worse in the social sciences. And the humanities are probably beyond repair.
The centralization of the public and private sectors and the centralization of the research world that accompanied all that has made so that there is far less research and research opportunities than there otherwise would be; and on top of that, this paradigm as caused and enabled much of the deleterious to research situations that we have, like the corrupting aspects of perverse incentives related to there not being enough jobs/research opportunities, the grant cartels, the perversions of patent law, etc.
"My intuition is that the biggest unnecessary attrition from academia happens due to the absence of an established “pure researcher” career track."
Positions like that used to be more common across the board - but the funding cuts to public universities and other research institutions due to policies in place under Reaganomics (etc) means the last time this was a viable career plan was 4 decades ago ! Since then project-oriented funding of research and positions is the norm. If there is a perceived slow down by some people, it could be that the late 20th c experiment with project-oriented science and hiring policies fueled by the commodification of research articles and Impact Factors, is part of that failure.
Another one of the hidden, rather insidious effects of the short-term, project-oriented approach imposed (which BTW was supposed to "fix" research and make it "efficient") is that now there is less and less intellectual and methodological continuity in laboratories. I often have the impression that parts of science are starting over and over again with the same ideas because no one is there to talk about how "we already tried that" and explain why it didn't work then (and still won't work). It can be even more difficult to progress on a topic when you don't have a good idea of what went wrong before.
indeed - well put!
I had a discussion the other day with someone that the 80,000 hours job board seems to be oversubscribed, in the sense that each job posting is getting far more qualified, highly intelligent applicants than they should be getting. In the same way that a charity which is getting way more money than they can effectively spend, without an influx of "meaningful" jobs, aspiring EAs should probably just return to earning to give.
If it's actually true that there are many research assistant positions on important projects for intelligent motivated people which are unfilled simply because of funding constraints, it sounds like it would be beneficial to make such positions known (or the path to creating them legible), so that the hordes of aspiring EAs out there could take them while working at discounted rates. Best case scenario is they catch the Nobels that you are dangling, worst case is they develop biology skills that they can use in their own startups five years from now.