<story><title>So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering</title><url>https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/14/so-much-of-academia-is-about-connections-and-reputation-laundering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vivekd</author><text>Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can&amp;#x27;t imagine other places being much different.&lt;p&gt;I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn&amp;#x27;t work or you don&amp;#x27;t know what you&amp;#x27;re doing, you&amp;#x27;re quickly exposed as a fraud.  This is not the case in other fields like law, academia, politics, and even the corporate world where the results and methods are more abstract and given to opinion.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately much of the world is run by people who excel in the abstract fields rather than the technical ones.</text></item><item><author>kbos87</author><text>So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do.&lt;p&gt;The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, respects, and would vouch for me? Everything else aside, that’s what people optimize for when they choose who to promote, respond to reference requests, and generally in who they engage with at work.&lt;p&gt;Oftentimes It seems like it may not even be a conscious behavior, they just know that’s who they have a gut feeling about.&lt;p&gt;I definitely wish this wasn’t the way of the world, as someone who isn’t a natural when it comes to building relationships in a professional setting. But I also don’t let it get me down. It’s an element of human nature that’s hidden many layers deep in the workplace.&lt;p&gt;When I finally faced this fact and started devoting some of the time I previously spent on hard skills, I realized it was far and away the more impactful way to allocate my resources.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>op03</author><text>You make a very good point, but I&amp;#x27;d like you to believe its not unfortunate.&lt;p&gt;Most people I know would happily sign a document that states &amp;#x27;We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal&amp;#x27;, even though the world shows us every single day that it isn&amp;#x27;t true.&lt;p&gt;In technical fields, getting that document approved would be a nightmare.&lt;p&gt;Maxwell&amp;#x27;s equations on the other hand are easy to get approval for. They are &amp;#x27;self evident&amp;#x27;. Because they describe what we see, not what we want to see.&lt;p&gt;So thank god for Jefferson penning that line down and effecting how everyone thinks, because it shows us for some problems, the ambiguous kind, were truth is what we want it to be, technical fields will struggle to provide answers.&lt;p&gt;Its very fortunate, esp to make progress on all the ambiguous problems, that society props up a Jefferson now and then.&lt;p&gt;How did Jefferson get into that position and not some jackass, is the most important question. And the answer to that, with a modern developing understanding of networks and graph theory, has only recently started moving from the abstract and ambiguous to the more technical - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=07KKYostAJ0&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=07KKYostAJ0&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>So much of academia is about connections and reputation laundering</title><url>https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/05/14/so-much-of-academia-is-about-connections-and-reputation-laundering/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>vivekd</author><text>Yes, this was the opinion I came here to post, certainly my own profession of law is like this, at least where I practice in Toronto Canada but I can&amp;#x27;t imagine other places being much different.&lt;p&gt;I think one advantage of computers is that what you produce at the end has to work - and if the code doesn&amp;#x27;t work or you don&amp;#x27;t know what you&amp;#x27;re doing, you&amp;#x27;re quickly exposed as a fraud.  This is not the case in other fields like law, academia, politics, and even the corporate world where the results and methods are more abstract and given to opinion.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately much of the world is run by people who excel in the abstract fields rather than the technical ones.</text></item><item><author>kbos87</author><text>So much of everything is about connections and reputation. Tech in particular holds up a guise that people are chosen and ascend because they are “good”, meaning, they are good at what they do. That’s part of it, but it’s an insufficient part, and you can do pretty well in a career being solidly average at what you do.&lt;p&gt;The real currency in my experience is one thing - relationships. Do I think this person likes, respects, and would vouch for me? Everything else aside, that’s what people optimize for when they choose who to promote, respond to reference requests, and generally in who they engage with at work.&lt;p&gt;Oftentimes It seems like it may not even be a conscious behavior, they just know that’s who they have a gut feeling about.&lt;p&gt;I definitely wish this wasn’t the way of the world, as someone who isn’t a natural when it comes to building relationships in a professional setting. But I also don’t let it get me down. It’s an element of human nature that’s hidden many layers deep in the workplace.&lt;p&gt;When I finally faced this fact and started devoting some of the time I previously spent on hard skills, I realized it was far and away the more impactful way to allocate my resources.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>giantDinosaur</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s true that computers are great at exposing this. Software ranges from the concrete (does this button do anything) to the abstract (does this statistical program have an off by one error that&amp;#x27;s invisible to customers other than returning somewhat wrong results?). I think there&amp;#x27;s two competing definitions of &amp;#x27;work&amp;#x27; in software - &amp;#x27;it works&amp;#x27; as in &amp;#x27;allows for use&amp;#x27; which can compete with the &amp;#x27;implements properly&amp;#x27;. Computers and code will brutally expose the former, since it simply will not allow you to do something if it&amp;#x27;s broken. They don&amp;#x27;t necessarily expose the latter.</text></comment>