O.T. The disposable academic Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time

[Che]

http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.

[Curmudgeon]

I was toiling away in my doctoral program 40 years ago when I had a
sudden epiphany to this effect. I had been in the workplace before
grad school, and came to realize that the doctorate would do
absolutely nothing for me (I had also come to realize that I hated
teaching). So I convinced my PhD advisers to let me bail with a
master's degree. My son is in academia, with an MFA in Film and Media
Arts. His mentors have been encouraging him to get a PhD, but he's
happy where he is and sees no upside to another 4 years of jumping
through hoops for no discernible benefit at the end of the rainbow.

[JMF]

It also depends on where you live. In Germany, a doctorate degree is
very important for climbing the management hierarchy in industry,
especially the large corporations. If you're not "Dr. xxx" it will be
very hard to get to the top, regardless of your preparation, know-how,
etc. And in academia, it's not the least bit unusual to see titles like
"Herr Professor Dr. Dr. ..."

[Steve Freides]

+1 - here, in academia, it's very important as well, increasingly so
over the last few decades. One local community college now considers a
Masters the minimum to be hired to teach part-time, and everyone
applying for a full-time position is expected to have a doctoral
degree - they say they'll consider you without it, but even those hired,
e.g., 10 years ago are now being pressured to _get_ a doctoral if they
expect to be given tenure - and so it goes.

-S-

[Che]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:01:19 AM UTC-5, Curmudgeon wrote:
> On Tue, 14 May 2013 04:44:10 -0700 (PDT), Che
>
>
>
>
>
> >
>
> >
>

Off topic, but I was a little shocked to learn the median price of Washington D.C homes is almost half a million dollars.

On topic, when a close family member expressed an interest in getting a PhD in ethnomusicology after getting his masters in performance, I had concerns. In brief, he now has a very nice four bedroom home and a BMW. He's married now, no children, so one large bedroom is a music studio, another for his musical instrument collection from around the world, a guest bedroom and of course a master bedroom.

One of the few PhD's in guitar worth his salt, imo, is S. Yates. Most other PhD's seem to know about one small area of music and little of anything else at a high level. Imo, a PhD in some pursuits, is often a ornamental degree.

Knew an artist who went back to school an got a PhD in ceramic arts. My first thought to myself was, ceramic ashtrays are going out of fashion :-) That was years ago, he now works as an assistant in a small museum setting up displays with a marginal income. Btw, he doesn't paint anymore.

Che'

[thomas]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:44:10 AM UTC-4, Che wrote:
> http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
> A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.>

The financial return would depend on the field and the career goals of the individual. There are significant non-financial returns for people who are really interested in a topic and want to engage in full-time research on that topic. Others should think twice.

[Paul Magnussen]

JMF wrote:

> It also depends on where you live. In Germany, a doctorate degree is
> very important for climbing the management hierarchy in industry,
> especially the large corporations. If you're not "Dr. xxx" it will be
> very hard to get to the top, regardless of your preparation, know-how,
> etc. And in academia, it's not the least bit unusual to see titles like
> "Herr Professor Dr. Dr. ..."

Same if you work for the British Gummint, or was; I worked briefly at
the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough, and was told (and I had
no reason to believe otherwise) that promotion there depended on
academic qualifications and seniority, and nothing else.

The SPSO (Senior Principal Scientific Officer) was always a Ph.D.

Paul Magnussen

[Che]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:22:03 AM UTC-5, JMF wrote:
> On 5/14/2013 14:01, Curmudgeon wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 14 May 2013 04:44:10 -0700 (PDT), Che
>

It was quite interesting to see a bus load of Germans in San Gimignano, mixed with other tourist, particularly Americans in flip-flops and T-shirts. There were so many busloads of tourists they had mayor parking problems and raised the fees. Now, well things are different and it's mostly Germans who can afford to travel, I hear.

I hear Giglio attracts many tourist to see the Costa Concordia operations. That trial reopens:
http://www.euronews.com/2013/05/14/costa-concordia-hearing-re-opens/

Germany is different, and you're right about Herr Doctor Doctor Professor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XptQcq0foj0

[Che]

Have a friend in Laredo who's a multimillionaire. He has a staff of lawyers and PhD (various) engineers. He told me a PhD is window dressing and a tool you take out of the box when you need it and be sure to put it back in the box when you're done.

If your company it loaded with Ph Ds it looks good on proposals. He called them Messrs. doctors bla, bla, bla.

Of course I'm know some who were absolutely brilliant. Here's a local guy:
http://www.floresflowers.com/

Che'

[Jerry Willard]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:44:10 AM UTC-4, Che wrote:

> http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
>
>
> A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.

In the end - PHD DMA MM or nothing - when it's said and done no matter what path you chose you have to become a good businessman/woman - i try to stress that to my DMA students

Jerry

[Che]

Absolutely! In my 17 years here I have never heard once mention of "your contract." Your contact specifications ought to be in your guitar case 24/7.
That separates the sheep from the goats and rounds up your dogs and cats, in a heartbeat. No contact, No play! I know two here that do have contracts.

It's a legal document with conditions, cost and recourse.

[Richard Jernigan]

My college room mate has lived in Munich since 1964, except for a couple of years. I visited him last June. He is one of the world's leading experts on non-metallic materials in engineering. He put the carbon composite control surfaces on both the Airbuses and the Boeing heavy transports, he was a leader in the design of the Eurofighter, he convinced Ferrari--the Commendatore--to go to carbon composite construction for F1 cars, when many others had failed, if you have composite skis, tennis racket, fishing rod, boat...you name it...you have Tom to thank for it.

His last job in industry was as a senior vice president of Cyanamid International. Now he has a consulting business, introducing small companies that dominate a technical niche to the big boys. He works maybe five or ten days total out of a month and makes around half a million Euros per year.

He drives a German-registered Lamborghini, a Corvette with Texas tags in Germany, or one of his six high tech bicycles. He dresses like a hobo, but all his clothes and shoes are tailor made.

He speaks fluent idiomatic German with a slight Texas accent, which he insists does not exist.

He doesn't have any degree at all. The Germans know better than to address him as "Herr Doktor".

RNJ

[Alphonsus Jr.]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 4:44:10 AM UTC-7, Che wrote:
> http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
>
>
> A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.

This is a decidedly troglodytic conception of education. The true value of education has nothing to do with economic potential, and everything to with equipping the mind to correspond with reality - adaequatio intellectus et rei. Thus the root of the word "education" denotes a turning around, an emergence from the darkness of the cave to the light of truth. Accordingly, I'd wager that 99% of today's students, be they PhD candidates or otherwise, are in fact not involved in the enterprise of being educated.

[JMF]

On 5/14/2013 18:22, Che wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:22:03 AM UTC-5, JMF wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 14:01, Curmudgeon wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 14 May 2013 04:44:10 -0700 (PDT), Che

...

> I hear Giglio attracts many tourist to see the Costa Concordia operations.

It's true. It's about 1 1/2 hours away from here. Haven't been there.

That trial reopens:
> http://www.euronews.com/2013/05/14/costa-concordia-hearing-re-opens/

Today Capitano Schettino was denied an out-of-court settlement by the
judge.

[thomas]

I was with you up until your last sentence. Most of the PhD students I've known have been motivated primarily by intellectual interest in their topic. I think your 99% figure is entirely too high. Few people get a PhD only to get rich. It's a very bad strategy for getting rich anyway.

[John Nguyen]

> RNJ-

I work in an organization that has more PhDs than any university in
the planet, dare I say a dime a dozen, and the ones who really shone
were those with knowledge spanning multi-disciplines from experiences
and passion, not from the degrees they possessed.
Cheers,

John

[Murdick]

Steve, the problem with demanding a PhD for CC instructors is that they are never going to get anybody worth a shit. Maybe in the humanities, but not in the sciences.

[thomas]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 5:49:56 PM UTC-4, Murdick wrote:
>
> Steve, the problem with demanding a PhD for CC instructors is that they are never going to get anybody worth a shit. Maybe in the humanities, but not in the sciences.>

In most disciplines, a teacher with a PhD has demonstrated more ambition than someone with a masters, and probably knows more about his topic. Furthermore, many masters-only programs are completely without standards, whereas this is less common with PhD programs. All else being equal, I would take the PhD over the MA every time.

It's not uncommon to find complete morons teaching in CCs, which is rare at 4-year schools (talking about full-timers, not adjuncts).

[Steve Freides]

None of this was my idea, just stating the facts as they are on the
ground here. A good friend who's a CC adjunct (part-time) enrolled in
an online Masters program because she was told she had to if she
expected to keep her job. And I should add that she was a
well-credentialed person, too, wonderful resume, pop/rock/jazz musician
who has played with many, many famous folks, won NEA grants, and the
like, but none of that was enough to keep her underpaid, insecure
position teaching part-time at the local CC. Sad, dear, but true, dear.

