“You are at the bottom of a deep epistemic well.”
Phil Agre on the existential dilemma of the graduate student: you have no way of knowing that the field you have chosen—because the problem matters and there’s seeming progress—is total nonsense.
Phil Agre on the existential dilemma of the graduate student: you have no way of knowing that the field you have chosen—because the problem matters and there’s seeming progress—is total nonsense.
If you are smart and lucky, by the time you get your PhD, you have figured out that your research discipline is fatally flawed and no meaningful progress is possible.
Now you are stuck: unemployable except as an active colluder in obscuring this reality.
Now you are stuck: unemployable except as an active colluder in obscuring this reality.
Institutional reforms to unlock smart people stuck in dead-end disciplines might dramatically increase research productivity
meaningness.com/metablog/upgra…
meaningness.com/metablog/upgra…
