I don't have a PhD, which is why I have a tremendous amount of respect for PhDs. I hope my question is not too obvious, but when OP says that one will get a "PhD level of education," isn't he missing the fact that the point of a PhD is to do original research, and therefore not just "ingest" knowledge, but actually create new knowledge for humanity?
"I hope my question is not too obvious, but when OP says that one will get a "PhD level of education," isn't he missing the fact that the point of a PhD is to do original research, and therefore not just "ingest" knowledge, but actually create new knowledge for humanity"
And furthermore, much of the work and reading material (especially in the social science, not sure about other fields) is really about jumping through hoops, learning the game, knowing the rituals of your particular tribe, and knowing how to cite other academics so that you can properly join the social network. If you are just trying to learn for the sake of knowing, 95% of the readings and the problem sets are irrelevant.
I would like to hear the opinions of other PhDs on the validity of this comment. Specifically if it's a universal problems to all fields, and whether the actual PhD time can be cut short had it not been an actual issue?
Comments like the granparent's frustrate me. Often they're from people who have good reasons, but I feel that it paints a skewed picture. I have a PhD, but am no longer in Academia. However, I think the "systematic" problems with academia that people talk about stem from a misunderstanding about what research and peer review are.
A PhD has _nothing_ to do with coursework and _everything_ to do with conceptualizing, managing, and completing projects then finally _communicating_ the results. Yes, it's about original research, but that usually doesn't mean that it's done in isolation.
Yes, you need to be conversant in your field. Yes, that means being up to date with what other people are doing. At the end of the day, though, the key question is, "Can you convince other people to buy into your work?".
A large part of it, for better or worse, is salesmanship. (Also know as "communication".) That's by design. If you can convince several intelligent, skeptical, and yes, biased people that you are right, then there's a good chance that you are.
People are human. They have agendas. It's not a perfect system. Nonetheless, peer review mostly works. I think there are things we can do to improve it, but the picture most people seem to have of academia is overly pessimistic, i.m.o. I would argue that it works fairly well, for the most part.
We stand on the shoulders of giants. One is awarded a PhD for producing original research, but it doesn't magically materialise from the ether. Rather, it is a refinement and/or synthesis of what preceded.
De Garis appears to have genuinely good intentions to educate the world and thereby free it from war and poverty. Unfortunately, he also comes across as self-important, cantankerous, elitist prick, which makes me think that he is unlikely to make much positive impact. At least the categorized archive of papers appears to be way more useful than his rambling youtube lectures (with a typical view count of 15 over 3 years).
His last video was 2 years ago. Maybe he has a new hobby!
I looked at some of his pure math videos. Basic stuff but I thought he explained well. If you visit this HN post and you decide to investigate further, just bookmark his youtube channel and maybe you enjoy some of his videos on maths or quantum physics sometime.
I have no doubt that he is a tremendously important researcher but from the way he talks he sounds like one of those Mensa types. "IQs in the top percentile" and all that.
> the way he talks he sounds like one of those Mensa types
He is discriminating people based on IQ and I don't think Mensa members are like that at all. Mensa's founder wanted to gather brilliant minds to solve society difficult problems (I think they are missing that mission though) which I think is a laudable.
I felt uneasy reading this article... He is specially discriminative in the last section and I don't think all the Noble prizes in the world give the rights to anyone to talk like that.
When reading the original article I thought, this guy seems off, maybe becoming a professor does that to someone, probably no big deal.
Then I skimmed through your link:
> I predict that in a few years, fluffy feminist divorce court judges will start being assassinated by young women, as the latter increasingly see the source of their misery coming from these judges. These young women, manless, loveless, sexless, and especially childless, due to the mass exodus of the MGTOWs will then express their hatred against these judges in the form of assassination.
His writings on the subject of the interaction between men and women scream "frustrated virgin." He's full of rage toward women and their place in families and society.
Heh. The funny thing is that in a way everything on that page makes a lot of sense. If you take mainstream feminist and egalitarian ideology at its face value, and then you look at how things actually play out in the real world, then something like his masculism makes sense. However, most people when noticing a difference between the ideology and the reality will question the ideology. Other people won't think about it too hard and will accept some rationalization for the contradictions. It takes a special soul to make a reductio ad absurdum and actually completely believe the reduction.
> which is a mistake by the way, since it is the alfas who win the Nobel Prizes, the Abel Prizes, who invent the transistors, and write the symphonies. We are the creators and shakers of society. We should not be ignored, we should be worshiped, because it is we who pull the rest of society (the betas) behind us, whether they like it or not.