-S-

[Steve Freides]

Richard Jernigan wrote:
> My college room mate has lived in Munich since 1964, except for a
> couple of years. I visited him last June. He is one of the world's
> leading experts on non-metallic materials in engineering. He put the
> carbon composite control surfaces on both the Airbuses and the Boeing
> heavy transports, he was a leader in the design of the Eurofighter,
> he convinced Ferrari--the Commendatore--to go to carbon composite
> construction for F1 cars, when many others had failed, if you have
> composite skis, tennis racket, fishing rod, boat...you name it...you
> have Tom to thank for it.
>
> His last job in industry was as a senior vice president of Cyanamid
> International. Now he has a consulting business, introducing small
> companies that dominate a technical niche to the big boys. He works
> maybe five or ten days total out of a month and makes around half a
> million Euros per year.
>
> He drives a German-registered Lamborghini, a Corvette with Texas tags
> in Germany, or one of his six high tech bicycles. He dresses like a
> hobo, but all his clothes and shoes are tailor made.
>
> He speaks fluent idiomatic German with a slight Texas accent, which
> he insists does not exist.
>
> He doesn't have any degree at all. The Germans know better than to
> address him as "Herr Doktor".
>
> RNJ

Your friend is the exception that proves the rule - if someone has
proven themselves irreplacable, then that's that and they don't need any
degrees, likewise if they're a household name, but there are many, many,
many people in the very next rank who don't escape the demand for ever
more academic credentials.

-S-

[Steve Freides]

Richard Jernigan wrote:
> My college room mate has lived in Munich since 1964, except for a
> couple of years. I visited him last June. He is one of the world's
> leading experts on non-metallic materials in engineering. He put the
> carbon composite control surfaces on both the Airbuses and the Boeing
> heavy transports, he was a leader in the design of the Eurofighter,
> he convinced Ferrari--the Commendatore--to go to carbon composite
> construction for F1 cars, when many others had failed, if you have
> composite skis, tennis racket, fishing rod, boat...you name it...you
> have Tom to thank for it.
>
> His last job in industry was as a senior vice president of Cyanamid
> International. Now he has a consulting business, introducing small
> companies that dominate a technical niche to the big boys. He works
> maybe five or ten days total out of a month and makes around half a
> million Euros per year.
>
> He drives a German-registered Lamborghini, a Corvette with Texas tags
> in Germany, or one of his six high tech bicycles. He dresses like a
> hobo, but all his clothes and shoes are tailor made.
>
> He speaks fluent idiomatic German with a slight Texas accent, which
> he insists does not exist.
>
> He doesn't have any degree at all. The Germans know better than to
> address him as "Herr Doktor".
>
> RNJ

[Che]

Yes, I saw that. It seems he's the only one that will be on trial, as well he should be, imo. They are talking about giving him an azzload of time, as well they should.

Word I hear is Captain Chicken-of-the-Sea, was on dry land at midnight and the last passengers were removed from the ship at 5:30AM.

They call it disaster tourism in Giglio. I sometimes find it interesting how folks will characterize something to suit their interest. It's a huge spectacle.
I'd love to visit the day (June) they try to refloat her.

Thanks, Che'

[JMF]

On 5/15/2013 10:57, Che wrote:
> On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 3:15:03 PM UTC-5, JMF wrote:
>> On 5/14/2013 18:22, Che wrote:
>>
>>> On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 7:22:03 AM UTC-5, JMF wrote:
>>
>>>> On 5/14/2013 14:01, Curmudgeon wrote:
>>
>>>>
>>
>>>>> On Tue, 14 May 2013 04:44:10 -0700 (PDT), Che
>>
>> ...
>>
>>> I hear Giglio attracts many tourist to see the Costa Concordia operations.
>>
>>
>>
>> It's true. It's about 1 1/2 hours away from here. Haven't been there.
>>
>>
>>
>> That trial reopens:
>>
>>> http://www.euronews.com/2013/05/14/costa-concordia-hearing-re-opens/
>>
>>
>>
>> Today Capitano Schettino was denied an out-of-court settlement by the
>>
>> judge.
>
> Yes, I saw that. It seems he's the only one that will be on trial, as well he should be, imo.

They are talking about giving him an azzload of time, as well they should.

What I heard today is that he might manage an out-of-court settlement
for 5 years.

> Word I hear is Captain Chicken-of-the-Sea, was on dry land at midnight
and the last passengers were removed from the ship at 5:30AM.

That's absolutely right. You might have heard that the port commander
was yelling at him to "get the hell back on board!"

>
> They call it disaster tourism in Giglio. I sometimes find it interesting how
> folks will characterize something to suit their interest. It's a huge spectacle.
> I'd love to visit the day (June) they try to refloat her.

Wouldn't surprise me if the date slipped (again). A *very* complicated
operation.

[Richard Jernigan]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 6:44:10 AM UTC-5, Che wrote:
> http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
>
>
> A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.

I've been the boss of quite a few engineers, mathematicians and physicists with PhDs. The best engineers, with only a few exceptions, were people with Masters degrees. There were a handfull of good PhDs, quite a few not so good PhDs who thought their shit didn't stink, and a couple of really remarkable people with no degree at all.

The best physicists, generally were PhDs from reputable schools like MIT, Cambridge (UK), the Ecole Polytechnique, etc.

The best mathematicians by far, were people who had studied for at least three years under the Socratic or "Moore" method, at places like Texas, Wisconsin, Virginia, whether they had their PhD or not. I can think of one exception, but that's it.

I was on the academic track until I finally realized two things: I was more interested in physics than I was in math, and I much preferred industry to academia.

When I told my prof I was going to quit grad school and go back to industry, he said, "You should keep on. You're good at this. You can prove all the theorems." He was financially independent, didn't have to worry about academic politics for his livelihood. He liked teaching and research.

I said, "Well, I can prove most of them, but it's no fun any more."

"Then you should quit," was his immediate response.

"Besides," I said, "in industry if you mistreat your subordinates, one of two things will happen. You will demoralize them and they will let you down, or they will organize and stab you in the back. I see guys at this university who have been shitting on grad students for twenty years, and nothing bad has happened to them yet."

"Yes, there's that," he said.

A more positive take on industry: I found the interplay of technical problems with human interaction immensely interesting and challenging. Lots of tech people don't like the human interaction side of things. They call it "politics" with a considerable degree of disdain. But I always liked both parts of the job.

RNJ

[Richard Jernigan]

I believe there are at least two reasons that in my experience the Masters Degree engineers were mostly bettler than the PhDs. For one thing, the best, creative engineers have a practical bent. I tecently read the auutobiographies of Kelly Johnson, who started and ran the Lockheed Skunk Works and Ben Rich, his hand picked successor. Both men loved a challenge, loved to do things that others thought were impossible, and were virtuoso experimenters. This contrasts with a more intellectual bent for mathematicians and many physicists.

A second reason is that there is generally more opportunity for an engineer to be creative in industry than there is in academia. He or she has access to more financing, the latest technology, and mentoring from experienced highly successful creative engineers. Engineering education is largely directed to equipping the student with the tools of the trade, rather than doing exciting projects. For example, when we were flying a student project on a space shot, I asked the project liaison for a brief explanation of what it did. "It's a toaster," was his reply--a toy project.

Creative mathematics is almost entirely an academic pursuit, and it requires academic credentials to get a job. Same for physics. Even the big projects like CERN are run largely by the academic rule book, and you've gotta have that piece of paper to get a job.

The day of the gentleman scientist like Newton or Darwin came to an end early in the 20th century.

Money? If you're talking something other than just drawing a paycheck in the USA, there are probably more tech millionaires, and certainly more billionaires without a PhD, or maybe any degree at all, than there are with extensive academic credentials. Many of these people set out to make a lot of money. Probably just as many thought of some really cool idea or set of ideas just for the hell of it, and lucked into a fortune.

RNJ

[Slogoin]

On May 15, 12:51 pm, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> and a couple of really remarkable people with no degree at all

MO doesn't have a degree, not even one of them honorary
thingamajigs.

> A more positive take on industry: I found the interplay of technical problems
> with human interaction immensely interesting and challenging. Lots of tech
> people don't like the human interaction side of things. They call it "politics" with
> a considerable degree of disdain. But I always liked both parts of the job.

The social part is much more difficult and few leaders have any
background in it. In technical fields the big heads can be very
resistant to ideas they don't own. A friend's wife was ombudsman for
two technical universities and a big law firm. She said the big headed
science types were the most like kids in conflict resolution. The law
firm was much better and calmer. Her husband is a big head science
type at one of the universities.

[Cactus Wren]

The law
>
> firm was much better and calmer. Her husband is a big head science
>
> type at one of the universities.

Probably because the power plays were over her head.

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 5/15/2013 3:51 PM, Richard Jernigan wrote:

(snip)

>
> "Besides," I said, "in industry if you mistreat your subordinates, one of two things will

happen. You will demoralize them and they will let you down, or they
will organize and stab you in the back.

I see guys at this university who have been shitting on grad students
for twenty years, and nothing bad has

happened to them yet."

Wow, ain't THAT the truth. I've heard stories of 35-year olds who
can't ever quite seem to get their PhDs after years and years of
propping up the chairman's ass. Sometimes with sexual harassment to
boot. I can't think of any reason that couldn't happen in any type of
heirarchical social structure, but so many of these kids come in
idealistic and just get chewed up. You don't see that in the glossy
college brochures.

Steve

[Slogoin]

On May 15, 3:10 pm, Cactus Wren <elegantspanishgui...@gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> Probably because the power plays were over her head.

She is much brighter than you.

