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Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho

6 Nov

@dav_robbe

@dav_robbe I didn’t leave academia voluntarily. And I tried to get a traditional academic job back for quite a while. Stockholm syndrome, I guess. I’m also still trying to get funding for my projects. Short-term fellowships work, but no luck with bigger projects so far. /1

@dav_robbe

@dav_robbe I survive on the odd teaching job and giving workshops (e.g. a primer in philosophy for scientists). In years since I’ve left, I’ve done my best intellectual work. The lack of career constraints is unbelievably liberating. And the lack of bullshit work in committees etc. too… /2

@dav_robbe

@dav_robbe Academia is an oligarchy. The oligarchs are powerful & uninterested in change. By their own metrics, their science is doing better than ever. For me, most of it has lost all relevance. As you say, our fields are stuck in the wrong paradigm. More of the same, no thank you. /3

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Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho

5 Nov

I made the mistake of taking on a grant review in my old field of research. The first this year. Much has happened since January. And many of my priorities have changed. A few reflections. /1

After reading the grant proposal, I had to decline the review, because of an intellectual conflict of interest. The proposal was well-written, certainly not uninteresting in terms of proposals in its field, and the applicant was well qualified. /2

But for one, reading through the 30-page proposal made me viscerally sick. All the hours and effort wasted for a 10–15% funding chance. Excessive details, time planning, questions about applicability, and whatnot. All a tremendous waste of time. /3

Read 12 tweets

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho

17 Sep

I just read another one of those “how I overcame writing anxiety and became a more productive writer” threads on #AcademicTwitter. They are a frighteningly frequent thing. A few thoughts. #StockholmSyndrome /1

This latest thread was full of very reasonable advice on how to boost your writing productivity by a researcher who published something like a dozen and a half articles and book chapters over the past year. The implicit claim is that this made them a better writer. /2

But why would you want to optimise your output like this in the first place? What kind of system makes you think this is a good thing? This cult of productivity is driving us insane & it’s also driving academic research into a corner, the corner of the low-hanging fruit. /3

Read 10 tweets

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho

16 Sep

A business idea for these times, in which higher education is seen as a commodity, and students are treated like customers: a university modelled on #CrossFit. (And no, this is *not* about Greg Glassman’s idiotic views on COVID or racism.) #HigherEducation /1

From the point of this university “your education is just our warm-up.” Students will have to suffer (every single day) to increase their depth of thinking. Daily existential crises are part of the programme. Only this kind of learning builds sustainable cognitive muscle. /2

Cognitive nutrition will be strictly regulated. No greasy writings are part of the curriculum. Only Spartan intellectual rigour. No literary intoxication. Only Henry-Rollins style straight edge. No romantic poetry, just analytic prose. /3

Read 8 tweets

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho

26 Jun

This is the complete #BeyondNetworks playlist: youtube.com/playlist?list=….

We had our last discussion with the Uni Vienna MSc students today.

A little reflection… 👇🏻 /1

It’s been an incredible journey. Very wide-ranging, but also very compressed & intense. Deadlines are the only thing that forces me to overcome eternal procrastination due to excessive perfectionism. I’m still a bit dizzy (and exhausted) from the experience. /2

The product is far from perfect. I consider it like a demo tape. Something you produce before you sign up with a label to record a more professionally produced album. It’s raw in many spots. But I think the story it attempts to tell is shining through clearly enough. /3

Read 13 tweets

Yogi Jaeger

@yoginho

20 Jun

A little thread on maybe *the* false dichotomy in evolutionary biology: self-organisation vs. natural selection… 👇🏻

Let’s start with Lewontin’s minimal conditions for Darwinian evolution: (1) phenotypic variation, (2) inheritance, (3) differential fitness. To get evolution, these conditions must be met. /1

Note: you must have ontogenesis (a life cycle or “the acquisition of the capacity to reproduce") to get variation & inheritance. If you don’t buy this, read Griesemer’s excellent “Genetics from an Evolutionary Process Perspective.” /2

Read 21 tweets

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