[thomas]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:16:47 PM UTC-4, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
> On 5/15/2013 3:51 PM, Richard Jernigan wrote:
>
>
>
> (snip)
>
> >
>
> > "Besides," I said, "in industry if you mistreat your subordinates, one of two things will
>
>
>
> happen. You will demoralize them and they will let you down, or they
>
> will organize and stab you in the back.
>
>
>
> I see guys at this university who have been shitting on grad students
>
> for twenty years, and nothing bad has
>
>
>
> happened to them yet."
>
>
>
>
>
> Wow, ain't THAT the truth. I've heard stories of 35-year olds who
>
> can't ever quite seem to get their PhDs after years and years of
>
> propping up the chairman's ass. Sometimes with sexual harassment to
>
> boot. I can't think of any reason that couldn't happen in any type of
>
> heirarchical social structure, but so many of these kids come in
>
> idealistic and just get chewed up. You don't see that in the glossy
>
> college brochures.

I would suspect that the ratio of good managers to dysfunctional managers does not vary much from one type of human institution to another. I think it would be a mistake to elevate "industry" over "academia" or vice versa.

All human institutions are dysfunctional to some extent, because they're manned by flawed human beings. The most you can hope for is some minimal degree of professionalism, humanity, and ethics that outweighs the dysfunction. Such places do exist. I work at one now, after previously working under a balls-out psychopath at my last job.

[Cactus Wren]

But probably not them.

[Murdick]

RNJ says, "The day of the gentleman scientist like Newton or Darwin came to an end early in the 20th century."

That's because there is just too much to learn. The theoretical fields are certainly different than the applied fields in terms of what is needed.

[Slogoin]

On May 15, 10:12 pm, Cactus Wren <elegantspanishgui...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> But probably not them.

Not in physics maybe but when it comes to social skills many big
brains are a zero, and she is the genius.

[Curmudgeon]

On Tue, 14 May 2013 04:44:10 -0700 (PDT), Che

<Comanc...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
>A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.

And, considering the appallingly content-free nature of so many
graduate programs it's a wonder that some degree holders can find any
work at all. There was a time when graduate studies entailed rigor and
hard work. There are many, many institutions that grant masters and
doctorates based on degree programs that years ago would have led,
perhaps, to a bachelor's degree. A 600-level course in basket weaving
is still nothing but basket weaving.

[Fadosolrélamisi]

What is of value ... talking about the value of doing a PHD or engaging into doing one? Who waste more time and money here?

[Che]

On Thursday, May 16, 2013 8:53:43 AM UTC-5, Curmudgeon wrote:
> On Tue, 14 May 2013 04:44:10 -0700 (PDT), Che
>

> >http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
> >
>
> >A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.
>
> And, considering the appallingly content-free nature of so many
>
> graduate programs it's a wonder that some degree holders can find any
>
> work at all. There was a time when graduate studies entailed rigor and
>
> hard work.<

Your choice of the term rigor is interesting. Imo, many don't understand that term. Run a search here on >Rigor< and see what comes up.

Che'

[Slogoin]

On May 16, 6:53 am, Curmudgeon <eht...@gmail.com> wrote:

> A 600-level course in basket weaving
> is still nothing but basket weaving.

The course does not matter if the tools, like math and language,
are being used. I agree with the rigor idea but not the example. I
have studied basket weaving a bit. It's very interesting as are many
of the traditional "female" activities. A friend's son is the regional
expert in Indian baskets so when you chose that example it kinda hit
home. It is actually a very cool way to look at a number of subjects
including some fun math with the knot patterns.

I'm quite sure that many would say that taking a guitar class in
college is a waste. What bothers me is the lack of integration in
classes. Teachers who are all too willing to declare how bad they are
at math and how they hate it do not help. A culture of shared
references to sports and entertainment does not help. A focus on
"success" as measured by wealth and social power does not help. What
would help is more folks mentoring young folks before they even get to
college and teachers who are educated enough to make the connections
between subjects like basket weaving and the mythology of Ariadne.

[Che]

Spoken by a true CG basket case.

Che'

[Curmudgeon]

On Thu, 16 May 2013 08:07:21 -0700 (PDT), Slogoin <la...@deack.net>
wrote:

I'm not denigrating basket weaving per se, just the notion that there
might exist such an academic credential as "Doctor of Philosophy of
Basket Weaving," or any other physical or artistic skill.

[Che]

On Tuesday, May 14, 2013 6:44:10 AM UTC-5, Che wrote:

> http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
>
>
> A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.

The truth behind that job advertisement for a lectureship/assistant professorship
Posted on February 28, 2013 by D_Aldridge
From: http://tinyurl.com/bt45p98

Location: Somewhere you don’t want to live
Salary: Nowhere near enough given the ridiculous number of qualifications you have
Contract type: Full-time permanent*
Interview Date: Don’t worry, you probably won’t make this stage

*”Permanent” refers to your expected working hours on campus, NOT your job security, benefits, healthcare etc.


Background

We are seeking a candidate to replace an academic that went senile over 20 years ago, but who has only just retired.

Candidate Evaluation

The candidate must have a PhD from an institution where ivy grows up the sides of old historic buildings and 5-10 years of postdoctoral experience with all the world-experts in their chosen research area. The successful candidate will have published every experiment that they have performed in the last 10-15 years, and some that they did not (only publications in Science or Nature will be considered valid). The candidate is expected to spend their days teaching undergraduates, and their nights working towards developing a world-class research career – it will obviously be advantageous if the candidate does not have friends, family, hobbies or eyelids. The candidate will have an enthusiasm for teaching**.

**Demonstrating this enthusiasm once you have the job will result in zero career progression and incessant mocking from colleagues.

Holidays

Hahahahahahahaha

Application Process

Enquiries should be directed to our overworked secretary, Mavis; she will probably lose it first time around, so send a second enquiry about 1 week after you submit the first one. When applying, please submit your curriculum vitae – the heavier the better; anything that can be picked up by a single person, or can be read in less than 2 weeks will not be considered.

Interviews

Five lucky candidates, who meet the ridiculous criteria stated above, will be invited to be pummeled (verbally and physically) by a pack of cantankerous academics. Candidates will then be locked in a room together with a single 2×4 coated in barbed-wire. The last one left breathing will be given the job.

Further information:

We aim to be an equal opportunities employer. However, we are not very good at this: white, socially awkward males with excessive facial hair are preferred; females will only be considered if they demonstrate absolutely no desire to start a family.

[Cactus Wren]

I thought you said she was an ombudsman for a bunch of lawyers. Big law firms are shark-infested waters full of those who have been groomed from birth to claw their way to the top. I find it unlikely an outsider could really do much to alleviate that situation.

Not sure how my brilliance came to be compared to hers.

[thomas]

On Thursday, May 16, 2013 5:06:02 PM UTC-4, Cactus Wren wrote:
>
> Not sure how my brilliance came to be compared to hers.

You made the mistake of opening a post by Larry and responding to it. That's how.

[Slogoin]

On May 16, 2:06 pm, Cactus Wren <elegantspanishgui...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>

> I thought you said she was an ombudsman for a bunch of lawyers.
> Big law firms are shark-infested waters full of those who have been
> groomed from birth to claw their way to the top.  I find it unlikely an
> outsider could really do much to alleviate that situation.

Not according to her, but if you want to stick with your
stereotypes of other groups there is nothing anybody can say to change
your low opinion of groups like lawyers and teachers, there are plenty
of bad ones.

> Not sure how my brilliance came to be compared to hers.

Not sure why you think social games are the domain of science
types. From what I've seen there are a large number of socially inept
technically well trained folks who really have no idea what is going
on right in front of their eyes. Her husband readily admits that she
has much greater skills for navigating the social landscape of any
group. The women in many groups are the ones who hold the social
fabric together while the guys tend to be mostly oblivious of their
influence on the group dynamics.

[Slogoin]

On May 16, 9:17 am, Curmudgeon <eht...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I'm not denigrating basket weaving per se, just the notion that there
> might exist such an academic  credential as "Doctor of Philosophy of
> Basket Weaving," or any other physical or artistic skill.

Well, for one, it's not just a physical skill any more than CG is
just a physical skill. What is worthy of a "Doctor of Philosophy", I
know that some of our founding fathers did not think "Doctor of
Divinity" was a legitimate degree but I think Jackson might disagree.

[Slogoin]

The mistake is to constantly think that others are your enemy and
being in attack mode all the time.

[Che]

On Thursday, May 16, 2013 5:11:07 PM UTC-5, Slogoin wrote:

>
> The mistake is to constantly think that others are your enemy and
>
> being in attack mode all the time.

Larry, I recommend you do something that is probably anatomically impossible.

[dsi1]

Wait a minute. That's an ironic statement, isn't it?

I thought so.

[Cactus Wren]

I do admit that the terse declaration that your friend whom I will never meet is far brighter than me, was perceived as an attack. I will search deep within myself for the personal weaknesses that would cause me to misinterpret such a friendly and informative comment. Let me step aside while you provide more glue for the group.

[Slogoin]

On May 16, 3:24 pm, Cactus Wren <elegantspanishgui...@gmail.com>
wrote:
>

> I do admit that the terse declaration that your friend whom I will
> never meet is far brighter than me, was perceived as an attack.

It was not an attack but a rebuff of the idea that high IQ means
complex social games that would go over her head or yours.

> I will search deep within myself for the personal weaknesses
> that would cause me to misinterpret such a friendly and informative comment.

I doubt you will but it would sure help if you did try to find
other interpretations than those that assume others have motives that
are intentionally harmful to you. There is a pattern if you look for
it.

[Richard Jernigan]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 4:08:31 PM UTC-5, Slogoin wrote:
> On May 15, 12:51 pm, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > and a couple of really remarkable people with no degree at all
>
>
>
> MO doesn't have a degree, not even one of them honorary
>
> thingamajigs.
>
>
>
> > A more positive take on industry: I found the interplay of technical problems
>
> > with human interaction immensely interesting and challenging. Lots of tech
>
> > people don't like the human interaction side of things. They call it "politics" with
>
> > a considerable degree of disdain. But I always liked both parts of the job.
>
>
>
> The social part is much more difficult and few leaders have any
>
> background in it.

People say, for example, "The guitar is more difficult than xxxx." People respond by saying, "Played at their very highest level, the guitar and xxxx are equally difficult."

My response to "The social part is much more difficult and few leaders have any
background in it." Is much the same. It depends on the level of play. Was ending the Cold War harder proving Fermat's Last Theorem? Ending the Cold War took only a few decades. Proving Fermat's last theorem took the very best technical minds centuries to accomplish.

I will agree that in technical fields people are often put into management positions due to outstanding technical ability, and fumble as a result of ineptitude or lack of training. I have seen it happen a number of times, perhaps more often than not. But I wouldn't say that the management problems are necessarily more difficult than the technical ones. Reagan and Gorbachev were whizzes at diplomacy, but absolute duffers at understanding missile defense. Neither of them had a clue.

R. L. Moore was one of the most revolutionary and productive mathematicians of the 20th century, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, President of the American Mathematical Society, International famous for his fundamental and creative research. He was also a master of practical psychology in discovering and developing the mathematical talent of his 50 PhD students through his Socratic teaching method. Stories abound of Moore's psychological subtlety, always couched in his formal and occasionally forbidding demeanor.

Moore was never overtly rude when pointing out a student's error. But he could be curt, or even, very, very rarely, cutting. Once I gave a proof which covered four panels of the blackboards in the classroom, and took most of an hour. Moore asked, "Are there any questions?" One student, Mr X, never really caught on to what was going on, but he was thick skinned and persistent. He said, "Sir, I don't follow the argument." In a very rare action, Moore stepped to the board. Then he asked "Mr. X, do you see how this second statement follows from the first one?"

"Yes, sir."

"Do you see how the next statement follows from that one?"

"Yes, sir."

...and so on for fully ten minutes, Mr. X admitting the validity of each step right up to the end.

"So, Mr. X, do you understand the argument now?"

"No sir."

"I didn't think so. Class dismissed."

On the other hand, one of Moore's outstanding students, Gail Young tells the following story.

Young says that he was very uncertain of his ability at first, and he had always been very shy and sensitive to criticism. One Friday he was at the board giving his proof of a theorem. Moore interrupted, not to question Young, but to talk about a squirrel that could be seen outside the classroom window. Moore went on at length, regaling the class with accounts of squirrel antics he had witnessed, and deprecating the fact that people sometimes mistreated some of the multitude of squirrels that swarmed the campus. Young grew impatient, wishing to complete his proof, but Moore's commanding demeanor made it impossible to interrupt. The period ended before Young could finish.

Over the weekend Young reviewed his efforts, and discovered an error in his reasoning. Slaving away Saturday and Sunday, he repaired the defect. On Monday, Moore called on Young to finish, which he did successfully, after backtracking a bit from what he had done on Friday. When he ws done, Moore smiled and congratulated Young on his originality, saying curtly, "Thank you, Mr. Young. I hadn't seen an argument just like that one before."

As I said, stories abound of Moore's insight into the character of each student, and subtle variations in Moore's approach to each. Many students only figured out what had gone on many years later.

Moore was that rare combination, both a scientific and a social genius.

> In technical fields the big heads can be very
>
> resistant to ideas they don't own. A friend's wife was ombudsman for
>
> two technical universities and a big law firm. She said the big headed
>
> science types were the most like kids in conflict resolution. The law
>
> firm was much better and calmer. Her husband is a big head science
>
> type at one of the universities.

There's the story of Steve Jobs and the Apple Stores. Apple rented space near its Cupertino headquarters and mocked up a prototype store. Jobs hired the guy who had laid out the very successful Gap clothing stores. A group of people worked on the Apple Store for the best part of a year. Jobs spent a total of maybe a day and a half every week at the mockup, fine tuning.

They were about ready to open the flagship store, when one of Jobs's employees told him, "Everything we have done is wrong. We have organized the store around products, not around activities, like writing, photos, movies, music..."

Jobs, in his usual abrasive and abusive manner told the guy he was full of crap, a moron, ought to be fired....

The next day Jobs came in, gathered the people working on the store, and began, "Everything we have done is wrong....", and proceeded to completely reorganize the layout around activities, not products. According to Isaacson's biography, Jobs never gave any credit whatsoever to the guy who turned things around. The flagship Apple Store in Manhattan has the highest sales in dollars per square foot of any store on the island. There were several other stories along the same lines.

Jobs was no technical wizard. He was a genius at product design. He didn't invent the personal computer, the graphical user interface, the MP3 player or the cellphone. But he produced the ones that dominated their markets. A lot of talented people quit working for him because they wouldn't put up with his abusive line of crap. But he was good enough at product design to build the most valuable company in the world.

And a number of young Silicon Valley CEOs decided it was a good idea to be an asshole. It worked for a few of them. It sank a number of them.

RNJ

[dsi1]

On 5/16/2013 4:53 PM, Richard Jernigan wrote:
>
> There's the story of Steve Jobs and the Apple Stores. Apple rented space near its Cupertino headquarters and mocked up a prototype store. Jobs hired the guy who had laid out the very successful Gap clothing stores. A group of people worked on the Apple Store for the best part of a year. Jobs spent a total of maybe a day and a half every week at the mockup, fine tuning.
>
> They were about ready to open the flagship store, when one of Jobs's employees told him, "Everything we have done is wrong. We have organized the store around products, not around activities, like writing, photos, movies, music..."
>
> Jobs, in his usual abrasive and abusive manner told the guy he was full of crap, a moron, ought to be fired....
>
> The next day Jobs came in, gathered the people working on the store, and began, "Everything we have done is wrong....", and proceeded to completely reorganize the layout around activities, not products. According to Isaacson's biography, Jobs never gave any credit whatsoever to the guy who turned things around. The flagship Apple Store in Manhattan has the highest sales in dollars per square foot of any store on the island. There were several other stories along the same lines.
>
> Jobs was no technical wizard. He was a genius at product design. He didn't invent the personal computer, the graphical user interface, the MP3 player or the cellphone. But he produced the ones that dominated their markets. A lot of talented people quit working for him because they wouldn't put up with his abusive line of crap. But he was good enough at product design to build the most valuable company in the world.
>
> And a number of young Silicon Valley CEOs decided it was a good idea to be an asshole. It worked for a few of them. It sank a number of them.
>
> RNJ
>

My guess is that in a few years, Apple will once again be playing the
role that it had during most of it's existence - playing second fiddle
behind companies that had philosophies less less utopian and more
utilitarian. The main difference is that Microsoft won't be there having
a party at Apple's expense.

Jobs also didn't see any future in allowing third party programs on the
iOS platforms either. Apple racked up it's 50 billionth download on it's
App Store yesterday. Apps have revolutionized our idea of what computer
programs are and was one of the greatest ideas that Jobs thought was dumb.

[Richard Jernigan]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:09:45 PM UTC-5, thomas wrote:
> On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 6:16:47 PM UTC-4, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>
> > On 5/15/2013 3:51 PM, Richard Jernigan wrote:
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > (snip)
>
> >
>
> > >
>
> >
>
> > > "Besides," I said, "in industry if you mistreat your subordinates, one of two things will
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > happen. You will demoralize them and they will let you down, or they
>
> >
>
> > will organize and stab you in the back.
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > I see guys at this university who have been shitting on grad students
>
> >
>
> > for twenty years, and nothing bad has
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > happened to them yet."
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Wow, ain't THAT the truth. I've heard stories of 35-year olds who
>
> >
>
> > can't ever quite seem to get their PhDs after years and years of
>
> >
>
> > propping up the chairman's ass. Sometimes with sexual harassment to
>
> >
>
> > boot. I can't think of any reason that couldn't happen in any type of
>
> >
>
> > heirarchical social structure, but so many of these kids come in
>
> >
>
> > idealistic and just get chewed up. You don't see that in the glossy
>
> >
>
> > college brochures.
>
>
>
> I would suspect that the ratio of good managers to dysfunctional managers does not vary much from one type of human institution to another. I think it would be a mistake to elevate "industry" over "academia" or vice versa.
>

Having observed a fair number of organizations up close, and having participated in several, I would respectfully beg to differ.

The three largest U.S. military services are a case in point, as well as organizations within the various services.

For example, I subcontracted to the Navy Strategic Program Office, the successor to Rickover's organization. They are responsible for building fleet ballistic missile submarines, the missiles that go into them, and they oversee the requirements for the nuclear weapons that go on the missiles.

One of my favorite episodes involved a project engineer at a medium sized company, a smart guy, but he was always scheming to play the angles. At a design review meeting the pitch began early in the morning, with one Strategic Project Office Civil Service engineer in attendance, among dozens of others. The project engineer, thinking he was being crafty, stood up at the beginning, gave an agenda and a table of contents of the briefings to come, and citing the bulk of material to be covered, requested that questions be held until the end of the presentations.

There followed an absolute deluge of professionally prepared, highly detailed charts. Sandwiches and soft drinks were brought in for lunch, the pitch went on. It didn't finish until after 6 PM.

The project engineer looked pleased with himself and was about the adjourn the meeting when the lone Navy civilian spoke up.

"I've got a couple of questions."

"Sure, go ahead."

"On your second chart....you guys want to order some pizza? This may take a while." We left after 9 PM.

The civilians in the Strategic Program Office knew how to build submarines, missiles and bombs, and the Navy officers were without exception excellent managers.

On the other hand, I worked for several years at one of the highest tech organizations under Army direction, the missile test range at Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands. For a while I was the boss of a billion dollars worth of radars, doing missile testing, missile defense testing, and the prime sensors for the Space Surveillance Network, which keeps track of the thousands of objects in orbit around the earth.

I was fond of saying there wasn't an officer in the U.S. Army who would know what a radar was if one jumped up and bit him in the butt--and the Army civilians were worse.

One of the site managers for the company that had the contract at Kwajalein was a retired Army colonel. He was a blatantly stupid liar, a drunk and a psychopath. He was eventually arrested by the cops, naked on the beach having sex with his secretary, while his wife dozed away in their house a few blocks away.

The next guy was a retired Navy one-star. Some of the guys expressed fear over him being retired military. I told them that a quarter of the Army colonels I had met had their head so far up their buts that they never saw the sun shine from one month to the next, but I had never met a Navy admiral who wasn't first class. Besides the new guy was a mustang, come up from the enlisted ranks. He repaired much of the damage.

Only to be succeeded by a retired Army two-star, who had been chief of staff for the Joint Chiefs-- quite a feather in his cap. But he couldn't understand technical stuff, wouldn't even try, and had thousands of cubic yards of smoke blown up his ass as a consequence. Furthermore he had a terrible case of the general-officer swelled head, with a nasty temper to match.

In my experience, the top management of the Air Force was somewhere in between the Army and the Navy. This is just one example of many. The distribution of dysfunctional managers is quite uneven among industrial organizations. In my experience, dysfunctional managers are generally more prevalent in academia than in industry on average, though they are not so obvious, since they are protected by the academic caste system, just as bonehead Army officers are.

Don't get me wrong. There are some really great leaders in the U.S. Army. But the riff-raff don't get weeded out like they do in better organizations. And there are a lot of them.

One of the good leaders was one of the Lieutenant Colonel Range Commanders who pulled his two year tour of duty at Kwajalein. When I met him, I made an allusion or two to my background, and waited for him to respond.

He said, "I'm just a leg soldier" --infantry. When pressed a little he admitted to being a battalion commander in Bosnia.

I said, "But your average leg soldier doesn't get assigned to the staff of Strategic Command at Omaha." It's a joint Army/Navy/Air Force command that runs the operational strategic bomber and missile forces.

He just smiled.

He didn't have a really strong technical background, but he was smart enough to learn and he couldn't be bullshitted. He was fair, supportive of his subordinates, recognized and encouraged good performance, and was clearly a just and ethical man. I respected him tremendously.

His commanding officer was a stupid and complete bitch, who shoved a lot of her job off on him, keeping him from doing the even better job that he could have done. I complained bitterly once to some of my friends about the commanding officer. One of them said, "Aw, you're not leaving. You haven't sold your sailboat."

Exaggerating a bit I replied, "I have the title right here in my pocket. I want to see the look on her face when I take it out, sign it over to her and tell her what to do with it."

In fact, I was very careful never to be in the same room with her. I was getting too old for that crap.

>
>
> All human institutions are dysfunctional to some extent, because they're manned by flawed human beings. The most you can hope for is some minimal degree of professionalism, humanity, and ethics that outweighs the dysfunction. Such places do exist. I work at one now, after previously working under a balls-out psychopath at my last job.

I worked for a few years at a small employee owned company. I still own part of it. I could not point to anything about it that was dysfunctional when I worked there. It was the best job I ever had. I will say that after I left, the company went through a difficult period. While I was there, the ethic was egalitarian and collegial. The presidency was passed around among the most senior individuals, who regarded as a chore and a responsibility as much as an honor.

Unfortunately one of the presidents took his title too seriously, and began to put his oar in where it was neither needed nor wanted. Things got fairly tense for about 18 months, until the board gave him his walking papers. That was 15 years ago. Things seem to have run smoothly since then.

RNJ

[Slogoin]

On May 16, 7:53 pm, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> My response to "The social part is much more difficult and few leaders have any
> background in it." Is much the same. It depends on the level of play.

We are still killing each other and kids are starving all over the
globe. I don't think we have come very far on the social level even if
we do have the science to destroy the world. We are so immature on the
social level that we may still destroy the earth before we learn how
to get along.

> Was ending the Cold War harder proving Fermat's Last Theorem?

The "cold war" was only a skirmish in a much longer history of us
killing each other, over nonsense. We are far from solving that.

> But I wouldn't say that the management problems are necessarily more difficult than the technical ones

IMO, they are orders of magnitude more difficult and they lag way
behind the technical side. We still have a macho man mentality where
might makes right. Very few "managers" understand human behavior well
at any level of the culture.

> Moore was that rare combination, both a scientific and a social genius.

"When African Americans started being admitted to the University of
Texas, however, he took steps to ensure that none were in his classes.
He once famously walked out of a lecture once he realized the speaker
was black."

I would not consider that a social genius. YMMV.

> And a number of young Silicon Valley CEOs decided it was
> a good idea to be an asshole. It worked for a few of them. It sank a number of them.

I lived in that world and met many of the big names. There were a
LOT of bonehead macho yellers in the tech industry before Jobs and
there still are. I worked with a large number of companies,
government agencies and other groups. I saw firsthand the lack of
social skills in groups all over this globe. I worked with the French,
Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, South African,
Australian, Irish, English, Dutch, Russian... I mean, it was weird to
see how socially messed up so many organizations are in virtually
every culture.

Again, YMMV.

[Cactus Wren]

I find the general thrust of your comments baffling, Larry. It sounds like you find the existence of conflict in groups or between them to be somehow incomprehensible or illogical. Why wouldn't people in virtually any situation be striving against each other for scarce resources? Despite our complexity, we are still organisms and driven by the same forces as monkeys and amoebae and slime molds. Escaping 4 billion years of Darwinian strife is utopian. Even if we all were uploaded into a galactic database and could create our own personal universes, we would still have people competing for bandwidth, unless that trait was programmed out of them.

[Slogoin]

On May 17, 9:55 am, Cactus Wren <elegantspanishgui...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> I find the general thrust of your comments baffling, Larry.
> It sounds like you find the existence of conflict in groups or between
> them to be somehow incomprehensible or illogical.

The social problems most groups have are solvable but we ain't
there yet and we aren't even having serious dialogs about our roles in
groups. As Dr. Thomas says this is due to our own flawed nature. Our
nature is to hide our flaws from ourselves even if it means we have to
attack others. Conflict is necessary in human interactions but not
conflict where the same game is played over and over while we ignore
the root causes. When a dialog devolves to the point where someone
demands an answer to their question, as if that will resolve anything,
we have not moved past a grade school playground social awareness.

[Richard Jernigan]

I think we are using the word "social" in somewhat different senses. To me your use seems to be related more to the idea of "society" at large than the use I was making of "social", referring to human interactions on a smaller scale.

Gödel showed that any mathematical system rich enough to contain arithmetic, contains undecidable propositions. It can never be settled logically whether they are true or false. Cactus Wren suggests there may be insoluble problems in society, given our state of evolution as a species.

But I still maintain that the problems that can be solved are not notably harder on either the "social" or the technical scales.

Yes, there are bonehead managers. But I have worked with at least three organizations that were successful at weeding them out at an early stage, and one organization which was completely successful in not hiring them in the first place, except in one unfortunate instance.

Moore was an interesting character. While immensely perceptive in dealing with his students, he was confrontational and caustic in debate with his peers. Probably because he saw very few people as actually his peers. He intentionally alienated a large number of people. In the end this was instrumental in his losing battle in academic politics, even though he was an internationally famous creator of mathematics and teacher, and in many ways a jewel in the University's crown.

Still, he was a virtuoso of psychological insight in dealing with his students.

Moore was born in 1882. When I knew him in the 1950s and 1960s he still believed Teddy Roosevelt had been the best President of the USA during his lifetime. His racial attitudes were those of almost all white Texans at the time.

I knew the first African American undergraduates at the University of Texas, 10 males, 10 females. They were a lively, friendly and generally outstanding group, handpicked by the African American elite of the state.

I knew them because the only place the males could find to live was the University YMCA, where my best buddy lived. No one else would rent them a room, and the University managed to deny them housing in its dormitories. We had some great bull sessions and ping pong games.

My getting along with the black students was not because I was any paragon of virtue. It was due to a streak of social inclusiveness that ran back at least to my great-grandparents on my mother's side. Where this streak arose I couldn't say. It certainly was not present in her Scottish Presbyterian ancestors, among the first English speaking inhabitants of Nova Scotia.

Almost universally prevailing prejudice among white Texans does not excuse Moore's attitude toward blacks. His friends and colleagues H.S. Wall and H.J. Ettlinger accepted and encouraged African American students. But Wall was from the North, and Ettlinger was a Jew. I was unaware of any friction between them and Moore due to their divergent racial attitudes. I knew Wall pretty well, and had a few heart to heart talks with him. My own father went from being racist to being the godfather of the Vietnamese immigrant community in South Texas, due to his experiences during the integration of the U.S. Air Force.

Moore's success, both in mathematics and in teaching, resulted from his striking originality, and steadfast adherence to his own ideas. These were qualities that he exhibited by age 17, and which grew stronger as he got older. This led him into confrontation and error in some other areas.

It would seem that nobody's perfect.

RNJ

[Slogoin]

On May 17, 11:29 am, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> I think we are using the word "social" in somewhat different senses.

Yes. Thank you for seeing that and the rest of your answer.

> To me your use seems to be related more to the idea of "society"
> at large than the use I was making of "social", referring to human
> interactions on a smaller scale.

From our personal experiences to the cold war there is a connection
in how we treat each other.

> But I still maintain that the problems that can be solved are not notably harder on either the "social" or the technical scales.

If you can solve them you should write a book. I've seen way too
many dysfunctional groups like those in reality TV with the same
argument patterns as RMCG. Arguments that are not about whatever the
current topic is but about our personal interaction and levels of
trust.

> My getting along with the black students was not because I was
> any paragon of virtue. It was due to a streak of social inclusiveness
> that ran back at least to my great-grandparents on my mother's side.

Interesting. To me that is social intelligence, not the tribal
charisma that is us against them bonding but the empathetic chemistry
that is more about working together. It's the other side of what some
friends call Black Crab Syndrome.

> It would seem that nobody's perfect.

Yeah but most of us have acted like a perfect ass, some more than
others.

[Richard Jernigan]

Compared to the other critters I have come into close and sustained contact with, humans have an immense repertoire of social behaviors. It seems to me they deploy them according to the social environment they find themselves within.

At the employee owned company, everyone was friends, everyone was treated with respect whatever their job, engineer, steering committee member, security officer, secretary, receptionist, everybody without exception. Decision making was egalitarian and collegial. People knew one another well enough to recognize particular areas of expertise or responsibility.

At Boeing Missiles and Space Company in the 1980s the hierarchy was perfectly defined and perfectly rigid. Everyone had only one boss, and his power was effectively absolute. When you walked into a departmental area, it was almost spooky. It was a big bullpen. Everyone's desk faced the same direction. The boss sat at at a desk at the front. His immediate subordinates sat behind him, their subordinates fanned out behind them, and so on. There was no visible conflict, and very little wasted motion. I'm sure there were behind the scenes power plays, but they didn't visibly impede the flow of work. It was a pleasure to work with them--you got immediate answers and decisions. Personally, I wouldn't have worked there for any amount of money.

In the Pentagon, rank was explicitly specified, cutting across both military and civilians. At the level I dealt, two-star officers were called by their first names, as were Deputy Undersecretaries. Three- and four-stars and Undersecretaries, got a "Sir". Again there was no open conflict, but power plays among organizations and factions of organizations were rife, and could go on forever.

In a very rapidly expanding tech startup that one of my best friends worked for, rank and hierarchy were ill-defined and rapidly changing. My buddy walked past a conference room one day where a remarkable number of good-looking women were gathered around a conference table. Of course he went in to ask what they were up to. They said they were working on a computer program to publish a new organization chart every week. At the weekly staff meeting at his level my pal proposed that every week each employee should turn in a card saying who he thought his or her boss was, and the results should be compared to the org chart intended by management. He was only about 10% kidding, but of course, everybody laughed, According to him, the place was a zoo.

My friend soon left and started his own business. He has been very successful, but he has intentionally kept it small. His father and uncle were partners in a successful small business. His first wife, now deceased, once criticized his policies in my presence. She said, "Your employees have a bird's nest on the ground."

"That's exactly the way I want it," he replied.

My takeaway, from only the anecdotal experience of my 44 year career as engineer and physicist, has been that the egalitarian model has only worked for smaller groups, maybe about 50 people or less. Bigger groups could only function rapidly and efficiently when organized as reasonably clear cut hierarchies.

Loose hierarchies could work well when all the members were at least acquainted. The largest organization I was ever responsible for was about 250 people. I was offered bigger jobs several times. I turned them down. I said I wanted every one of my employees to at least see me every week, with the knowledge that they could stop me and speak to me, or walk into my office at any time.

The next level of organizational hierarchy, with a thousand or more people, and at least three levels, almost inevitably makes the leader far less visible to the bulk of his or her subordinates. The leader has to begin thinking like a politician or flag-rank officer, projecting a public image and clear cut, slogan-like principles. I experienced only one exception to this in my career, a senior vice president of a company who knew the names of all 3,000 of his employees, recognized them when they met, and knew a good deal about each of them. He was a unique individual in my experience.

He was able to run his organization with the great majority of is ten or so immediate subordinates being pretty much nonentities. He would give out specific assignments at his weekly staff meeting and check the results the next week. The flaw in this was revealed when the leader unexpectedly and suddenly died at the age of 45. He had no competent successor. The organization fell upon bad times.

The social diseases of hierarchies are outnumbered only by the pathologies of nations, ethnic groups and religions, to name a few larger and more complex groups, and even more so by the human race at large..

My limited observation of human behavior leads me to the conclusion that respecting one another is a necessary requirement for peaceful relations, but not the only requirement, by a very, very long shot.

And nobody even comes close to knowing what all the requirements are.

Okay, that finishes the second cup of coffee, and my daily dissertation on the way of the world. Time to get busy setting up the new hi-fi gear in the computer/photo processing/guitar practicing room.

RNJ

[Slogoin]

On May 19, 10:03 am, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Compared to the other critters I have come into close and
> sustained contact with, humans have an immense repertoire
> of social behaviors. It seems to me they deploy them according
> to the social environment they find themselves within.

Yes, that is a great deal of complexity but added to that is that
we are humans commenting on our own behavior when in fact most of us
live within a very narrow environment where we are well adapted.

> My takeaway, from only the anecdotal experience of my 44 year
> career as engineer and physicist, has been that the egalitarian
> model has only worked for smaller groups, maybe about 50 people
> or less. Bigger groups could only function rapidly and efficiently
> when organized as reasonably clear cut hierarchies.

If we only look at formal groups I'd agree. In the informal
structures that weave throughout the formal structures you see many
small groups with a few connectors that form larger group. These
"organic" forms are much less well understood than formal social
structures and obviously much more difficult to study.

> The social diseases of hierarchies are outnumbered only by the pathologies
> of nations, ethnic groups and religions, to name a few larger and more complex
> groups, and even more so by the human race at large..

Because the focus is always on the formal group structures that we
create we often misunderstand each other when we belong to different
formal groups. We don't fit into neat categories that formal
structures rely on. The Big Mac family does not exist except in our
virtual constructions and the real groups are much more complex in the
number of connections and the subtlety of the mutualism that is our
true nature. I may "belong" to formal groups that have very different
goals but within each group I find others who belong to my informal
group of folks with other things in common. It's the connections that
matter more in informal structures whereas the formal structure focus
on the social position of the individuals relative to each other.

> My limited observation of human behavior leads me to the conclusion
> that respecting one another is a necessary requirement for peaceful
> relations, but not the only requirement, by a very, very long shot.
>
> And nobody even comes close to knowing what all the requirements are.

I think the idea of respect is difficult to define. I'd say that a
meta dialog about how we interact is a biggie.

> Okay, that finishes the second cup of coffee, and my daily dissertation on the way of the world.

Well, we have not solved the social problems of the world yet but I
think what you have written shows how complex they are. Unlike most
technical problems they are not objective and the boundaries are not
just fuzzy but morph as you look at them. We can feed everybody
technically but solving that one socially is soooo much harder than it
looks at first. I do believe that both the micro and macro are
connected so how we treat each other is critical to how the larger
structures function. Even if we cannot measure that change, a smile or
a kind inquiry can have a profound effect when it ripples through the
social fabric but you won't get an award for it nor will historians
write books about it.

[Richard Jernigan]

The idea of "Us" and "them" seems almost a necessity of human behavior. People in mass societies can learn to be polite and "friendly" to strangers. The British Imperial emphasis upon sportsmanship in the education of the future ruling and middle classes seemed directed toward the objective of peaceful relations among groups with conflicting interests. But at some point this seems almost fated to break down. As the British general said, "Remember gentlemen, the wogs begin at Dover."

Or in my own experience, having a glass of sherry before lunch at the Directors' Mess of one of UK Government's larger Scientific Establishments, one of our group was telling of his holiday plans to take his family in their caravan (camping trailer) on an excursion along the Dordogne.

In an apparently well rehearsed conversational pas-de-deux, another member of the group asked, "Why would one want to do that?"

"Go caravanning?"

"No. Go to France."

Here in Texas, people are generally honest, friendly and helpful to strangers....until it comes time to vote. Then large numbers of people see their political opponents as morons, demons and worse. This seldom manifests itself face to face, though I was utterly shocked last Thanksgiving when my sister-in-law erupted in screaming rage when she learned how I had voted in the presidential election. The two of us were alone. It never came up in company.

My idea is this: The experts say that for quite a few millennia we lived in small groups, no more than 30 or 40 people. Cooperation was necessary for survival. We evolved the mental faculties required. These same faculties were adapted to living in tribes, then to mass societies where we meet far more strangers in a day than we do friends or relatives.

But I was struck, reading Jared Diamond's latest book, "The World Until Yesterday," by the prevalence among 'traditional" societies of bitter enmity between adjacent or further separated groups. It seems almost to be the flip side of of the faculty for group cooperation, an almost obligatory connection between the two behavioral capacities.

People in mass societies experience this enmity against "the others" with considerable intensity. The size of the group consisting of "Us" varies widely, ranging from fellow church members, to co-religionists, to members of the same political alignment....and on and on. It is rare in Texas to meet somebody who does not view a large segment of the human race as "the enemy." The same has been true of the many places I have lived, and true of every mass society I have visited. People in Texas are just more open about it than many.

Fox News and MSNBC, Christians and atheists, Democrats and Republicans, and a very long list of other factions exploit this human propensity to see "Us" and "Them" for their own purposes.

It is very difficult to train children otherwise. My own picked up the manners of our prosperous Austin neighborhood, and the somewhat idealistic social inclusiveness of their parents. But despite their muted rhetoric, it was clear by middle school that there were "People like us," and "those others." With maturity, the attitude has largely abated, but I am still surprised by it once in a while. I know I bug them too, without meaning to, just assuming we agree where we may not.

Only a few more speaker wires to terminate and label, then I can fire up the new playroom hi-fi....bought an Airport Express yesterday so I can stream Youtube audio via WiFi to the hi-fi...keeps me off the street....

RNJ

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 5/19/2013 6:10 PM, Richard Jernigan wrote:
>
> The idea of "Us" and "them" seems almost a necessity of human behavior. People in mass societies can learn to be polite and "friendly" to strangers. The British Imperial emphasis upon sportsmanship in the education of the future ruling and middle classes seemed directed toward the objective of peaceful relations among groups with conflicting interests. But at some point this seems almost fated to break down. As the British general said, "Remember gentlemen, the wogs begin at Dover."
>
> Or in my own experience, having a glass of sherry before lunch at the Directors' Mess of one of UK Government's larger Scientific Establishments, one of our group was telling of his holiday plans to take his family in their caravan (camping trailer) on an excursion along the Dordogne.
>
> In an apparently well rehearsed conversational pas-de-deux, another member of the group asked, "Why would one want to do that?"
>
> "Go caravanning?"
>
> "No. Go to France."
>
> Here in Texas, people are generally honest, friendly and helpful to strangers....until it comes time to vote. Then large numbers of people see their political opponents as morons, demons and worse. This seldom manifests itself face to face, though I was utterly shocked last Thanksgiving when my sister-in-law erupted in screaming rage when she learned how I had voted in the presidential election. The two of us were alone. It never came up in company.

Richard--tell the truth. Did her reaction give you a little thrill? ;-)
I have an uncle who is (IMO) a political troglodyte. He might listen to
Rush, I don't know. I do know he listened to Bob Grant.
I'm not sure how he didn't know I was a bit of a lefty (certainly
compared to him)--I've never made a secret of it. So I was a bit
surprised that he would choose to start spouting off while he was in my
dental chair. And I'm not proud to say I let him know exactly what I
thought of his opinion--while I was treating him. Yes, I enjoyed it.

Steve

[thomas]

On Sunday, May 19, 2013 6:10:02 PM UTC-4, Richard Jernigan wrote:
>
> Only a few more speaker wires to terminate and label, then I can fire up the new playroom hi-fi....bought an Airport Express yesterday so I can stream Youtube audio via WiFi to the hi-fi...keeps me off the street....
>

If you're streaming youtubes, I'm not sure it still qualifies as a "hi-fi".

[thomas]

On Sunday, May 19, 2013 6:31:46 PM UTC-4, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>
> I have an uncle who is (IMO) a political troglodyte. He might listen to
> Rush, I don't know. I do know he listened to Bob Grant.
> I'm not sure how he didn't know I was a bit of a lefty (certainly
> compared to him)--I've never made a secret of it. So I was a bit
> surprised that he would choose to start spouting off while he was in my
> dental chair. And I'm not proud to say I let him know exactly what I
> thought of his opinion--while I was treating him. Yes, I enjoyed it.

So, did you give him the ol' Laurence Olivier? Did you make him scream like Rainman?

[Richard Jernigan]

...not high fidelity, but I'm thinking it will be more comfortable to listen to Youtube on the speakers, instead of putting on the headphones every time. I don't have "computer speakers." The real reason for the hi-fi is to listen to the local classical FM station, which is pretty good, CDs, streaming audio on the net....

RNJ

[JPD]

On May 19, 10:03 am, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Okay, that finishes the second cup of coffee, and my daily dissertation on the way of the world.

Top-notch writing, as usual, and interesting thinking. You ever think
of blogging? You might like it. I'd follow it and I bet many others
would, too.

[Slogoin]

On May 19, 3:10 pm, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> The idea of "Us" and "them" seems almost a necessity of human behavior.

Seems...

> It is very difficult to train children otherwise.

I may be difficult but it is possible to not teach "us against
them". It starts with communication, involvement and modeling
behavior. We cannot do it when we isolate ourselves from others and
stay in our comfort zone where our roles are clearly defined.

The takeaway to me is that we can technically solve most of the
problems we have, like starving kids, but we are still so primitive
socially that we will not give up our tribalism. It does not help that
those who have the education to change things are rarely involved with
education of the young ones.

[Steven Bornfeld]

Yes, it was very safe.

[Fadosolrélamisi]

JL Borges sums it up pretty well ...

"This idea of borders and nations seems absurd to me . The only thing
that can save us is to become global citizens. I'll tell you
a personal anecdote. When I was little, I went with my
father in Montevideo. I was nine years old. My father told me: "Look
well at all these flags, customs, military, priests, because one day, all that will disappear and you can tell your children what you saw. "It turned out to be the contrary." Today there are more borders, more flags than ever."

[Cactus Wren]

Don't argue with Dr. Paine when he's got you in his chair!

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 5/20/2013 12:23 PM, Cactus Wren wrote:
> Don't argue with Dr. Paine when he's got you in his chair!
>

Too late for my uncle.

Ripley Paine, DDS

[dsi1]

On 5/19/2013 12:31 PM, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>
> Richard--tell the truth. Did her reaction give you a little thrill? ;-)
> I have an uncle who is (IMO) a political troglodyte. He might listen to
> Rush, I don't know. I do know he listened to Bob Grant.
> I'm not sure how he didn't know I was a bit of a lefty (certainly
> compared to him)--I've never made a secret of it. So I was a bit
> surprised that he would choose to start spouting off while he was in my
> dental chair. And I'm not proud to say I let him know exactly what I
> thought of his opinion--while I was treating him. Yes, I enjoyed it.
>
> Steve
>

What the heck is wrong with listening to Rush? I love those crazy
Canadians! Are you nuts!!! Oh... never mind.

My brother listens to Rush - the bad Rush, not the good Rush. It's not
his fault that he was born the older brother and I was the little
brother. That's just the cards that fate dealt us. He likes to give me
business advice which is pretty useful to me. I just do the exact
opposite of whatever he says. :-)

I was fitting a guy with hearing aids the other day. These were great
because he could hear the conversation in the other side of the wall.
Unfortunately, it was my brother going on about Obama again. Holy Jesus...!

[dsi1]

Your father was a forward thinking kind of guy. Unfortunately,
sometimes we're way off the mark. That's the breaks.

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 5/20/2013 1:26 PM, dsi1 wrote:
> On 5/19/2013 12:31 PM, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>>
>> Richard--tell the truth. Did her reaction give you a little thrill? ;-)
>> I have an uncle who is (IMO) a political troglodyte. He might listen to
>> Rush, I don't know. I do know he listened to Bob Grant.
>> I'm not sure how he didn't know I was a bit of a lefty (certainly
>> compared to him)--I've never made a secret of it. So I was a bit
>> surprised that he would choose to start spouting off while he was in my
>> dental chair. And I'm not proud to say I let him know exactly what I
>> thought of his opinion--while I was treating him. Yes, I enjoyed it.
>>
>> Steve
>>
>
> What the heck is wrong with listening to Rush? I love those crazy
> Canadians! Are you nuts!!! Oh... never mind.
>
> My brother listens to Rush - the bad Rush, not the good Rush. It's not
> his fault that he was born the older brother and I was the little
> brother. That's just the cards that fate dealt us. He likes to give me
> business advice which is pretty useful to me. I just do the exact
> opposite of whatever he says. :-)

"the cards that fate dealt us"--LOL

>
> I was fitting a guy with hearing aids the other day. These were great
> because he could hear the conversation in the other side of the wall.
> Unfortunately, it was my brother going on about Obama again. Holy Jesus...!

Do you mean.."Allahu Akbar"?

[dsi1]

On 5/20/2013 9:50 AM, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
> On 5/20/2013 1:26 PM, dsi1 wrote:
>> On 5/19/2013 12:31 PM, Steven Bornfeld wrote:
>>>
>>> Richard--tell the truth. Did her reaction give you a little thrill?
>>> ;-)
>>> I have an uncle who is (IMO) a political troglodyte. He might listen to
>>> Rush, I don't know. I do know he listened to Bob Grant.
>>> I'm not sure how he didn't know I was a bit of a lefty (certainly
>>> compared to him)--I've never made a secret of it. So I was a bit
>>> surprised that he would choose to start spouting off while he was in my
>>> dental chair. And I'm not proud to say I let him know exactly what I
>>> thought of his opinion--while I was treating him. Yes, I enjoyed it.
>>>
>>> Steve
>>>
>>
>> What the heck is wrong with listening to Rush? I love those crazy
>> Canadians! Are you nuts!!! Oh... never mind.
>>
>> My brother listens to Rush - the bad Rush, not the good Rush. It's not
>> his fault that he was born the older brother and I was the little
>> brother. That's just the cards that fate dealt us. He likes to give me
>> business advice which is pretty useful to me. I just do the exact
>> opposite of whatever he says. :-)
>
> "the cards that fate dealt us"--LOL

I am of the belief that birth order has a big role in personality types
and the first born will typically be more of a leader type. The second
born has a chip on their shoulder about leader types and have deep
resentments against authority. I'm not too hip about whether this theory
is still in fashion or if it's gone the way of the dodo or turtlenecks
on people who are not Steve Jobs.

>
>>
>> I was fitting a guy with hearing aids the other day. These were great
>> because he could hear the conversation in the other side of the wall.
>> Unfortunately, it was my brother going on about Obama again. Holy
>> Jesus...!
>
> Do you mean.."Allahu Akbar"?

Are you kidding? That kind of talk could have me killed!

>

[Richard Jernigan]

An episode of "Us" versus "Them":

I'm not a big school spirit guy. It must be at least 30 years since I have been to a University of Texas football game. I have watched a few on TV. But I remember vividly when the Longhorns beat USC in the 2006 Rose Bowl for the national championship.

I watched with my daughter and son-in-law. The two big chocolate Labs were there, calm and affectionate, but they pretty much ignored the TV, concentrating on stealthily swiping snacks off the coffee table while the humans were engrossed in football.

USC and Texas were both undefeated, ranked number 1 and number 2 since before the start of the season. It was a great game from the start. Both teams were playing at the top of their game. USC shut down Texas's star running back Cedric Benson, but coach Mack Brown was ready with Plan B. Quarterback Vince Young had a great game passing and running. Texas's number 2 running back kept the USC defense honest. USC's star quarterback was on top of his game, but the USC offensive line was having trouble with the Texas defense.

The game was pretty evenly matched, back and forth. Neither team played perfectly, but each took advantage of the other's miscues.

With only 6:26 left in the game, Texas trailed by 12 points, 36-28. But at that point, if you had watched him before, you could see Texas quarterback Vince Young reach back into that reserve of determination, leadership and raw athletic ability that made him great. Just by his demeanor you could see his attitude, "Come on guys, they are not going to do this to us!"

Texas scored 14 points in the last 6:26, including a 17-yard run by Young and a stunning touchdown pass.

The Wikipedia article says that many considered it absolutely the greatest game in the history of college football, between the unbeaten number 1 and number 2 teams for the national championship.

Even now, writing about it, I get a rush. On that day I startled the dogs by leaping to my feet, waving my arms and shouting when Texas scored the winning touchdown. I was high as a kite. Looking back on it, my brain must have been positively flooded with dopamine. The "reward" circuitry went into overload.

As I said, I'm not much of a Longhorn fan, but that day, when "We" put it on "Them", the most formidable opponents on the planet, the reinforcement mechanisms in my brain went into warp drive.

From lengthy observation of myself and others, I think we are neurologically wired for "Us" versus "Them". I think our brains are designed to find a group or groups recognized as "US". The rest are candidates for "Them".

Through learning and experience we can extend our "US" to wider and wider vistas as we grow up and mature. Some extend their horizons much further than others. To some extent this is related to culture. But within a mass culture like that of the USA, or the "west" there is wide disparity from one person to another in the extent of their "Us".

Is this due solely to the individual's life history, or is there a genetic component to this variability? As the father of two very different children, I came to the conviction that there is a considerable biological component to personality. Does this genetic influence extend to how far a person's "Us" concept can extend without frazzling at the edges, and assigning the rest to "Them"? I know of no studies that address this question.

When "we" win against them, "we" get a big shot of positive reinforcement. When "They" put one over on "Us", it really pisses us off. I don't think it's cultural. It appears in essentially all cultures. In some cultures it is channeled into stylized channels like football and basketball. In other cultures, the imperative is to kill the infidels. But there are plenty of murderers in the USA, and plenty of reasonable, peaceful people in societies with a warrior ethic.

Within state cultures, the "Us" versus "Them" leads less often to violence than it does among tribal or other traditional societies. The state reserves the use of violence to itself, with a sizable reduction in violence per capita compared to traditional societies. In Diamond's book I mentioned earlier, he tells how tribal people he knew during the transition to state control in New Guinea express gratitude for the much increased safety from violence, though it is still among the more violent state societies.

However, there is no effective mechanism for preventing violence between states, except for the balance of power practiced by the British Empire, or the balance of nuclear terror that limited violence between the super powers to nearly zero during the Cold War. Of course our proxies suffered in place of our own citizens, except for the soldiers we sent to Vietnam, etc., and the Soviets sent to Afghanistan, etc.

What's the point? I agree that "Us" versus "Them" is the source of a great deal of the problems of the human race. But i think that the battle against it is going to take more than New Year's resolutions. I believe it is a behavior deeply embedded in our brains.

That doesn't mean we should give up the fight. But we should recognize the seriousness and difficulty of what we are up against. It's going to take more than turning over a new leaf. It's going to take serious effort, and inventing or stumbling upon better mechanisms to control our tendency to choose up sides and fight.

"We have met the enemy, and he is us." Pogo the Possum

RNJ

[Slogoin]

On May 20, 9:42 pm, Richard Jernigan <rnjerni...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> What's the point? I agree that "Us" versus "Them" is the source
> of a great deal of the problems of the human race. But i think that
> the battle against it is going to take more than New Year's resolutions.
> I believe it is a behavior deeply embedded in our brains.

It may be. It certainly is not a trivial problem but it is also one
that we are not really addressing and in fact we seem to be happy to
ignore it and blame others.

> That doesn't mean we should give up the fight. But we should recognize
> the seriousness and difficulty of what we are up against. It's going to take
> more than turning over a new leaf. It's going to take serious effort, and inventing
> or stumbling upon better mechanisms to control our tendency to choose up sides and fight.

That sounds about right. It ain't easy but we don't even seem to be
aware that we can change nor why constant reinforcement of things that
get us high like sex, drugs and violence do not help.

[Richard Jernigan]

Thanks, JPD. As to blogging, I'm more of a dialoguer than a monologuist.

RNJ

[andrewro...@gmail.com]

That Vince Young should have played with his helmet on, that's all I can say

[Murdick]

You know, I wish I could weave a basket.

[Slogoin]

On May 22, 6:44 am, Murdick <lutem...@aol.com> wrote:

> You know, I wish I could weave a basket.

It's never too late to learn. While making a guitar might be more
intimidating it's not more difficult. Here's a pdf about a connection
to math.

http://www.math.ccsu.edu/gould/Site/Basket%20Project_files/Baskets%20for%20the%20Mathematics%20Classroom.pdf

There is a LOT more to it but it is a great hands on way to learn
about some patterns that are all around us. On the island they make
plait so you can get into things like symmetry and frieze patterns to
tie it in to art and architecture. For the island kids it's also a
living history lesson. The weavers stands are right outside the
private school where my wife and I taught and the weavers are
relatives of the kids.

[Murdick]

Here's a good story Larry. I was sitting on a park bench in New Orleans next to a Latin American guy who was weaving hats and baskets from a flat leaf plant. I was only paying partial attention to him, but he didn't seem to have any supplies with him- he was weaving the basket out of thin air. So I started to watch him and noticed that when he finished with on piece, he would reach back over his shoulder and and pluck a piece of the park fauna for the next weave. He was cannibalizing the park plants for his business- not to mention that he using the bench for his store.

[Cactus Wren]

He was "externalizing" his costs, kind of like corporations do.

Cesta, Inc!

[Curmudgeon]

On Thu, 23 May 2013 05:16:24 -0700 (PDT), Murdick <lute...@aol.com>
wrote:

http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/dt/

[Andrew Schulman]

On May 14, 7:44 am, Che <Comanchetr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.economist.com/node/17723223
>
> A PhD may offer no financial benefit over a master's degree. It can even reduce earnings.
>
http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/dt/2013/05/23/

http://wpcomics.washingtonpost.com/client/wpc/dt/2013/05/24/

Andrew

[Curmudgeon]

You beat me to it! I was going to post these, but then became
intimidated by a recent post scolding some, including myself, for off
topic posting. Oh, the shame! Oh, the ignominy! I shall now remain
lurking and skulking in silence. Until the next time.

[thomas]

In academia, we'd replace the "PhD" in those cartoons with "EdD".